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Facebook is what Microsoft was in the 1990s. Using its existing market dominance to crush potential competitors by offering their distinctive offerings as mere

Facebook is what Microsoft was in the 1990s. Using its existing market dominance to crush potential competitors by offering their distinctive offerings as mere features of its existing popular products. This did lead to a lot of momentum to the anti-trust proceedings against Microsoft. I wonder if that encourages Facebook to not do this so obviously in the future? Or maybe it isn't at all worried about anti-trust for the near term. I am sure Google, Amazon and Microsoft continue to do doing this as well, but it seems that Facebook is doing this most successfully or at least most prominently with its total destruction of Snap. I guess it is different in that Google and Facebook both have very effective means to accurately measure adoption trends of new successful market entrants, and thus can target these entrants better than ever before with total destruction. This is just killer: > In December, Facebook began its group-video-chat offensive. Its Messenger app introduced the feature with the ability to see up to six people in a conversation, compared with the eight-person rooms on Houseparty. > In February, Facebook invited Houseparty users between the ages of 13 and 17 to come to its offices in Menlo Park, Calif., to participate in a study and keep a diary for a week afterward that they would share with Facebook, offering as an inducement $275 Amazon gift cards.

tyingq 9y ago
> am sure Google, Amazon and Microsoft continue to do doing this as well, but it seems that Facebook is doing this most successfully or at least most prominently with its total destruction of Snap. "Most successfully" is probably hard to measure. While Snap is perhaps the single largest example, both Google and Amazon may have had greater overall benefit of this approach...just in a longer tail way that's hard to quantify as a single big visible event. How much revenue, for example, has Google extracted from the travel market?
- sharemywin 9y ago
  -adding pictures of products to the search results.
- launchtomorrow 9y ago
  As much as they've charged advertisers on all travel related keywords. I would guess in the billions, as an order of magnitude.
AndrewKemendo 9y ago
I think people forget that the MSFT v US outcome had very little affect on Microsoft. They took it to appeals court and won. Microsoft would settle the case with the Department of Justice in November of 2001 by agreeing to make it easier for Microsoft's competitors to get their software more closely integrated with the Windows operating system http://time.com/3553242/microsoft-monopoly/ http://time.com/3553242/microsoft-monopoly/
- sircastor 9y ago
  I remember reading/thinking/hearing that this was closely tied to the change in administration. The Clinton administration, pushed the Justice Dept to prosecute, whereas the Bush administration encouraged the Justice Dept to ease off. That's speculation though without evidence to back it up.
- frik 9y ago
  It had a big effect for a short timeframe. Look at photos of Bill Gates, he aged like 15 years in just three years time. And he stepped off as CEO. It followed Ballmer, a softer CEO timeframe. Now Gates with his strawman Nadella got back the power.
  - oculusthrift 9y ago
    can you elaborate more about Nadella being Gates strawman? Never heard that but would be interested in learning more.
- adventured 9y ago
  In fact it had an extremely large negative impact on Microsoft. To know that, all you have to do is read / listen to [1] actual interviews from people that worked there through those days. It was very hard on the company and its employees. The culture was forced to change substantially. Their behavior was monitored by the government for years after. They were no longer able to aggressively compete without chains on their strongest points of leverage. At a time when IE had conquered the browser market, they couldn't use that new monopoly point to attempt to crush Google as one example (which is exactly what they would have done in the late 1980s or early 1990s). It's the same type of restrictive blanket that was put on Intel by the US Government in exchange for allowing them to keep their monopoly. [1] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/audio/2017-07-28/rich-barton-talks-about-his-startup-companies https://www.bloomberg.com/news/audio/2017-07-28/rich-barton-...
mathperson 9y ago
