3 ms·

Except there are things called natural monopolies. See: Railroads, water, electricity, telephones.

by Shikadi 8y ago

mc32 8y ago
And search engines and social media and streaming services...
- smt88 8y ago
  None of those are natural monopolies. Every human could easily switch from Facebook to any competitor right now. The same is not true of cable, ISPs, electricity, gas, etc.
  - int_19h 8y ago
    You can switch from Facebook, but since the value of Facebook is derived entirely from connecting to other people on it, any such switch would be utterly useless unless the people you want to interact with also switch. The result is that a sufficiently large social network is, effectively, a natural monopoly. Which is exactly why no-one has managed to dethrone Facebook yet, not even by throwing lots of money at a better alternative (like G+).
    - cookiecaper 8y ago
      No one has managed to dethrone Facebook because the CFAA allows private companies like Facebook to stop anyone who'd actually provide the facilities to allow for a smooth transition. BigCos like Facebook and Google lean on the aggressive monopoly-making powers of the CFAA every day. Look up the dockets and you'll see the companies making active use of these powers. In particular, check out Facebook v. Power Ventures, where an entrepreneur was left owing $3M in damages to Facebook for allowing users to extract only their own information. Underpinning all digital "monopolies" is copyright law, which is eminently changeable. It really pets my peeves when people suggest things like streaming services are natural monopolies as if there is nothing that can be done about it. Copyright was invented because since the printing press, intellectual goods are so easy to copy that it'd be impossible to sell them at scale without state-enforced supply ceilings (aka copyright). Doesn't sound like a "natural monopoly" to me. It's wholly artificial and we could change it if we wanted.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]

Except there are things called natural monopolies. See: Railroads, water, electricity, telephones.

mc32 8y ago

And search engines and social media and streaming services...

smt88 8y ago
None of those are natural monopolies. Every human could easily switch from Facebook to any competitor right now. The same is not true of cable, ISPs, electricity, gas, etc.
- int_19h 8y ago
  You can switch from Facebook, but since the value of Facebook is derived entirely from connecting to other people on it, any such switch would be utterly useless unless the people you want to interact with also switch. The result is that a sufficiently large social network is, effectively, a natural monopoly. Which is exactly why no-one has managed to dethrone Facebook yet, not even by throwing lots of money at a better alternative (like G+).
  - cookiecaper 8y ago
    No one has managed to dethrone Facebook because the CFAA allows private companies like Facebook to stop anyone who'd actually provide the facilities to allow for a smooth transition. BigCos like Facebook and Google lean on the aggressive monopoly-making powers of the CFAA every day. Look up the dockets and you'll see the companies making active use of these powers. In particular, check out Facebook v. Power Ventures, where an entrepreneur was left owing $3M in damages to Facebook for allowing users to extract only their own information. Underpinning all digital "monopolies" is copyright law, which is eminently changeable. It really pets my peeves when people suggest things like streaming services are natural monopolies as if there is nothing that can be done about it. Copyright was invented because since the printing press, intellectual goods are so easy to copy that it'd be impossible to sell them at scale without state-enforced supply ceilings (aka copyright). Doesn't sound like a "natural monopoly" to me. It's wholly artificial and we could change it if we wanted.

deleted 8y ago

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