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Facebook's Aggressive Moves on Startups Threaten Innovation

• jdale27 9y ago
  Okay, but do we really need a "future Facebook"? Are innovation and creativity in social media really something the world will suffer for a lack of? In any case, the next big thing is usually not just a better version of the last big thing.
  • aaron-lebo 9y ago
    Of course we do. >1 billion people shouldn't have their lives dictated by a proprietary, opaque Skinner's box with no regard for privacy or rights.
    • gwatch 9y ago
      No one is forced to use Facebook. Where is the coercion? On the other hand you want to you government as a bludgeon against a private company engaged in consensual transactions with private individuals, causing no harm to third parties.
    • 659087 9y ago
      What we need to fix that is more of a future "not Facebook", though.
    • wskinner 9y ago
      Then they shouldn't use the proprietary, opaque Skinner box. :) It's not like they have a gun to their heads.
      • whyever 9y ago
        It's not so easy. You might have to give up a big part of your social life, depending on how much of it happens via the box.
      • marcusestes 9y ago
        Neither did the rats.
      • bearmobius 9y ago
        Some thoughts about the "no one's forcing you to use it" arguments (of which I'm also partial to, having removed myself from Facebook). Humans do have a need to socialise/connect with other humans, just as we have need food and water - we quickly lose sanity in isolation. To give an example, the worst punishment in prisons is solitary confinement (being separated from the other criminals!). The link between social isolation and health problems and ultimately early death has also been demonstrated. It seems to follow from this then that we do really need Facebook to the degree to which they control all means of socialising, and online communication is only becoming more and more primary over time. In other words, imagining the extreme case where FB is only means to connect with the world (and this is their stated mission), we can no longer choose not to use them anymore than we can choose not to breathe and eat, insofar as physiological well being goes.
        • Karunamon 9y ago
          >It seems to follow from this then that we do really need Facebook to the degree to which they control all means of socialising And therein is the fallacy. Facebook might be popular, but they are absolutely not the controller of all means of socializing. Everyone I'm friends with on Facebook, I also have the email (and often phone, and often other IM service) contact info. You confuse generalized control with control in their own walled garden. Anyone is free to step outside of that garden whenever they please.
      • nunez 9y ago
        Not having a facebook account is a negative social signal these days. The gun is metaphorical.
    • karllager 9y ago
      > 1 billion people shouldn't have their lives dictated by a proprietary, opaque Skinner's box with no regard for privacy or rights. Of course they should not. Or should they? We live in a free society and you are voluntarily participating. Or not. It's your choice. And that's wonderful. People do not realise, how simple it is to stop. As with cigarettes the real trick is to just not do it anymore. You need some willpower and some plan to cope with the temporary withdrawal effects. Single datapoint: I briefly used FB for a few weeks about ten years ago, but never saw its value. Today, thanks to dusty email and many other (more open) sites, I have a growing number of friends around the globe and locally. There are places (like Central Asia), which are already operating in a Free Basics mode in that basically anything beyond facebook is an extreme hurdle to use. But anyone in the western world with lots of choices can stop feeding FB today, if they cared.
      • sharemywin 9y ago
        your data point of one doesn't really validate that addiction effects people differently and hence different outcomes. My wife stopped smoking for 5 months, then she started again. ooops, some much for just quit and all will be happy in the world.
      • geebee 9y ago
        I agree with you that it's possible to stop using Facebook. It isn't like food or water. However, Facebook really is, at this point, a clear monopoly. The reason I use facebook is because that's the social network that everyone else uses. If I want to see baby pictures, hear about my friend's band's upcoming show, get updates on how people are doing after the norCal fires, or get trolled politically repeatedly by my insular political bubble, Facebook is the only place where I can do this. The next best network is nearly useless to me - not strictly because it's worse in terms of features or reliability, but because nobody else is using it. I can't say it's absolutely impossible to do this without facebook - I agree that people can, with effort, patch it together, as you've done. However, I think the "voluntary" participation aspect you've identified, while not entirely inaccurate, should recognize the coercion that results from a monopoly.
        • 9y ago
  • pascalxus 9y ago
    It's a good question. I wish innovation could be opened up in more important areas like housing, transportation and healthcare costs. But it's all locked up from laws, zoning, political gridlock and barriers to entry.
    • sharemywin 9y ago
      it sucks but I don't like houses falling on me, air bags exploding in my face, or experimental drugs... oh wait the healthcare market is too far gone for even regulation to help it.
