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> Can Google or Facebook ever have a true competitor? Unlikely. But never say never.Both companies, have built dominant market positions and have advantages tha

> Can Google or Facebook ever have a true competitor? Unlikely. But never say never.Both companies, have built dominant market positions and have advantages that competitors will likely be unable to overcome.Peter Thiel even argues Google is a monopoly. > but is it going to be the same always? No. If it were, then the future is already fixed, knowable and stagnant.Unlikely :( > If not, then what will cause us to move to a different search engine? What can XYZ make to cause people to leave FB and come to its network? Three things. 1.The company loses direction, is taken over by less competent management or implodes under its own weight e.g Walmart, GM, Apple. 2. Government regulation or public pushback creates conditions for its dissolution. Think Bell, Standard Oil 3. New competitors emerge. A giant slayer in this case, may initially not seem like a threat at all and may even operate in a different market space or industry from search or social media eg gaming, VR, IOT. Paul Graham has a good article on this. Btw, I think FB is dying and that's part of the reason they acquired Whatsapp. It will be obvious in 5 years and they'll be gone in a decade or decade and a half.So is Apple,at least in its current form.

halpme 10y ago
What makes you say that Apple is dying?
- juliangoldsmith 10y ago
  He's probably referring to when they fired Steve Jobs in the 80s.
- mywittyname 10y ago
  Their business is overly-dependent on the iPhone. The fact that 60% of their revenue comes from iPhones might leave them vulnerable to shifts in consumer behavior and/or market saturation. iPhone sales drive sales of their other products and services. Apple is already facing heavy competition to iTunes; overall sales are declining and app revenue is making up a larger % of iTunes revenue in recent years. The decline of iTunes revenue is largely attributed to the glut of streaming services. I suspect their competing streaming service will need to be a loss-leader in the future in order to fuel grow for their cash-cow. Now, I don't think that Apple is dying, not at all. But I can see how their situation is a bit more precarious than a heavily diversified company like Microsoft (whose failures demonstrate their impressive resiliency).
  - PopsiclePete 10y ago
    How is Microsoft that much more resilient, though? They're an absolute joke in the phone/device market. They're a market leader in the least exciting, fastest-declining market - the Desktop. On the server side, they're hovering at 30%-ish, and are almost completely absent from the start-up scene as well as the high-end super-computer space. The startup scene, which, I know, I know, but still, it is where the future is, is definitely not interested in anything MS, from what I can tell. Nothing bug a sea of MacBooks with people pounding away at Node/RoR/language-of-the-day. The hip 20-somethings pounding away at a thousand start-ups don't seem to be betting on the MS stack. And those are the tech leaders of tomorrow. Forget about the start-up space, fine. What about other institutions like banks/finance/airlines? That's all Java, running on some kind of Unix-derivative as well, most likely hitting a non-MS database. MS is doing ok in the video game console space, but Sony is doing better. They're doing ok with Azure, but nothing spectacular, AWS and Google Cloud and Dig. Ocean and the numerous others aren't feeling too much pressure. I guess really besides Office - what do they have that's a giant run-away success that will ensure their long-term survival?
    - ssivark 10y ago
      Most of the markets you name are not winner-take-all! Add to your list enterprise/consumer cloud services (Office 365, Outlook, etc) and also the Azure platform (I don't know how competitive their Azure offerings are). Just by being a significant "also ran" in those markets Microsoft ensures its survival in the medium term. They are diversified enough that the rug cannot suddenly be pulled out from under them and they are in a position to pump money and pivot into any of those markets where they see traction. While Apple's situation is better today, their ability to respond to rapid changes in the business is under question.
    - kek918 10y ago
      In addition to Office their Windows volume licensing is quite expensive, and I assume most of the Fortune 500 companies use Windows desktop clients. Sure they're declining on the server-side, but the majority of mid-large sized companies except for tech startups use Windows OS. For the companies who are 100% Microsoft and who happen to drift everything themself, it quickly gets ridiculously expensive if you calculate MSSQL, Sharepoint licenses etc.
wodenokoto 10y ago
Maybe Facebook.com will be a shadow of it's former self, but I think Facebook the holding company that owns the namesake service, instagram and whatsapp has the potential to be a strong company many years from now.
- Lordarminius 10y ago
  I agree with this. In my (admittedly anecdotal) experience, many people hate FB the platform for different reasons but haven't found a decent alternative yet. Apple is dying for the reasons other people mentioned above; plus the fact that it was built on the cult of Steve Jobs. In addition, it does not have a global presence. It struggles in Asia, is known only by name in Africa so in effect operates in a highly contested and mature market.