destruction of snap? yeah the share price is down but I wouldn't call it 'destroyed'. still has a lot of users
- bhouston 9y ago
  Its fundamental reason for being has been replicated successfully by the market dominant social platform -- that is pretty killer. Snap may figure out a way to pivot to recover its shareholder value but it won't be easy nor is it obvious how they will do this.
  - mathperson 9y ago
    indeed.
  - puranjay 9y ago
    Snap has itself to blame for using a complex UX that kept a lot of casual users out. I tried it a couple of times. Could never figure out how the damn thing worked and couldn't be bothered to try harder. IG runs like a dream in comparison
    - angus-prune 9y ago
      I believe this was deliberate - it was a way to keep parents out and keep it appealing to teens. It is like slang, it changes every generation so that teenagers have a private language which their parents and teachers are excluded from. Whether it was a good idea or not, I don't know. But I believe that was their thinking at least.
lkrubner 9y ago
In the USA, there won't be any major anti-trust initiatives while Trump is President, so the main worry that Facebook has to think about is whether the European Union might take action. But in Europe they've so far been willing to regulate American tech giants, without attempting to break them up. There's also little precedent for the European Union actually breaking apart a company that is headquartered in the USA. I can foresee some fines for Facebook, but nothing they can't manage. They'd probably be happy to pay some fines, so long as they get to keep their monopoly.
- Analemma_ 9y ago
  I wouldn't be so sure about that. There certainly won't be any antitrust suits against his Manhattan banking buddies, but Trump has already mused about breaking up Amazon and I doubt he's a big fan of the other big tech companies either (since they certainly aren't fond of him). I would rate a DOJ action against Facebook in this administration as "unlikely, but far from impossible".
  - stevenwoo 9y ago
    It's politics but the only reason Trump mentions Amazon in that way is because of the association of Bezos and the Washington Post.
    - Analemma_ 9y ago
      I don't see Facebook being much different though. Zuckerberg's politics probably aren't all that different from Bezos', and Facebook's control over the news could easily catch Trump's attention in a bad way, especially if they really follow through with cracking down on "fake news", which (let's be honest), bipartisan problem though it might be, helped/helps Trump's side a lot more than the other one.
      - stevenwoo 9y ago
        The Washington Post is one of the leading journalism sources in the investigations of Trump connections to Russia, Facebook just puts everyone into an echo chamber. Facebook does not meet the minimal standard of being a threat to Trump in some way that I implied but did not spell out. There is minimal chance of Facebook cracking down on fake news - historically Facebook showed how much of spine they had when they crumbled at the first sign of criticism from conservatives about Facebook's program to use real people to curate stories and the employees were spiking stories aimed at conservatives that were fake.
sverhagen 9y ago
I'm not a Snapchat user, I'm getting sick and tired of the new chat app "du jour". So, unless Snapchat offers something truly revolutionary, that was hard to develop, do I really care that Facebook offers it too, in a way that lets me stay with the social network I've already given in to? In other words, these are often said to be easily disruptable markets. In fact, wasn't that purported to be a perpetual risk for Facebook? So, if a giant is disrupted by a startup, we'd all cheer for that? But if Snapchat is disrupted by Facebook, we scream bloody murder, 'ey? (I don't like big corporations or monopolies, but I was hoping to point out a form of hypocrisy, along with a desire to not switch social networks too often.)
- LoSboccacc 9y ago
  Social network speaking, you're old and committed. Snapchat started to worry facebook when the 13-17 demographic moved there, showing momentum that could have snowballed into being the de facto gen-z social network. That demographic is relatively free to chose whichever network to grow up with, according ro where the majority of the cool kids throwing partyes and living the life are. Old users are less active on average and more adverse to advertisement, so getting constant new blood is quite inportant to fb
SN76477 9y ago
Sounds like time to break them up!

