FTC Sues Facebook for Illegal Monopolization • Hacker News Board

Re: FTC Sues Facebook for Illegal Monopolization

#81

Post by whoknew1122 » Wed, Dec 09, 2020, 8:20 PM UTC

paulpauper wrote: post #44

lbsnake7 wrote: post #30

When Facebook first went public, an older relative asked me if he should invest in Facebook. My only insight was being an internet user at the time and I said no, there was no reason that Facebook wouldn’t be another MySpace. Facebook's only value was their users and users were historically very finicky and moved around platforms at will. I argued that Facebook would make no money and wouldn’t be around in a couple o…

lol should have consulted me. been bullish on long on FB since the $30s . Facebook was greatly profitable from the start. Fakebook's ad platform is a money-printing machine, similar to that of Google. Buying Instagram sealed the deal, killing its potentially biggest competitor.

Cool, random internet person.

Re: FTC Sues Facebook for Illegal Monopolization

#82

Post by therealmarv » Wed, Dec 09, 2020, 8:21 PM UTC

rtlfe wrote: post #76

How would splitting Instagram work from a technical perspective? Engineers have spent 8 years building shared code and data centers for FB and IG. I'd expect it would take hundreds of people and multiple years to untangle them.

As far as I know the biggest change was hosting the pictures on Facebook server infrastructure. So it requires copying the pictures to another infrastructure and replacing the URLs ? Of course it will be a huge task but I don't think that FB and IG are sharing a lot of code.

Re: FTC Sues Facebook for Illegal Monopolization

#83

Post by lotsofpulp » Wed, Dec 09, 2020, 8:21 PM UTC

dsr_ wrote: post #54

SerLava wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think so? Can anyone answer this definitively?

The FTC could, potentially, require: 1. That FB split into N independent companies, whereupon each share of FB would become 1 share in each of N companies. 2. That the supermajor shareholders (say, more than 10% of any company) each pick at most one company to retain that interest in, and sell off shares in the other companies until they had less than 10% of each of those). 3. That the new companies avoid overlapping…

And then it would eventually come back together. See ATT.

https://money.cnn.com/infographic/technology/att-merger-hist...

Re: FTC Sues Facebook for Illegal Monopolization

#84

Post by dane-pgp » Wed, Dec 09, 2020, 8:21 PM UTC

SerLava wrote: post #25

mmastrac wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Splitting those two properties off would be fantastic. I know it's a pipe dream, but an independent Oculus would make me so happy. I suspect this is impossible due to the early nature of the VR market. Maybe just an FTC requirement _not_ to require a FB login?

Ugh, yeah Facebook probably bought Oculus thinking: -What if a lot of people use these in the future -What if they're really comfy when they get slim, and people use them all the time, even for essentially web browsing. -Later models can easily have internal and mouth facing cameras so you can smile at people in VR -Let's intimately observe the finest twitch of every expression felt by our users, peering deep into th…

"If you want a vision of the future, imagine a VR headset worn on a human face - forever."

(Apologies to George Orwell.)

Re: FTC Sues Facebook for Illegal Monopolization

#85

Post by JxLS-cpgbe0 » Wed, Dec 09, 2020, 8:22 PM UTC

Erik816 wrote: post #42

minimaxir wrote: post #2

Key line: > The FTC is seeking a permanent injunction in federal court that could, among other things: require divestitures of assets, including Instagram and WhatsApp

If only there were some kind of federal agency, maybe a "trade commission" that could have blocked these mergers when they originally happened ....

The FTC allowed the IG merger because

* No ads (lol)

* Competition from Google even if it did have ads

* FB had no competitive photo app

Re: FTC Sues Facebook for Illegal Monopolization

#86

Post by ferdowsi » Wed, Dec 09, 2020, 8:22 PM UTC

If you work at Facebook it's time to seriously consider leaving to avoid damage to your own brand. Future employers are going to be scrutinizing your record and will ask you difficult questions about why you stuck by Facebook despite an overwhelming consensus that they are damaging to the global social fabric.

