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> For example, Facebook had an offer from Yahoo for a billion dollars, which everyone told Zuck to take. Fortunately, he said no. Had he said yes, it would have

> For example, Facebook had an offer from Yahoo for a billion dollars, which everyone told Zuck to take. Fortunately, he said no. Had he said yes, it would have been another failed Yahoo acquisition and Facebook would not have nearly as much impact. It seems to me that the world would be overall a better place if FB had sold to Yahoo. Yahoo would have screwed it up (like AOL with Myspace) and there would be more competition in the space all around. Monopolies are good for the investors, not for the customers.

devoply 9y ago
There are no instances I know of where anyone involved with skin in the game cares as to what happens to the outside actors. That's the nature of the system we have.
fullshark 9y ago
Or Google + would have taken off and there would be even less competition.
- emiliobumachar 9y ago
  Google + was a reaction to Facebook's success and its ability to keep Google off its data. If Facebook had not existed, Google + would not exist either, at least not before another big, entrenched incumbent. Google created Orkut, an initially successful social network years before the rise of Facebook. Orkut died from scaling issues, something Google is really skilled at dealing with, had they really wanted to. I agree with your main point that something else could have been Facebook if not for Facebook.
  - fullshark 9y ago
    And that something could have been Google, meaning less competition.
mandeepj 9y ago
Zuck dropped the offer because Yahoo lower the price to ~$700 million. He has famously said he would have sold FB if yahoo kept the $1 billion tag. Buying companies for billions and billions of dollars is a skill in itself and requires a vision also which is not very common. I mean to say only people like Zuck can do it Edit - Added some more meat
- seppin 9y ago
  source?
  - mandeepj 9y ago
    It is everywhere and part of history now. I got a link for you - http://www.businessinsider.com/all-the-companies-that-ever-tried-to-buy-facebook-2010-5/#sperate-viacom-came-back-one-last-time-in-2006-9 http://www.businessinsider.com/all-the-companies-that-ever-t... Details are little bit down in the page. You can also search the page with "In June 2006, Yahoo decided it had to have Facebook"
    - drawnwren 9y ago
      This article says that Zuck rejected the $1b offer because he thought it was too low and that the board later rejected a lower number. Not exactly what you said. It specifically says that Zuck believed Facebook to be worth more than $1b. Which is directly counter to the statement "He would have sold for $1b."
      - mandeepj 9y ago
        Just having a conversation. M & A is one of my favorite topics. Zuck kept changing his mind. Following lines are also from the article. This story is now almost 10 years old so kind of hard to find related stuff. "Yahoo lowered its offer to $850 million after announcing horrible Q2 earnings. Facebook's board took 10 minutes to reject the lowered offer"
        9y ago
cookiecaper 9y ago
The CFAA enables these monopolies. The government is not performing its role of ensuring an open, actively competitive marketplace exists in tech. Investors really don't want that to happen, because it's much more profitable to allow FB, Twitter, et al to hold user data hostage and thus propagate lock-in. As always, user lock-in is the end goal of all software companies; they want you to be stuck with them forever, whether you like it or not. If you thought lock-in was bad when it was just a `.doc` file on your desktop and you had to use something like OpenOffice to try to render a sloppy import of it, the reality of keeping the only copy in server-side databases controlled exclusively by the companies that provide the client for manipulating that data is a dystopia. The CFAA makes it so any "unauthorized" extrication of this data is a federal crime, which means there is no real possibility for a serious OpenOffice-esque client to come in and try to save users from the cloud service lock-in. Source: large company threatened to sue me via the CFAA for talking to their website in a way that indirectly caused them negative publicity, but was otherwise polite and had no negative impact on their service/functionality
- kuschku 9y ago
  This fight will get interesting very soon. The new EU data directive requires companies to provide users easily with the canonical representation of all their data, and any and all data derived from that (including probabilistic models). This data portability law will change quite a bit, once people notice it exists. I’m looking forward to it.
  - cookiecaper 9y ago
    That is extremely exciting if it's true, as I believe this is one of the major things that has held online competition back. Can you post some articles that describe the details, and the dates that those measures become effective?
    - kuschku 9y ago
      Check out http://www.eugdpr.org/ http://www.eugdpr.org/
imjk 9y ago
When it comes to social networks, I believe the network affect generally leads to a winner takes all (or most). Certainly tech and usability is a determining factor, but another company would have nailed those and dominated the market anyway.
guelo 9y ago
Social networks are natural monopolies with one winner taking 80-90% of the market. Before Facebook it was MySpace before that it was Friendster. If Facebook whithered away for some reason the new thing would also tend towards capturing the entire market. It's the reason why Facebook tries to buy any new upstarts, if an upstart gains traction it can become threatening even to the largest social network.
- dredmorbius 9y ago
  But why is this? And is there a way to crack them open?
jonbarker 9y ago
Then there is the 'benevolent monopolist' theory which I find hard to evaluate. Can't do a controlled experiment and impossible to know what a world with fb by Yahoo! looks like.

