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The P2P network doesn't exist, because it doesn't solve a problem. Facebook solves the problem of "I want to keep in touch with people in my life digitally" and

The P2P network doesn't exist, because it doesn't solve a problem. Facebook solves the problem of "I want to keep in touch with people in my life digitally" and has built a sustainable (to say the least) business model around it. Being P2P by itself is not a reason to create a social network, unless it brings benefits for users that simply don't exist in FB. What are those? Privacy? Security? Only a small number of people care about those. Products are not created because they are technically possible - they are created to solve problems. This reasoning is flawed because it starts from the solution, not the problem.

hodgesrm 10y ago
Following your line of reasoning it's worth asking what would have to change to make Facebook's business model vulnerable. When Facebook IPO'ed the biggest technology threat on the horizon was mobile apps [1]. However, the FB folks negotiated that one pretty successfully. Since then they have been very paranoid about new types of chat applications, in short anything that could move communications onto a platform they don't control. I'm just speculating but the biggest threat to Facebook would be if people started to look for something that Facebook has a hard time delivering. For instance, what if users decided that getting real news from reliable sources was high value? (Something like a return to properly curated journalism rather than entertainment--this is of course just wild speculation.) In this case, it's something that puts a premium on quality of the content, not the size of the network. Another obvious threat would be new ad delivery technology, which attacks the "buy" side of the network. No doubt FB watches that area very carefully. [1] http://gadgets.ndtv.com/mobiles/news/facebooks-mobile-transition-on-track-user-base-continues-to-grow-361670 http://gadgets.ndtv.com/mobiles/news/facebooks-mobile-transi...

hodgesrm 10y ago

Following your line of reasoning it's worth asking what would have to change to make Facebook's business model vulnerable. When Facebook IPO'ed the biggest technology threat on the horizon was mobile apps [1]. However, the FB folks negotiated that one pretty successfully. Since then they have been very paranoid about new types of chat applications, in short anything that could move communications onto a platform they don't control. I'm just speculating but the biggest threat to Facebook would be if people started to look for something that Facebook has a hard time delivering. For instance, what if users decided that getting real news from reliable sources was high value? (Something like a return to properly curated journalism rather than entertainment--this is of course just wild speculation.) In this case, it's something that puts a premium on quality of the content, not the size of the network. Another obvious threat would be new ad delivery technology, which attacks the "buy" side of the network. No doubt FB watches that area very carefully. [1] http://gadgets.ndtv.com/mobiles/news/facebooks-mobile-transition-on-track-user-base-continues-to-grow-361670 http://gadgets.ndtv.com/mobiles/news/facebooks-mobile-transi...