Re: FTC Sues Facebook for Illegal Monopolization

#87

Post by annadane » Wed, Dec 09, 2020, 8:23 PM UTC

Grazester wrote: post #38

lbsnake7 wrote: post #30

When Facebook first went public, an older relative asked me if he should invest in Facebook. My only insight was being an internet user at the time and I said no, there was no reason that Facebook wouldn’t be another MySpace. Facebook's only value was their users and users were historically very finicky and moved around platforms at will. I argued that Facebook would make no money and wouldn’t be around in a couple o…

On the same note, a relative asked me the same thing when they IPO.I thought if Google could make money selling ads why couldn't Facebook. I bought in at IPO price for them. I sold for them about 2 years ago when the price was dropping due to privacy scandals.

Why the hell is HN so downvote happy?

Re: FTC Sues Facebook for Illegal Monopolization

#88

Post by jrochkind1 » Wed, Dec 09, 2020, 8:23 PM UTC

The most interesting part to developers: they may require facebook to offer certain APIs?

> The complaint also alleges that Facebook, over many years, has imposed anticompetitive conditions on third-party software developers’ access to valuable interconnections to its platform, such as the application programming interfaces (“APIs”) that allow the developers’ apps to interface with Facebook. In particular, Facebook allegedly has made key APIs available to third-party applications only on the condition that they refrain from developing competing functionalities, and from connecting with or promoting other social networking services.

> The complaint alleges that Facebook has enforced these policies by cutting off API access to blunt perceived competitive threats from rival personal social networking services, mobile messaging apps, and other apps with social functionalities. For example, in 2013, Twitter launched the app Vine, which allowed users to shoot and share short video segments. In response, according to the complaint, Facebook shut down the API that would have allowed Vine to access friends via Facebook.

Making API's available "only on the condition that [developers] refrain from developing competing functionalities" is one thing; and I can see how that seems anticompetitive, I dont' know enough about the law to say when anticompetitive is illegal.

But that second one is more interesting. "shut down the API that would have allowed Vine to access friends via Facebook" -- they didn't just not have Vine have access to it, they removed it, and that is being complained about. The implication to me seems to be that facebook must provide certain API's to avoid anticompetitive behavior?

The API I personally most miss and am interested in is Events. My interest is definitely in reducing facebook's lock on users. A lot of people I know find missing out on events the hardest reason to leave facebook, and if an API was available show Facebook events on other platforms, it would definitely aid people in leaving Facebook, which is I presume exactly why Facebook got rid of the API, which sounds pretty similar to the Vine complaint, although I don't know whether there was a specific facebook competitor threatening them with events integration. I would be thrilled if the FTC made Facebook restore an Events API, hopefully in a way that was sufficiently full-featured for the kinds of integrations that would help people get off facebook. ("Help people get off", it sounds like an addiction, yup).

Re: FTC Sues Facebook for Illegal Monopolization

#89

Post by easytiger » Wed, Dec 09, 2020, 8:23 PM UTC

lbsnake7 wrote: post #30

When Facebook first went public, an older relative asked me if he should invest in Facebook. My only insight was being an internet user at the time and I said no, there was no reason that Facebook wouldn’t be another MySpace. Facebook's only value was their users and users were historically very finicky and moved around platforms at will. I argued that Facebook would make no money and wouldn’t be around in a couple o…

I first bought after the clearly emotionally driven price dip at just under $20. It was obvious no one looked at the amount of hard cash they pulled in, and thought using their emotions.

Re: FTC Sues Facebook for Illegal Monopolization

#90

Post by NikolaeVarius » Wed, Dec 09, 2020, 8:24 PM UTC

artemisyna wrote: post #70

Not a lawyer, but I'm really curious to see how this plays out. This case has a lot of confounding factors: * other companies/entities that can be considered "competitors" (Twitter, TikTok, LinkedIn, etc) * the acquisitions in question (Instagram and WhatsApp) being approved by the suing entity (namely, the FTC) themselves back in the day I wouldn't be surprised if an outcome of this were to be say, limits against cr…

This is the thing I have a hard time understanding, as far as I'm aware the FTC approved all this, these were not forceful takeovers.

What would be the precedent if regulatory approvals could be challenged with a change in administration?