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Trust-Busting as the Unsexy Answer to Google and Facebook

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Re: Trust-Busting as the Unsexy Answer to Google and Facebook

#31

Post by BitwiseFool »

camjohnson26 wrote: post #9

Trust busting can seem like it’s anti free market, but when a company has a monopoly on a network it stops functioning as a company and basically becomes a government. The problem with Facebook/Amazon/Google is that they have a monopoly on a specific information network, for Facebook the social graph, internet discoverability for Google, and online shopping for Amazon. It’s similar to if a single company owned the ro…

The problem I have with "The Free Market" is that it is a platonic ideal. Going a step further, the whole concept of a Free Market was developed before the advent of the Network Effect and the kind of economy we have today. As such, I think defenders of the Free Market do not have adequate tools to address the kind of "monopoly" that Facebook/Apple/Google enjoy today because of their business models. Free Market competition works great on a small to medium scale. The idea that you have some competitive advantage and can capitalize on that works wonderfully, but not for things like social media and companies with a market cap of over a trillion dollars.

Re: Trust-Busting as the Unsexy Answer to Google and Facebook

#32

Post by LatteLazy »

I don't see how trust busting actually solves the problems people care about.

2+ competing Facebook's have a lot more deniability, they have less budget to pay for things like moderating or anti-fake-news and they have all the more incentive to engage in exactly the sort of clickbait we want to escape.

I am concerned that "we have to do something and this is something"...

Re: Trust-Busting as the Unsexy Answer to Google and Facebook

#33

Post by maxwell »

adfrhgeaq5hy wrote: post #26
camjohnson26 wrote: post #9

Trust busting can seem like it’s anti free market, but when a company has a monopoly on a network it stops functioning as a company and basically becomes a government. The problem with Facebook/Amazon/Google is that they have a monopoly on a specific information network, for Facebook the social graph, internet discoverability for Google, and online shopping for Amazon. It’s similar to if a single company owned the ro…

Well, duh. "Free market" does not mean "unregulated market". It requires that the market be free from monopolies and that all agents have complete information. Regulation and trust-busting are, in practice, required to bring about a free market. Co-opting the term "free market" was a fantastically successful bit of propaganda.

Exactly, Adam Smith was no laissez-faire ideologue.

https://gutenberg.edu/2013/03/adam-smith-was-no-laissez-fair...

Re: Trust-Busting as the Unsexy Answer to Google and Facebook

#34

Post by protontorpedo »

smoldesu wrote: post #21
p49k wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For starters, it would create a more level playing field to allow alternative products by companies with different values to flourish, rather than having them acquired before having a chance to become competitive. Look at WhatsApp, founded by an idealistic person whose product was shaped by his experience living under an oppressive government and who succeeded wildly under those values. But no one is going to turn do…

I don't think our government cares about any of that. They've turned a blind eye to app-store extortion for the better part of a decade, and they've made it clear that persecuting a domestic company like that is the last thing they want to do: and of course it is. Our government has nothing to lose from Google, Facebook, Apple and Amazon leading the pack. If anything, it makes their job a whole lot easier with relati…

I'm not even American and don't live in the US, but I can't see why any government would undermine it's own national companies when they are big players in the international markets, especially when facing competition from (potentially) state-backed competitors. Breaking up utilities? Sure, they operate only domestically, there's little to lose in terms of power projection.

Re: Trust-Busting as the Unsexy Answer to Google and Facebook

#35

Post by maxwell »

BbzzbB wrote: post #28
disgruntledphd2 wrote: post #14

Sigh, another day, another blame of Facebook for destroying Snap. Fundamentally, products are always gonna get copied. Google tried to do it to Facebook, back when FB was the size that Snap was at the time, how well did that work? Fundamentally, while competing with a megacorp sucks monkey balls, Snap shot themselves in the foot with their boneheaded product strategy. They literally didn't invest in their Android app…

>They literally didn't invest in their Android app because they wanted to be exclusive Mind blown, I had no idea Snapchat was iOS exclusive. I was thinking just yesterday about how Clubhouse's strategy may (who knows really) have backfired, it seems to me by betting on FOMO-manufacturing they just gave time for others (like Twitter Spaces) to catch up before they filled a niche.

Snapchat launched their Android app in 2012. Maybe stories landed in iOS before Android?

