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Key line: > The FTC is seeking a permanent injunction in federal court that could, among other things: require divestitures of assets, including Instagram and
by minimaxir 6y ago
Key line:
> The FTC is seeking a permanent injunction in federal court that could, among other things: require divestitures of assets, including Instagram and WhatsApp
- zamalek 6y agoOh that's awesome. I haven't been able to pry my family away from those two, even though they openly admit that Facebook is evil/sucks.
- mmastrac 6y agoSplitting those two properties off would be fantastic. I know it's a pipe dream, but an independent Oculus would make me so happy. I suspect this is impossible due to the early nature of the VR market. Maybe just an FTC requirement _not_ to require a FB login?
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- gamblor956 6y agoUnfortunately, after skimming through the PDF of the complaint (https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/documents/cases/1910134fbcomplaint.pdf https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/documents/cases/1910134fbco...), it appears the FTC is not seeking that remedy. It appears VR is still too small of a market for them to care about.
- vosper 6y agoAlso, Facebook doesn't have a monopoly on VR - there are several competitors in the market, like HTC and Valve.
- bogwog 6y agoYeah, and that might be because Valve is too expensive for them to buy.
- jcfrei 6y agoSeems a bit short-sighted because if Oculus becomes the dominant VR platform that Facebook envisions it to be then it's going to dwarf instagram in terms of economic importance (for advertisers and users) over the long term.
- paxys 6y agoThe flip side of it is that VR isn't mature enough for a company like Oculus to succeed independently. Having the resources of Facebook behind it will help the VR market as a whole (for now).
- kossae 6y agoI think the FTC will deal with that as it comes. Including that in this case would be speculating the future of the Oculus business.
- freehunter 6y agoThat's a big if, one that hinges on way too many things to be able to successfully argue in court about: 1) VR ever becoming a huge player. It might. It might not. Right now there's no real evidence that VR will actually become a big deal, and Facebook could argue that this is a niche offering that can't be anti-competitive because there's no real market yet. 2) The feasibility of VR technology independent of major vendors. There's a strong possibility that without a huge R&D budget VR will never overcome the hurdles that might keep it out of the mainstream. Facebook could argue that removing Oculus would doom VR to failure in the market. 3) The Sirus/XM merger removed 100% of satellite radio competition (there's only one vendor left after the merger), but both Sirius and XM successfully argued that the market isn't big enough to support multiple vendors. Facebook could argue a similar case, that for the health of the VR market there should be fewer competitors. I'm not a lawyer so I don't know if any of those would be winning arguments, but based on previous anti-trust cases I've followed that would be the strategy I would expect. And it might be why the FTC didn't go down that path.
- tempsy 6y agoPretty sure the focus is on Instagram and Whatsapp only, not Oculus.
- SerLava 6y agoUgh, yeah Facebook probably bought Oculus thinking: -What if a lot of people use these in the future -What if they're really comfy when they get slim, and people use them all the time, even for essentially web browsing. -Later models can easily have internal and mouth facing cameras so you can smile at people in VR -Let's intimately observe the finest twitch of every expression felt by our users, peering deep into their minds, learning more about how to manipulate and destroy humans than anyone ever thought possible.
- SerLava 6y agoI'm getting down votes here, does anyone really think Facebook wouldn't do this?
- annadane 6y agoYou're getting downvotes from apologists and shills
- dane-pgp 6y ago"If you want a vision of the future, imagine a VR headset worn on a human face - forever." (Apologies to George Orwell.)
- retromario 6y agoTheir thinking is pretty much all laid out in the 2015 Zuckerberg memo on VR/AR: https://twitter.com/lucasmtny/status/1095861887588229120?s=20 https://twitter.com/lucasmtny/status/1095861887588229120?s=2...
- shostack 6y agoAva the Oculus Connect 6 keynote video on YouTube.
- Applejinx 6y agoDamn straight. The prospect of how much you can learn about human reactions is INCREDIBLE. Eye and mouth tracking is everything, here: it would be turning a wide variety of human behavior study into Big Data and straightforward machine learning. What would you do with it? What wouldn't you do with it?
- jfb 6y agoOculus doesn't present a monopoly concern in advertising, though.
- sharkweek 6y agoJust wait until you slip into the Oculus 5 and enjoy a movie night with your friends anywhere in the world! Oh what’s that? Your eyes looked at the logo on the shirt the hero is wearing, are you perhaps interested in learning more about where you could buy it?
- csunbird 6y agoOr, if the Oculus becomes the most popular VR equipment, think about the advertising can be shown to people in VR Chat rooms, VR films, virtual cinemas..... all bound to a single company.
- justapassenger 6y ago> I know it's a pipe dream, but an independent Oculus would make me so happy While that would cool for short-term, independent Oculus can stagnate. VR still needs many more billions to be truly usable, and I don't think independent company will be able to fund it.
- djrogers 6y ago> independent Oculus can stagnate My experience has been that technology is far more likely to stagnate at BigCo than SmallCo - especially if SmallCo's only source of revenue is said technology.