halpme 10y ago

What makes you say that Apple is dying?

juliangoldsmith 10y ago
He's probably referring to when they fired Steve Jobs in the 80s.
mywittyname 10y ago
Their business is overly-dependent on the iPhone. The fact that 60% of their revenue comes from iPhones might leave them vulnerable to shifts in consumer behavior and/or market saturation. iPhone sales drive sales of their other products and services. Apple is already facing heavy competition to iTunes; overall sales are declining and app revenue is making up a larger % of iTunes revenue in recent years. The decline of iTunes revenue is largely attributed to the glut of streaming services. I suspect their competing streaming service will need to be a loss-leader in the future in order to fuel grow for their cash-cow. Now, I don't think that Apple is dying, not at all. But I can see how their situation is a bit more precarious than a heavily diversified company like Microsoft (whose failures demonstrate their impressive resiliency).
- PopsiclePete 10y ago
  How is Microsoft that much more resilient, though? They're an absolute joke in the phone/device market. They're a market leader in the least exciting, fastest-declining market - the Desktop. On the server side, they're hovering at 30%-ish, and are almost completely absent from the start-up scene as well as the high-end super-computer space. The startup scene, which, I know, I know, but still, it is where the future is, is definitely not interested in anything MS, from what I can tell. Nothing bug a sea of MacBooks with people pounding away at Node/RoR/language-of-the-day. The hip 20-somethings pounding away at a thousand start-ups don't seem to be betting on the MS stack. And those are the tech leaders of tomorrow. Forget about the start-up space, fine. What about other institutions like banks/finance/airlines? That's all Java, running on some kind of Unix-derivative as well, most likely hitting a non-MS database. MS is doing ok in the video game console space, but Sony is doing better. They're doing ok with Azure, but nothing spectacular, AWS and Google Cloud and Dig. Ocean and the numerous others aren't feeling too much pressure. I guess really besides Office - what do they have that's a giant run-away success that will ensure their long-term survival?
  - ssivark 10y ago
    Most of the markets you name are not winner-take-all! Add to your list enterprise/consumer cloud services (Office 365, Outlook, etc) and also the Azure platform (I don't know how competitive their Azure offerings are). Just by being a significant "also ran" in those markets Microsoft ensures its survival in the medium term. They are diversified enough that the rug cannot suddenly be pulled out from under them and they are in a position to pump money and pivot into any of those markets where they see traction. While Apple's situation is better today, their ability to respond to rapid changes in the business is under question.
  - kek918 10y ago
    In addition to Office their Windows volume licensing is quite expensive, and I assume most of the Fortune 500 companies use Windows desktop clients. Sure they're declining on the server-side, but the majority of mid-large sized companies except for tech startups use Windows OS. For the companies who are 100% Microsoft and who happen to drift everything themself, it quickly gets ridiculously expensive if you calculate MSSQL, Sharepoint licenses etc.

wodenokoto 10y ago

Maybe Facebook.com will be a shadow of it's former self, but I think Facebook the holding company that owns the namesake service, instagram and whatsapp has the potential to be a strong company many years from now.

Lordarminius 10y ago
I agree with this. In my (admittedly anecdotal) experience, many people hate FB the platform for different reasons but haven't found a decent alternative yet. Apple is dying for the reasons other people mentioned above; plus the fact that it was built on the cult of Steve Jobs. In addition, it does not have a global presence. It struggles in Asia, is known only by name in Africa so in effect operates in a highly contested and mature market.