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FTC Accuses Facebook of Social Media Monopoly, Calls for Divestiture of Instagram and WhatsApp
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But this isn't just about being a monopoly is it? This is about companies buying up other companies in order to limit competition. Whether they are trying to limit competition in something like a weather app vs limiting competition in social media apps should be the same thing. Oversight should dissuade companies from buying up other companies to limit competition.
Enormous advertising networks. News platforms. Photo distribution.
One of the famous anti-trust cases was about Kodak. People at the time might have similarly said it was a luxury, who genuinely *needs* photos.
Anyway, anti-trust law is about protecting consumers from anti-competitive behaviour. It doesn’t really matter what the market is.
Yep. Haha funny but true. Let's legislate who controls the market of cleavage pics and foodie pics.
You might think that should be how it is, but it isn’t. Anti-trust is largely about protecting consumers from companies that have a monopoly behaving anti-competitively. That is exactly and entirely what this is about.
I suggest you go do the reading rather than posting more rubbish here. You’ll learn something.
So does not Apple have a monopoly on their App Store? They control who gets in and they can kick anyone out at any time for no reason at all. That has been shown time and time again where the rules change or are vague and someone is kicked out of the store. So Apple buying up other companies in their own App Store to bolster their own apps and limit the competition of other apps in the store should be precisely what this is about.
As I’ve noted a few times in this trying discussion, the App Store is the one area I think Apple might have some anti-trust risks.
But it’s not like there are not millions of message boards or picture sharing sites already. And it’s not like anyone is stopping anyone from entering the market. It’s a popularity contest. Do we want to legislate a site becasue it is popular? Odds that sooner it will not be and people will get bored and move on to something else.
Like i said, I am not a fan of Facebook, but I think this is ridiculous.
Why are there spaces before every single exclamation mark?
Yes that was my entire point. I never once said Apple explicitly did anything wrong. I think they need the same investigation Facebook is undergoing. But to me Apple buying a competing app in the App Store that they control is a much more obvious, flagrant thing than Facebook buying WhatsApp.
Feels like they’re going after Facebook for the wrong reasons, or using the wrong justification. You would have to have a crystal ball to predict the kind of success Instagram has had after Facebook purchased them. The same can be said of WhatsApp. Neither of these were profitable companies when purchased. In fact lots of financial analysts said zuckerberg was bonkers at the time. $1b was an obscene amount of money for an iPhone only app with no revenue stream at all.
To say that he deliberately bought out competitors is also a joke. IG was no competition for FB at the time and neither was WhatsApp. The reality is IG especially benefited from FB technology and scale and probably wouldnt have been as big if FB didn’t buy it. So it’s kind of an oddity to prosecute the company for buying a smaller non profitable business and then making it profitable. is that not allowed anymore?
there were numerous other companies from hipstamatic and Flickr to Path etc that all had sizeable user bases at the time. IG was not the clear purchase to make.
i Think FB needs addressing yes. More for its “mind altering“ ability through its FB platform via data mining (Cambridge analytica). But I fear this prosecution is easily defendable.
And if you’re going to prosecute FB what about google and YouTube? is that not the exact same circumstance that they are prosecuting FB and IG for? YT never made any money when google Bought them and now it looks obvious it was a good buy because they are practically a monopoly on video. its the same thing. They took a bet on the future and won. That’s capitalism no?
the reality looks Like zuck has been caught playing all sides and neither left / right or Center is happy with the guy. And they all want to tear him apart. He doesn’t know how to play “the game” with politicians. He winds them up instead. Not smart.
To say that he deliberately bought out competitors is also a joke. IG was no competition for FB at the time and neither was WhatsApp. The reality is IG especially benefited from FB technology and scale and probably wouldnt have been as big if FB didn’t buy it. So it’s kind of an oddity to prosecute the company for buying a smaller non profitable business and then making it profitable. is that not allowed anymore?
there were numerous other companies from hipstamatic and Flickr to Path etc that all had sizeable user bases at the time. IG was not the clear purchase to make.
i Think FB needs addressing yes. More for its “mind altering“ ability through its FB platform via data mining (Cambridge analytica). But I fear this prosecution is easily defendable.