devoply 9y ago

There are no instances I know of where anyone involved with skin in the game cares as to what happens to the outside actors. That's the nature of the system we have.

fullshark 9y ago

Or Google + would have taken off and there would be even less competition.

emiliobumachar 9y ago
Google + was a reaction to Facebook's success and its ability to keep Google off its data. If Facebook had not existed, Google + would not exist either, at least not before another big, entrenched incumbent. Google created Orkut, an initially successful social network years before the rise of Facebook. Orkut died from scaling issues, something Google is really skilled at dealing with, had they really wanted to. I agree with your main point that something else could have been Facebook if not for Facebook.
- fullshark 9y ago
  And that something could have been Google, meaning less competition.

mandeepj 9y ago

Zuck dropped the offer because Yahoo lower the price to ~$700 million. He has famously said he would have sold FB if yahoo kept the $1 billion tag. Buying companies for billions and billions of dollars is a skill in itself and requires a vision also which is not very common. I mean to say only people like Zuck can do it Edit - Added some more meat

seppin 9y ago
source?
- mandeepj 9y ago
  It is everywhere and part of history now. I got a link for you - http://www.businessinsider.com/all-the-companies-that-ever-tried-to-buy-facebook-2010-5/#sperate-viacom-came-back-one-last-time-in-2006-9 http://www.businessinsider.com/all-the-companies-that-ever-t... Details are little bit down in the page. You can also search the page with "In June 2006, Yahoo decided it had to have Facebook"
  - drawnwren 9y ago
    This article says that Zuck rejected the $1b offer because he thought it was too low and that the board later rejected a lower number. Not exactly what you said. It specifically says that Zuck believed Facebook to be worth more than $1b. Which is directly counter to the statement "He would have sold for $1b."
    - mandeepj 9y ago
      Just having a conversation. M & A is one of my favorite topics. Zuck kept changing his mind. Following lines are also from the article. This story is now almost 10 years old so kind of hard to find related stuff. "Yahoo lowered its offer to $850 million after announcing horrible Q2 earnings. Facebook's board took 10 minutes to reject the lowered offer"
      - 9y ago

cookiecaper 9y ago

The CFAA enables these monopolies. The government is not performing its role of ensuring an open, actively competitive marketplace exists in tech. Investors really don't want that to happen, because it's much more profitable to allow FB, Twitter, et al to hold user data hostage and thus propagate lock-in. As always, user lock-in is the end goal of all software companies; they want you to be stuck with them forever, whether you like it or not. If you thought lock-in was bad when it was just a `.doc` file on your desktop and you had to use something like OpenOffice to try to render a sloppy import of it, the reality of keeping the only copy in server-side databases controlled exclusively by the companies that provide the client for manipulating that data is a dystopia. The CFAA makes it so any "unauthorized" extrication of this data is a federal crime, which means there is no real possibility for a serious OpenOffice-esque client to come in and try to save users from the cloud service lock-in. Source: large company threatened to sue me via the CFAA for talking to their website in a way that indirectly caused them negative publicity, but was otherwise polite and had no negative impact on their service/functionality

kuschku 9y ago
This fight will get interesting very soon. The new EU data directive requires companies to provide users easily with the canonical representation of all their data, and any and all data derived from that (including probabilistic models). This data portability law will change quite a bit, once people notice it exists. I’m looking forward to it.
- cookiecaper 9y ago
  That is extremely exciting if it's true, as I believe this is one of the major things that has held online competition back. Can you post some articles that describe the details, and the dates that those measures become effective?
  - kuschku 9y ago
    Check out http://www.eugdpr.org/ http://www.eugdpr.org/

imjk 9y ago

When it comes to social networks, I believe the network affect generally leads to a winner takes all (or most). Certainly tech and usability is a determining factor, but another company would have nailed those and dominated the market anyway.

guelo 9y ago

Social networks are natural monopolies with one winner taking 80-90% of the market. Before Facebook it was MySpace before that it was Friendster. If Facebook whithered away for some reason the new thing would also tend towards capturing the entire market. It's the reason why Facebook tries to buy any new upstarts, if an upstart gains traction it can become threatening even to the largest social network.

dredmorbius 9y ago
But why is this? And is there a way to crack them open?

jonbarker 9y ago

Then there is the 'benevolent monopolist' theory which I find hard to evaluate. Can't do a controlled experiment and impossible to know what a world with fb by Yahoo! looks like.