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I largely agree with the sentiment in this article, despite not really liking Facebook or using it too much. Does anyone here in HN favor a FB breakup, whateve

I largely agree with the sentiment in this article, despite not really liking Facebook or using it too much. Does anyone here in HN favor a FB breakup, whatever that would look like, and why?

awakeasleep 7y ago
Facebook (and other SV mega corps) are monopolies, and they're growing too powerful, both in the market and in the government, for our society. Regulation will be captured by Facebook to cement their monopoly position. The only antidote to this is competition- and that means not only breaking facebook into separate companies, but also prohibiting them from buying new entrants into the market.
- sneak 7y ago
  In which line of business does facebook have a monopoly? In which line of business does google have a monopoly?
  - jtr1 7y ago
    Social media. Search.
    - gtfratteus 7y ago
      Do you know what a monopoly is? Google has viable competitors in Bing, DuckDuckGo, and Yahoo among others. Just because Google is more popular doesn't mean it is a monopoly. There's nothing stopping you from switching to Bing and enjoying a very similar search experience.
      - jtr1 7y ago
        In the UK, the definition of a monopoly is >25% market share.
    - RandomInteger4 7y ago
      What are they monopolizing in social media? People? Are we going break up Facebook by telling Jim and Dan that they have to use two separate social media sites and can no longer communicate via the same social media site?
Freak_NL 7y ago
With Facebook Messenger, Whatsapp, and Instagram, Facebook has a near monopoly on messaging and social media in a solid number of countries (e.g., the Netherlands or Brazil). At some point such a product ceases to be a thing you buy or opt-in to out of a fair balanced choice (in the capitalist sense), and becomes something you are coerced to use because 'everyone' expects it. Simply put: you either agree to Facebook's terms of service, or, depending on your social circles, you become a digital hermit. At that point regulation becomes a necessity to safeguard citizen's rights and freedoms. Such regulation includes more stringent checks on the permissiveness of corporate takeovers by the behemoth (again, this is nothing revolutionary, it is common in all capitalist democracies). Start with breaking out Whatsapp and Instagram. Those mergers should never have been approved. Either that, or force the platform to be open to third party clients and introduce a fairly priced way to use those services without paying with your data.
sfblah 7y ago
I favor a breakup. Generally I have viewed Facebook and Instagram as honeypots which attract people who otherwise would just involve themselves in other equally damaging addictive activities. In that sense, they wouldn’t really affect the lives of those who choose not to use them. The problem arises when those who are addicted to the services get to vote in elections. At that point, the damage escapes the honeypot and can influence others in meaningful ways. Breaking them up helps solve this by preventing any one company from essentially taking over the world’s democracies by steering allowable debate and therefore votes. It also distributes the attack surface area for other countries who want to influence elections. I absolutely believe undoing the Instagram merger and stopping Facebook from copying the features of other networks to kill them would help accomplish this objective.
- crikli 7y ago
  I believe you are buying far too heavily into the narrative that FB swung the election. My guess is that you don't actually know very many people who voted for Trump. I do. Most of my family, in-laws, and a minority percentage of my friends did. While there a few are active on social media they would have voted the way they did regardless.

I largely agree with the sentiment in this article, despite not really liking Facebook or using it too much. Does anyone here in HN favor a FB breakup, whatever that would look like, and why?

awakeasleep 7y ago

Facebook (and other SV mega corps) are monopolies, and they're growing too powerful, both in the market and in the government, for our society. Regulation will be captured by Facebook to cement their monopoly position. The only antidote to this is competition- and that means not only breaking facebook into separate companies, but also prohibiting them from buying new entrants into the market.

sneak 7y ago
In which line of business does facebook have a monopoly? In which line of business does google have a monopoly?
- jtr1 7y ago
  Social media. Search.
  - gtfratteus 7y ago
    Do you know what a monopoly is? Google has viable competitors in Bing, DuckDuckGo, and Yahoo among others. Just because Google is more popular doesn't mean it is a monopoly. There's nothing stopping you from switching to Bing and enjoying a very similar search experience.
    - jtr1 7y ago
      In the UK, the definition of a monopoly is >25% market share.
  - RandomInteger4 7y ago
    What are they monopolizing in social media? People? Are we going break up Facebook by telling Jim and Dan that they have to use two separate social media sites and can no longer communicate via the same social media site?

Freak_NL 7y ago

With Facebook Messenger, Whatsapp, and Instagram, Facebook has a near monopoly on messaging and social media in a solid number of countries (e.g., the Netherlands or Brazil). At some point such a product ceases to be a thing you buy or opt-in to out of a fair balanced choice (in the capitalist sense), and becomes something you are coerced to use because 'everyone' expects it. Simply put: you either agree to Facebook's terms of service, or, depending on your social circles, you become a digital hermit. At that point regulation becomes a necessity to safeguard citizen's rights and freedoms. Such regulation includes more stringent checks on the permissiveness of corporate takeovers by the behemoth (again, this is nothing revolutionary, it is common in all capitalist democracies). Start with breaking out Whatsapp and Instagram. Those mergers should never have been approved. Either that, or force the platform to be open to third party clients and introduce a fairly priced way to use those services without paying with your data.

sfblah 7y ago

I favor a breakup. Generally I have viewed Facebook and Instagram as honeypots which attract people who otherwise would just involve themselves in other equally damaging addictive activities. In that sense, they wouldn’t really affect the lives of those who choose not to use them. The problem arises when those who are addicted to the services get to vote in elections. At that point, the damage escapes the honeypot and can influence others in meaningful ways. Breaking them up helps solve this by preventing any one company from essentially taking over the world’s democracies by steering allowable debate and therefore votes. It also distributes the attack surface area for other countries who want to influence elections. I absolutely believe undoing the Instagram merger and stopping Facebook from copying the features of other networks to kill them would help accomplish this objective.

crikli 7y ago
I believe you are buying far too heavily into the narrative that FB swung the election. My guess is that you don't actually know very many people who voted for Trump. I do. Most of my family, in-laws, and a minority percentage of my friends did. While there a few are active on social media they would have voted the way they did regardless.