Re: Trust-Busting as the Unsexy Answer to Google and Facebook

#36

Post by sli »

camjohnson26 wrote: post #9

Trust busting can seem like it’s anti free market, but when a company has a monopoly on a network it stops functioning as a company and basically becomes a government. The problem with Facebook/Amazon/Google is that they have a monopoly on a specific information network, for Facebook the social graph, internet discoverability for Google, and online shopping for Amazon. It’s similar to if a single company owned the ro…

> and online shopping for Amazon

Not just shopping, but also AWS. It is functionally impossible to use the internet and not patron Amazon because of the ubiquity of AWS. It's not a monopoly because there are technically competitors, but the sheer scope of AWS reach makes consumer choice a practical impossibility.

I do nearly all of my internet shopping away from Amazon, only resorting to it when there's no other choice. But nearly every website I visit is powered by AWS at some level, either directly (the site itself) or indirectly (one of the site's service providers). To my mind, this is something new(ish) that is monopoly-adjacent and needs to be taken a bit more seriously. Telling people not to use the internet, or to deeply audit every service they patron, is not a practical solution at all, even for technical users, nevermind the average non-technical user.

Re: Trust-Busting as the Unsexy Answer to Google and Facebook

#37

Post by ilaksh »

People should educate themselves about decentralization technologies. That's really the direction for resolving these issues. And the first thing you will realize when you start to study them is that in a way the name 'decentralization' is misleading because they are actually the best ways we know of to keep holistic systems. But we get that without the actual physical or organizational centralization and at the same time can use them in ways that are open to evolution.

And I know my comment will get buried but I am going to keep saying it. Just like I talked about remote work for years and had those comments downvoted before it suddenly became globally popular.

Re: Trust-Busting as the Unsexy Answer to Google and Facebook

#38

Post by reincarnate0x14 »

LatteLazy wrote: post #32

I don't see how trust busting actually solves the problems people care about. 2+ competing Facebook's have a lot more deniability, they have less budget to pay for things like moderating or anti-fake-news and they have all the more incentive to engage in exactly the sort of clickbait we want to escape. I am concerned that "we have to do something and this is something"...

Budget is clearly not the problem FB has with moderating and anti-fake news. They don't want to do it because it conflicts with letting their userbase exchange pointless outrage and insanity to up the mutual engagement and thus, ad revenue.

Re: Trust-Busting as the Unsexy Answer to Google and Facebook

#39

Post by pessimizer »

tqi wrote: post #4

How does breaking up Facebook help fight misinformation, polarization, engagement baiting, objectionable content, etc?

You can do that by mass censorship. We already have massive squads of minimum wage people combing through every post on the web in order to delete things, so just pull that into a regulatory agency instead of letting social networks regulate themselves. We could call it the Department of Truth. If you want to scrub the internet, it's actually pretty easy. Put literal cops on every message board, make every board record ips and block VPNs, watch every tor node, root every phone.

The only hard part is getting a majority of people to think that's a good idea, or at least to stay silent about it. If you look at history, though, it's actually not so hard. It'll probably happen eventually, although depending on your belief system, you might be upset at the administration that ends up with those abilities.

This isn't about that, it's about allowing more room for competitors in the market. If there's any relation, it would be that facebook wouldn't be able to by itself dictate acceptable speech (against its will, of course; if facebook had its way, it would only censor posts about facebook.)

Re: Trust-Busting as the Unsexy Answer to Google and Facebook

#40

Post by hellbannedguy »

ethbr0 wrote: post #13
camjohnson26 wrote: post #9

Trust busting can seem like it’s anti free market, but when a company has a monopoly on a network it stops functioning as a company and basically becomes a government. The problem with Facebook/Amazon/Google is that they have a monopoly on a specific information network, for Facebook the social graph, internet discoverability for Google, and online shopping for Amazon. It’s similar to if a single company owned the ro…

An associated component to trust- busting should be foreign trust blocking . Given the way the world works, if the US breaks Facebook up, (insert here) government-supported competitor takes its place. Part of creating a fair, diverse playing field is ensuring international competition is playing by the same rules in the internal market (because you have no jurisdiction to prosecute them as a monopoly in their home co…

"Given the way the world works, if the US breaks Facebook up, (insert here) government-supported competitor takes its place."

I don't think that will happen. Americans selfworth, on a deep psychological level, is tied to making large amounts of money. (And yes, I find it sad)

We will have many new Zuck types coding away in the new gold rush if FB is crippled. I sometimes think the only reason FB is as financially successful is because Zuck knew no one would love him without money.

America is loaded with white fugly irritating intelligent investors that would love to make more money.

Tech will stay here.

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