tyingq 9y ago

> am sure Google, Amazon and Microsoft continue to do doing this as well, but it seems that Facebook is doing this most successfully or at least most prominently with its total destruction of Snap. "Most successfully" is probably hard to measure. While Snap is perhaps the single largest example, both Google and Amazon may have had greater overall benefit of this approach...just in a longer tail way that's hard to quantify as a single big visible event. How much revenue, for example, has Google extracted from the travel market?

sharemywin 9y ago
-adding pictures of products to the search results.
launchtomorrow 9y ago
As much as they've charged advertisers on all travel related keywords. I would guess in the billions, as an order of magnitude.

AndrewKemendo 9y ago

I think people forget that the MSFT v US outcome had very little affect on Microsoft. They took it to appeals court and won. Microsoft would settle the case with the Department of Justice in November of 2001 by agreeing to make it easier for Microsoft's competitors to get their software more closely integrated with the Windows operating system http://time.com/3553242/microsoft-monopoly/ http://time.com/3553242/microsoft-monopoly/

sircastor 9y ago
I remember reading/thinking/hearing that this was closely tied to the change in administration. The Clinton administration, pushed the Justice Dept to prosecute, whereas the Bush administration encouraged the Justice Dept to ease off. That's speculation though without evidence to back it up.
frik 9y ago
It had a big effect for a short timeframe. Look at photos of Bill Gates, he aged like 15 years in just three years time. And he stepped off as CEO. It followed Ballmer, a softer CEO timeframe. Now Gates with his strawman Nadella got back the power.
- oculusthrift 9y ago
  can you elaborate more about Nadella being Gates strawman? Never heard that but would be interested in learning more.
adventured 9y ago
In fact it had an extremely large negative impact on Microsoft. To know that, all you have to do is read / listen to [1] actual interviews from people that worked there through those days. It was very hard on the company and its employees. The culture was forced to change substantially. Their behavior was monitored by the government for years after. They were no longer able to aggressively compete without chains on their strongest points of leverage. At a time when IE had conquered the browser market, they couldn't use that new monopoly point to attempt to crush Google as one example (which is exactly what they would have done in the late 1980s or early 1990s). It's the same type of restrictive blanket that was put on Intel by the US Government in exchange for allowing them to keep their monopoly. [1] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/audio/2017-07-28/rich-barton-talks-about-his-startup-companies https://www.bloomberg.com/news/audio/2017-07-28/rich-barton-...

mathperson 9y ago

destruction of snap? yeah the share price is down but I wouldn't call it 'destroyed'. still has a lot of users

bhouston 9y ago
Its fundamental reason for being has been replicated successfully by the market dominant social platform -- that is pretty killer. Snap may figure out a way to pivot to recover its shareholder value but it won't be easy nor is it obvious how they will do this.
- mathperson 9y ago
  indeed.
- puranjay 9y ago
  Snap has itself to blame for using a complex UX that kept a lot of casual users out. I tried it a couple of times. Could never figure out how the damn thing worked and couldn't be bothered to try harder. IG runs like a dream in comparison
  - angus-prune 9y ago
    I believe this was deliberate - it was a way to keep parents out and keep it appealing to teens. It is like slang, it changes every generation so that teenagers have a private language which their parents and teachers are excluded from. Whether it was a good idea or not, I don't know. But I believe that was their thinking at least.

lkrubner 9y ago

In the USA, there won't be any major anti-trust initiatives while Trump is President, so the main worry that Facebook has to think about is whether the European Union might take action. But in Europe they've so far been willing to regulate American tech giants, without attempting to break them up. There's also little precedent for the European Union actually breaking apart a company that is headquartered in the USA. I can foresee some fines for Facebook, but nothing they can't manage. They'd probably be happy to pay some fines, so long as they get to keep their monopoly.

Analemma_ 9y ago
I wouldn't be so sure about that. There certainly won't be any antitrust suits against his Manhattan banking buddies, but Trump has already mused about breaking up Amazon and I doubt he's a big fan of the other big tech companies either (since they certainly aren't fond of him). I would rate a DOJ action against Facebook in this administration as "unlikely, but far from impossible".
- stevenwoo 9y ago
  It's politics but the only reason Trump mentions Amazon in that way is because of the association of Bezos and the Washington Post.
  - Analemma_ 9y ago
    I don't see Facebook being much different though. Zuckerberg's politics probably aren't all that different from Bezos', and Facebook's control over the news could easily catch Trump's attention in a bad way, especially if they really follow through with cracking down on "fake news", which (let's be honest), bipartisan problem though it might be, helped/helps Trump's side a lot more than the other one.
    - stevenwoo 9y ago
      The Washington Post is one of the leading journalism sources in the investigations of Trump connections to Russia, Facebook just puts everyone into an echo chamber. Facebook does not meet the minimal standard of being a threat to Trump in some way that I implied but did not spell out. There is minimal chance of Facebook cracking down on fake news - historically Facebook showed how much of spine they had when they crumbled at the first sign of criticism from conservatives about Facebook's program to use real people to curate stories and the employees were spiking stories aimed at conservatives that were fake.

sverhagen 9y ago

I'm not a Snapchat user, I'm getting sick and tired of the new chat app "du jour". So, unless Snapchat offers something truly revolutionary, that was hard to develop, do I really care that Facebook offers it too, in a way that lets me stay with the social network I've already given in to? In other words, these are often said to be easily disruptable markets. In fact, wasn't that purported to be a perpetual risk for Facebook? So, if a giant is disrupted by a startup, we'd all cheer for that? But if Snapchat is disrupted by Facebook, we scream bloody murder, 'ey? (I don't like big corporations or monopolies, but I was hoping to point out a form of hypocrisy, along with a desire to not switch social networks too often.)

LoSboccacc 9y ago
Social network speaking, you're old and committed. Snapchat started to worry facebook when the 13-17 demographic moved there, showing momentum that could have snowballed into being the de facto gen-z social network. That demographic is relatively free to chose whichever network to grow up with, according ro where the majority of the cool kids throwing partyes and living the life are. Old users are less active on average and more adverse to advertisement, so getting constant new blood is quite inportant to fb

SN76477 9y ago

Sounds like time to break them up!