• aaron-lebo 9y ago
  Facebook can only buy those who want to be bought. Facebook could've been bought out (and many said they should have - which in hindsight would've been a horrific move). If companies really care about innovation, they can focus on that instead of flipping their companies.
  • dkn 9y ago
    I think money can be a more significant persuader than you are letting on, especially after months of startup stress pile up on a decision maker.
    • j45 9y ago
      Not just months... but years.
  • 659087 9y ago
    As much as startup founders love to loudly and publicly jerk themselves off about "changing the world" and "innovating", their end game is always money.
    • Xcelerate 9y ago
      Yeah, but the money from small company acquisitions can be used to jumpstart "changing the world". PayPal may not have changed the world, but the money Elon got from that was enough to fund Tesla and SpaceX, which very well may change the world. You need a large amount of personal capital if you want to directly fund a (crazy) breakthrough vision.
    • dang 9y ago
      This is a particularly bad comment considering that the parent comment just mentioned a celebrated example of not doing this (whatever else one thinks of Facebook). Moreover we've asked you before not to rant like this. "Publicly jerk themselves off"? Ew. If you have nothing substantive or thoughtful to say, the principle here is not to comment until you do. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
• vladislav 9y ago
  If Facebook easily replicating that same feature is enough to significantly hurt the smaller competitor, was it really innovation in the first place?
  • TAForObvReasons 9y ago
    If you are of the view that ideas are worthless and execution is all that matters, then there is no innovation anymore. Facebook can out-execute pretty much any small startup if they really wanted to go into a space.
    • stephengillie 9y ago
      Back in my day, Microsoft entering your market was taken as a validation of the market and confirmation that you're on the right track. Being a small player meant you could be more agile than the lumbering giant. Being small also means you don't have the same opportunity costs on financial investment - where Microsoft could get a better IRR for that investment money, being small means this is the best return you can get.
    • vladislav 9y ago
      The only advantage Facebook has in entering an entirely new space is capital, which is not a unique advantage. The unique advantage they have of modifying their social media platform, is that they have by far the largest platform, and if the only differentiation of the smaller competitor can be easily replicated, it will be quite easy for Facebook to compete, without even deploying much capital. Thus, if someone wants to compete with Facebook, there has to be either significant IP, or a feature that isn't as easily compatible with Facebook's platform (note that Facebook also tried to replicate Snapchat early on, but that failed). I am not saying that ideas are worthless, but many are not easily defensible as a business strategy, and I don't see the reason to blame Facebook for leveraging their unique advantage by adding compatible features that have been validated by other companies, nor for deploying their capital to acquire such companies. One could have plenty of ideas for how to leverage a large social media platform, but without access to that platform, and especially if a competing much larger platform can easily replicate such ideas to drive you out of business, there would not be a strong case to make for these ideas being true innovation in the context of business.
• gwatch 9y ago
  A non story. Facebook is doing what Facebook ought to be doing. Monopoly is not a bad thing when no one’s rights are being violated. The next innovation will come from someplace other than social media.
• 2_listerine_pls 9y ago
  Acquisitions should be regulated.
• tw1010 9y ago
  Everyone buys companies. This is nothing new. If the threshold for Facebook buying companies becomes too low, the startup sphere will be flooded (which to some extent has already happened) and Facebook will stop buying them all (which to a degree is true already). Eventually there will be enough that goes under their radar or enough companies to say no to their offer (e.g. Snapchat) that stuff will get through the buyout-barrier. Everything old is new again, yawn.
• replicatorblog 9y ago
  Half of the top food companies in the world were formed in the 19th century. There were 614 food and drink companies acquired in 2016. More leading pharma companies were founded prior to 1780 than after 1980 and seven of the ten biggest companies are over a hundred years old. In 2014-15 there were over 100 biotech IPOs that yielded $10B in proceeds. Tech is going through the same consolidation process that cars, drugs, oil companies, packaged food concerns, and most other industries have. The chances of building a company worth hundreds of billions of dollars is lower. The chance of building a $10-100M business has never been higher. The founders of tbh made more money that All-Star NBA Champion Stephen Curry did last year. Is that a sign of a weakening startup ecosystem or a strengthening one?
  • jgalt212 9y ago
    "Shaq is rich," he said, referring to the Los Angeles Lakers' Shaquille O'Neal, "but the white man who signs his check is wealthy. Oprah is rich, but Bill Gates is wealthy. If Bill Gates suddenly woke up with Oprah's money, he'd slit his throat."