And if you’re going to prosecute FB what about google and YouTube? is that not the exact same circumstance that they are prosecuting FB and IG for? YT never made any money when google Bought them and now it looks obvious it was a good buy because they are practically a monopoly on video. its the same thing. They took a bet on the future and won. That’s capitalism no?
the reality looks Like zuck has been caught playing all sides and neither left / right or Center is happy with the guy. And they all want to tear him apart. He doesn’t know how to play “the game” with politicians. He winds them up instead. Not smart.
Facebook has been the major social network for approaching 20 years. They have consolidated their position by buying up competitors who posed a threat.
The network effect makes it very hard, perhaps impossible as things stand, for anyone to make a meaningful dent in facebooks market. Who wants to have all their friend network and posts duplicated several times.
I think it’s safe to say that none of the companies that have had successful anti-trust cases against them were in markets where new entrants to the market were not possible. It’s about the state of the market making it impossible to ever make headway and then if you do, the incumbent buys / locks you out through anti-competitive behaviour such as defensive acquisitions.
Obviously I know we don't agree. I'm on an Apple worshipping site conversing with someone who is an Apple evangelist.
You don’t know that about me.
But what I know about you is you’ve never read anything substantial about anti-trust law.
Didn't realize I was debating with an anti-trust lawyer. But you are correct that I am not an expert in anti-trust law. That is why I suggested Apple face investigation by a committee that are experts on anti-trust law. Never said Apple should face anti-trust consequences unless an investigation proves they engaged in that behavior.
I don’t like Facebook. A lot of people don't like Facebook, I get it. But this is just so misguided. I’m going to have to check what antitrust experts have to say because this whole things sounds preposterous to me.
LOL, I mean, just the idea that folks join a thing of their own free will, can leave a thing also of their own free will YET, rather than leave, want to force the thing to change... it’s kinda beyond me. The millions of folks not addicted to Facebook would rather the FTC spend their time doing other things, but those addicted folks are LOUD.
I’m SO glad the government stepped in when MySpace was a thing! We might still all be using it!
Yet both Parler and TikTok are seeing terrific growth. I don’t buy that “no one can make a meaningful dent”. A “meaningful dent” is being made right now... average age of Facebook users is trending older and older, plus kids don’t want to join their Grandma’s social network
The market for social communication.
Why Facebook Shouldn’t Be Allowed to Buy tbh
Facebook is acquiring tbh, another burgeoning social network; regulators erred in allowing the Instagram and WhatsApp acquisitions, but there is no better place to start enforcing the law than now.stratechery.com
Ben Thompson of Statechery makes a pretty strong case as to why facebook should not be allowed to acquire or own other social media platforms. It’s not that there isn’t any competition. It’s that facebook owns at least one company in each respective quadrant and is able to leverage its dominance in one market to gain an advantage in the others.
I guess there's different definitions of what makes a strong case. He basically said there are 4 markets, and Facebook is now playing in all of them. There's a number of different icons all over that chart, some of which are quite substantial in their resources.
And FB has been notoriously bad at integrating these apps into one service.
I just don't see how "social communication" is a market that's so easy to monopolize without government enforcing the monopoly.
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More likely Zuck shuts down all three apps and makes users migrate to a new app with a new name with everything from those discontinued apps integrated.Finally. IG goes separate company. in 5 years, it buys Facebook
Yes, you did-- if not in those exact words, through language like "limits competition" and "distorts markets" in a thread about anti-trust action.
The peoblem with these services is that we are at the point that we have to be in them whether we want it or not. Great example in my country is whatsapp and Instagram. Even institutions like government and hospitals are using whatsapp, so we have to have whatsapp. Many businesses are using IG, nudging us to also use IG. They all have reached critical mass in users that you just have to be in it to be relevant in the market. Even a small business now have to be in those platforms to be discovered. The market expects that you have whatsapp/IG/FB presence.