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Snap Detailed Facebook’s Aggressive Tactics in ‘Project Voldemort’ Dossier

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Re: Snap Detailed Facebook’s Aggressive Tactics in ‘Project Voldemort’ Dossier

#131

Post by arthurcolle »

toxik wrote: post #50
throwaway_quote wrote: post #45

> For example, when Mr. Zuckerberg met with the founders of startups, including Evan Spiegel, chief executive of Snap, and Dennis Crowley, co-founder of Foursquare Inc., he presented them with two scenarios: either they accept the price he was offering for their companies, or face Facebook’s efforts to copy their products and make operating more difficult, according to people familiar with the conversations. In both…

I don’t see the problem with this. Isn’t it fair market competition? Facebook had (and has) deeper pockets and more users, so they won against Snap and Foursquare. Their acquisition of IG and WA were great moves too, it’s almost impossible to escape the Facebook and Google internet.

I kind of agree with you. More specifically, to your example, would Snapchat, Whatsapp, etc, have been served well in this case by specifically patenting their implementations of specific features?

Like Facebook just totally ripped off Tinder with their new Dating feature -- could Match have just patented the profile with heart/pass buttons and then have grounds to sue?

Re: Snap Detailed Facebook’s Aggressive Tactics in ‘Project Voldemort’ Dossier

#132

Post by fragmede »

lammalamma25 wrote: post #109

Does anyone else have trouble getting upset about these kind of stories? I can believe anti-competitive behavior is happening, but we're talking about snapchat stories and Instagram trends. It's not like they are a phone company raising prices on their customers or a railroad squeezing shippers. I get why this could be bad for a competitive marketplace, but does this hurt the consumer? What are the net downsides of t…

The feared downside is that FAANG quintopoly will forever own the Internet, which will stagnate and how we currently experience the Internet is how it will always be. That's a bit paranoid, to be sure, but in the face of anti-competitive behavior, it's not hard to believe in that possibility.

Microsoft was convicted of anti-competitive behavior, but by then it was too late, and Windows reigned supreme until it lost smartphones.

Re: Snap Detailed Facebook’s Aggressive Tactics in ‘Project Voldemort’ Dossier

#133

Post by filleduchaos »

fragmede wrote: post #132
lammalamma25 wrote: post #109

Does anyone else have trouble getting upset about these kind of stories? I can believe anti-competitive behavior is happening, but we're talking about snapchat stories and Instagram trends. It's not like they are a phone company raising prices on their customers or a railroad squeezing shippers. I get why this could be bad for a competitive marketplace, but does this hurt the consumer? What are the net downsides of t…

The feared downside is that FAANG quintopoly will forever own the Internet, which will stagnate and how we currently experience the Internet is how it will always be. That's a bit paranoid, to be sure, but in the face of anti-competitive behavior, it's not hard to believe in that possibility. Microsoft was convicted of anti-competitive behavior, but by then it was too late, and Windows reigned supreme until it lost s…

I'm not quite sure how Netflix (and to a lesser extent Apple) registers alongside the rest as "owning the Internet". They're not even assured dominance in the streaming market alone.

Re: Snap Detailed Facebook’s Aggressive Tactics in ‘Project Voldemort’ Dossier

#134

Post by likpok »

darawk wrote: post #110
lammalamma25 wrote: post #109

Does anyone else have trouble getting upset about these kind of stories? I can believe anti-competitive behavior is happening, but we're talking about snapchat stories and Instagram trends. It's not like they are a phone company raising prices on their customers or a railroad squeezing shippers. I get why this could be bad for a competitive marketplace, but does this hurt the consumer? What are the net downsides of t…

The downside is that if you know Facebook can and will do this to any competitive threat, you just won't bother to start your company in the first place.

The counterexamples: Facebook and Microsoft exist, yet Slack is worth over a billion dollars.

Facebook, Microsoft and Cisco exist, and Zoom is over a billion. I can't find a valuation for Bluejeans is doing, but they're no slouch either (they've raised at least 100M).

Google tried to kill Facebook this way, and failed.

Re: Snap Detailed Facebook’s Aggressive Tactics in ‘Project Voldemort’ Dossier

#135

Post by rubbingalcohol »

s_y_n_t_a_x wrote: post #69
Kuinox wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then you go on your news outlet and meet your friendly facebook "like" button that keep stalking you.

uBlock w/ social filter

Yeah it's quite easy to block social widgets, trackers and the like. A more extreme approach is blocking scripts by default and whitelisting sites you want. Finally don't accept cookies from remote origins, and you're pretty (but not totally) well covered against trackers.

