5 ms·

They exist because they're popular, you can't dictate what is popular among the masses without authoritarianism.

anp 6y ago
They exist because they’re popular and because the currently successful ones acquired or strangled all of their smaller meaningful competitors using investment capital and money from first mover advantages.
- root_axis 6y ago
  Can you give some examples?
  - fakedang 6y ago
    Haha, are you serious? Instagram, WhatsApp, Snapchat... Instagram's Systrom explicitly said that he sold because otherwise Facebook would snuff him away.
    - root_axis 6y ago
      Facebook never acquired Snapchat so I'm not sure what you're talking about there. Instagram and WhatsApp have continued to thrive since their acquisition, so from a user perspective nothing really changed, it's not like you need a FB account to use insta or whatsapp.
      - fakedang 6y ago
        GP: > They exist because they’re popular and because the currently successful ones acquired or strangled all of their smaller meaningful competitors using investment capital and money from first mover advantages. Facebook literally copied Snapchat features into Instagram rightaway - Systrom even openly admitted it. That fits the bill of "strangled". Snapchat is in stagnation now, because everything it has is there on Insta. Instagram and WhatsApp thrived only because Facebook acquired them, else both companies new they would be smothered to death. That pretty much fits the bill of "acquired... Using investment capital and money from first mover advantages". They don't need you to use your FB account because they cross share data anyways. It's not like it's a painstaking operation to link different accounts, once you have all sorts of device data (which Facebook had, even on Apple devices up until recently).
      - _flux 6y ago
        That may be the case now, but Facebook did start requiring Facebook accounts for their Oculus VR headsets. Much to the dismay of many. Maybe it's the test case FB is monitoring to look how to move ahead with their other acquisitions. Last I heard Quest 2 sales are good..
  - baash05 6y ago
    whatsapp. It's been drastically changed by facebook
- hntrader 6y ago
  There's definitely an anti-trust dimension here, but it's not related to first mover advantage; Facebook wasn't nearly the first mover, or due to capital; Facebook was somewhat widely thought to have over-paid for Instgram, it was Zuck's foresight (or perhaps risk aversion) that gave him the conviction to proceed with the transaction.
fiddlerwoaroof 6y ago
You don’t have to dictate popularity: just create legal liability frameworks that make a solution like Mastodon more appealing than a solution like Facebook or Twitter
- root_axis 6y ago
  People can still be banned on Mastadon, it changes absolutely nothing. In a world where Mastadon becomes more popular than FB people will complain about being banned from the most popular node instead of the most popular http website.
  - fastball 6y ago
    Mastadon is federated, so you can be banned from someone else's instance but you can always start your own instance, or join one where you're not banned.
    - root_axis 6y ago
      Right, just like how you can start your own website if you get banned from someone else's, it's servers all the way down. The people complaining about being banned don't care that they can create their own instance, they care about losing access to the popular instance.
      - fiddlerwoaroof 6y ago
        The advantage of mastodon is that banning is not monolithic: so, if I have instances A, B, C, D: B can decide (through whatever process it uses for such things) they don’t like A’s content and ban it without affecting users on C and D. But, the problem it really solves is moderation: if I start an instance with 10 friends, moderation of posts on the instance is almost a non-issue that can be handled by a couple admins in their spare time. Handling off-instance posts is more difficult, but you can either maintain a ban list to block a list of bad instances or you can adopt a default deny policy and only federate with instances that have content your local community wants to see. Either way, the Mastodon model seems better because it allows policy to be specified at the “local” level rather than requiring a uniform policy across the network.
aserafini 6y ago
They exist because they’re profitable. They can become unprofitable through democratic legislation.
- root_axis 6y ago
  Twitter is only barley profitable as of a year ago, yet it has continued to exist as a large social network during that time, so that explanation doesn't fit.
input_sh 6y ago
Sure you can, just require interoperability with similar services and prevent them from straight up buying the competition and watch their "popularity" fade away.
- root_axis 6y ago
  I think preventing FB from buying competitors is perfectly reasonable, but that doesn't really mean much with respect to FB's popularity. It's not as if users have to choose "should I use FB or instagram" they can and do use both, and that would still be possible whether FB owned instagram or not.
  - input_sh 6y ago
    How about the other part of the comment that you've ignored? If people could use Alternative X without losing their Facebook/Instagram connections, Facebook would fade into irrelevance. There's absolutely no technical reason for everyone to have a separate Facebook/Instagram/Twitter account with dozens of other IM services instead of picking one and communicating with others regardless of what they've picked. That future is only one regulation away. The most common reason for staying on Facebook ("all my friends are there") disappears.
    - root_axis 6y ago
      > If people could use Alternative X without losing their Facebook/Instagram connections They can already do that. Using an alternative does not cause someone to lose access to FB. > There's absolutely no technical reason for everyone to have a separate Facebook/Instagram/Twitter account with dozens of other IM services instead of picking one and communicating with others regardless of what they've picked This is already a thing. https://www.pidgin.im/plugins/?publisher=all&query=&type= https://www.pidgin.im/plugins/?publisher=all&query=&type=
      - input_sh 6y ago
        I feel like you're just trolling at this point. > Using an alternative does not cause someone to lose access to FB. Deleting Facebook causes you to lose access to your Facebook connections. