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I know some people will argue that FB can and should be able to set their own laws. I disagree. FB has reached such dominant status that behavior like this - bl
by johansch 11y ago
I know some people will argue that FB can and should be able to set their own laws. I disagree. FB has reached such dominant status that behavior like this - blocking possible competitors should be fought by laws.
- sbuttgereit 11y agoOf course not. If this is a meaningful afront to Facebook customers, those customers should leave Facebook. There is no valid moral principle by which the shareholders of Facebook should be forced to subsidize their competitors. Period. Putting a gun to their heads (which is all a law really achieves) and telling those people that have invested, for their own self interest, that they now have to fund someone else's self interest is in fact, immoral.
- johansch 11y agoWhat's the difference between Facebook in 2015 and Windows in 1998 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft_Corp. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft_Cor...)? Both are software platforms bound by network effects which have reached monopoly situations and then abuse(d) their situation by attempting to use their dominance in one area to reach dominance in another area.
- oneeyedpigeon 11y agoIt used to be said that it was impossible for a website to have a monopoly because the cost of switching is zero. I rather think that facebook's dominance has disproven that rule, though; in the world of the social network, switching is actually much more difficult than we ever expected.
- johansch 11y agoGoogle was the champion for that idea, regarding their Google Search product. That is still valid - there are no (strong) network effects involved with a web search engine.
- Retra 11y agoFacebook isn't setting any laws. They're just refusing to host spam generated by their competitor.