    • ifhd 9y ago
      How much did Oprah have when he said that?
      • fizwhiz 9y ago
        source: http://www.post-gazette.com/opinion/tony-norman/2004/05/21/The-big-difference-between-rich-and-wealthy/stories/200405210167 http://www.post-gazette.com/opinion/tony-norman/2004/05/21/T... Authored in 2004, at which point Oprah had $1.1Bn[1] [1] https://www.forbes.com/maserati/billionaires2004/LIRO0ZT.html?passListId=10&pas https://www.forbes.com/maserati/billionaires2004/LIRO0ZT.htm... Edit: nvm, the article talks about a Chris Rock quote from the previous year (2003) at which point Oprah doesn't show up on the Forbes website.
      • QAPereo 9y ago
        Does it matter? The answer is still, “at least an order of magnitude less than Bill...”
• shmerl 9y ago
  They can't prevent copying features. They need to compete on something Facebook isn't capable of competing. Such as being decentralized and privacy respectful. That's an instant fail for FB. For example FB can copy features like hashtags all they want, but I won't touch it unlike Diaspora.
  • deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  • Karunamon 9y ago
    Except the alternative is a complete fail from a user standpoint. Decentralized systems are, almost to a rule, not user-friendly. Privacy doesn't seem to sell.
    • cisanti 9y ago
      I have come to an conclusion people who care about privacy don't care about social networks either. Just an anecdote of course. I have joined diaspora and mastodon twice to fight the big Goliath but every time I have realized I really don't need the social media as such anyway.
• carbocation 9y ago
  As another user mentioned on a previous article on a similar topic, the main feature that raises eyebrows is Facebook's ownership of Onavo. This allows them to gain an unusual degree of information about traffic flows to competitors and early insight into potential acquisitions in a way that is inaccessible to others. (Onavo is mentioned in the story.)
• ppeetteerr 9y ago
  Three points on this topic: 1) There are worse ways to go than being acquired by Facebook 2) As far as I know, Facebook has been unable to copy/innovate in many areas (unable to copy craigslist, for instance). Their only solution is always to buy a competitor. 3) Monopolies are shit (I'm looking at you, Libertarians)
  • ausjke 9y ago
    agree, it is evil to steal and copy with deep pockets, buying competitors are bad, but not as bad as stealing.
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• wheresmyusern 9y ago
  i find it interesting that the possibility of facebook being hacked is almost never discussed -- ive never really seen it held up in these comments. everyone discusses endlessly what might happen if a financial institution, an email service, or something else is hacked. equifax is the latest example. the result of these hacks is the disclosure of tons of personal and sensitive data. so why is it never brought up that facebook, like any other company, might be hacked? since they spy on all their users, they must in some way or another store in an unsafe manner all of the chat logs, pictures, private messages, not to mention the damning meta-data extracted from it. i havent used facebook for almost a decade so perhaps im incorrect in assuming that people say private things in private messages? there ought to be an alternative
  • willitpamp573 9y ago
    People just assume it won't happen because we assume Facebook has deep security expertise. And we assume Equifax got hacked because they (evidently) didn't. I don't know whether it's a reasonable assumption or not.
  • zone411 9y ago
    They had a security breach in 2011. Private photos (including Zuckerberg's) were released.
• em3rgent0rdr 9y ago
  The future facebook alternative will probably be FOSS, considering it is harder to buy up software that is owned by everyone.
  • mrarjonny 9y ago
    You are on to something. I think Facebook is nearing the point of exhausting its reach, or is at least extraordinarily close. There will be an inevitable backlash where we are finding Facebook is this unruly multi-headed mass of features and services no one really asked for or needs. The overreaching of these services will eventually wear thin on the public and they will want to simplify their digital footprint and value privacy a little more. I am already seeing it in the under 20 crowd. They have grown up seeing their parents entire life smeared all over Facebook and it isn't "cool." At some point, I have to think, the public will want to reclaim some of this and we will see things scale back to a simpler form of "social media."
• mankash666 9y ago
  The whole premise of the article is flawed. Steve jobs said this before - many of the upcoming social-local-mobile apps ought to be features, not standalone companies. A "check-in" feature-as-a-company is only sellable to investors in silicon valley. It's not defensible in any way, and makes more sense as a feature in an app that people spend a lot of time inside. Foursquare should've sold to Facebook - not because Facebook is evil - because Foursquare a.k.a "check-in" feature, isn't visible or interesting as a standalone company. Enough said