Re: Snap Detailed Facebook’s Aggressive Tactics in ‘Project Voldemort’ Dossier

#136

Post by joe_the_user »

crispyambulance wrote: post #116
joe_the_user wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't get why people play devil's advocate in defense of scummy behavior by tech companies. "Scummy behavior" is dumping poison in rivers or working people 90 hours a week. Normal competition is large companies putting smaller companies out of business through greater leverage. I don't care about a random small company getting rewarded for its random innovations. Why should I? The smaller company would probably cru…

> ...I don't care about a random small company getting rewarded for its random innovations. Why should I? Actually, the 800 lb gorilla companies DO CARE about random small companies and their random innovations. That's why they try to buy them, sometimes aggressively. Quite frankly, it's how larger companies can get innovation. As a company grows, true innovation usually gets squelched in favor of derpy project manag…

"Actually, the 800 lb gorilla companies DO CARE about random small companies and their random innovations. That's why they try to buy them, sometimes aggressively. Quite frankly, it's how larger companies can get innovation."

Yes, the market takes care of this so I don't have to care.

The role of the citizen is caring about situations where markets malfunction - true monopolies, externalities, and all that jazz.

Re: Snap Detailed Facebook’s Aggressive Tactics in ‘Project Voldemort’ Dossier

#137

Post by washadjeffmad »

lammalamma25 wrote: post #109

Does anyone else have trouble getting upset about these kind of stories? I can believe anti-competitive behavior is happening, but we're talking about snapchat stories and Instagram trends. It's not like they are a phone company raising prices on their customers or a railroad squeezing shippers. I get why this could be bad for a competitive marketplace, but does this hurt the consumer? What are the net downsides of t…

This is the coal that feeds the engine that cannibalizes the market. This particular circumstance might not matter to you, but what if FB uses proceeds like this to (fund legislation that makes it easier for them to) smother other companies in the cradle and assimilate their corpses?

What might that monster look like fully formed, I wonder?

Re: Snap Detailed Facebook’s Aggressive Tactics in ‘Project Voldemort’ Dossier

#138

Post by scarejunba »

buboard wrote: post #108
sandworm101 wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There werent any women on AM. When the story broke they couldnt find anyone who actually had an affair. It was scams all the way down. (And when the mounties responded after the hack there wasnt any evidence either. A so-called unicorn had no cohesive security program.)

wow that's ... in a way ... sad. pretty telling about the state of relationships in this day

Well, it's not really that sad that there was no one actually having affairs on Ashley Madison.

Re: Snap Detailed Facebook’s Aggressive Tactics in ‘Project Voldemort’ Dossier

#139

Post by randall »

krustyburger wrote: post #125
khawkins wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If these features were critical enough that you could found a company on them, then clearly they brought innovation to the scene. If they had not come along, it's unclear as to whether Facebook would have ever introduced those features in their products. "Fair market competition" is the idea that products compete on their own merits, not that you can leverage your market position to destroy competitors. "Deeper pocke…

I think FAANG is less useful as an abbreviation these days because it includes Netflix. I don’t think Netflix is guilty of much of anything sinister, at least by anyone’s reckoning except certain movie and tv studio executives.

g-mafia

google, microsoft, apple, facebook, ibm, apple

Re: Snap Detailed Facebook’s Aggressive Tactics in ‘Project Voldemort’ Dossier

#140

Post by burtonator »

toxik wrote: post #50
throwaway_quote wrote: post #45

> For example, when Mr. Zuckerberg met with the founders of startups, including Evan Spiegel, chief executive of Snap, and Dennis Crowley, co-founder of Foursquare Inc., he presented them with two scenarios: either they accept the price he was offering for their companies, or face Facebook’s efforts to copy their products and make operating more difficult, according to people familiar with the conversations. In both…

I don’t see the problem with this. Isn’t it fair market competition? Facebook had (and has) deeper pockets and more users, so they won against Snap and Foursquare. Their acquisition of IG and WA were great moves too, it’s almost impossible to escape the Facebook and Google internet.

It's anti-competitive behavior. There's no such thing as a fair market when one player has a monopoly.

I'm actually not in favor of anti-trust law and breaking up large companies. We should just properly tax them so that they can't grow this large.

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