- thebigman433 6y agoI think down the line that would be true, but Facebook's willingness to burn literal billions of dollars at this point is basically the only thing carrying VR. Id love to see it split off in the future though.
- Barrin92 6y agoI'm not sure big money is what is needed to create a flourishing VR sector. The appeal of VR has always been creating virtual experiences that are different and unique. honestly I think it makes much more sense for that scene to be decentralised and independent. Kind of like Minecraft came about, I have trouble imagining it as some sort big money project. I don't think the issue with VR at this point is so much technical than it is that nobody's yet been creative enough to make something truly unique with it.
- arxpoetica 6y agoAgree. VR is not more than a novelty and gaming tool yet. Gaming is a huge potential, but I think the real use cases haven't been proven out yet. I'm still a believer, but I suspect there are other non-VR technologies that either need to catch up or just figure out how to dovetail for VR to be anything other than a novelty.
- rolph 6y agoconsidering some of the things that facebook has been used for it should be very careful about what it does with VR/AR and the potential for use as a HUD facilitating an attacker and providing them with a support team
- cynoclast 6y agoI was interested in VR before FB bought Oculus and was considering it as an option. But the instant FB bought it I wrote it off as an option because I knew there would be fuckery down the road. And guess what? If FB bans the FB account you're forced to link your Oculus to you, can't use it anymore. Unbelievable behvior.
- codetrotter 6y agoFrom a privacy point of view I agree that it sounds like a good thing and I hope it happens. From an entrepreneurial point of view I wonder how it will affect the future of big tech players acquiring other companies.
- sneak 6y agoFrom a privacy point of view it doesn't matter who collects it so long as the FBI and US military can retrieve it on-demand without a warrant or probable cause under FAA 702.
- yur3i__ 6y agoI disagree with this. Privately owned threats are still a big deal, even if government threats also exist.
- lowdose 6y agoIt should be forbidden after IPO to acquire other companies because of this kills competition before it has the chance to compete.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- ggreer 6y agoThen no companies would IPO.
- vmception 6y ago> From an entrepreneurial point of view I wonder how it will affect the future of big tech players acquiring other companies. It won't. The full power of the United States does not reverse all those shares you sold to a big tech company, or sold as a big shareholder of a big tech company. If the market tolerates a price, based on their own exuberance and view of future revenues, that is fine here, and the incentives will continue to promote near term profits with a who-gives-a-shit slim possibility of cleanup by the regulators. Corporations are just a conduit for money, and the regulators only enforce actions on the conduit, and thats a maybe.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- SerLava 6y agoHuge. I'm glad Zuckerberg is probably panicking.
- samfisher83 6y agoEven if they were three separate companies wouldn't Mark still have voting control of all three companies?
- SerLava 6y agoI don't think so? Can anyone answer this definitively?
- dsr_ 6y agoThe FTC could, potentially, require: 1. That FB split into N independent companies, whereupon each share of FB would become 1 share in each of N companies. 2. That the supermajor shareholders (say, more than 10% of any company) each pick at most one company to retain that interest in, and sell off shares in the other companies until they had less than 10% of each of those). 3. That the new companies avoid overlapping directors. It would be a long time in court. See the breakup of AT&T.
- lotsofpulp 6y agoAnd then it would eventually come back together. See ATT. https://money.cnn.com/infographic/technology/att-merger-history/ https://money.cnn.com/infographic/technology/att-merger-hist...
- claudeganon 6y agoWill splitting off Instagram make a meaningful difference given how little protections there are around selling advertising data? I agree we would’ve been better off if they had never been allowed to buy Instagram AND we had meaningful laws in place, but I don’t see how this fundamentally changes things given where we are now.
- Erik816 6y agoIf only there were some kind of federal agency, maybe a "trade commission" that could have blocked these mergers when they originally happened ....
- JxLS-cpgbe0 6y agoThe FTC allowed the IG merger because * No ads (lol) * Competition from Google even if it did have ads * FB had no competitive photo app
- ergocoder 6y agoWhen they originally happened, people thought Zuck was insane. Instagram for $1B? WhatsApp for $17B? Really? FTC definitely isn't competent enough to understand how visionary the acquisition was. To be fair, not many was that competent. Otherwise, Google and other cash-loaded companies would have acquired these companies with higher offer. It could have easily been Twitter + Vines + Periscope where the acquired products went nowhere. It's unfair to Zuck for being very visionary about this. But antitrust isn't about being fair to an individual company...
- madeofpalk 6y ago> When they originally happened, people thought Zuck was insane. Maybe that's a sign that the acquisitions deserved more scrutiny?
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- majani 6y agoTo be fair, that Whatsapp deal still looks insane. Still no meaningful revenue coming from that end 8 years later
- will_pseudonym 6y agoExcept the revenue that they potentially would have been losing out on had they not acquired their competitor.
- wlesieutre 6y agoOculus too please! I'm holding off on merging my Oculus and Facebook accounts as long as possible in hopes that someone tells them to get the hell out of here with that nonsense.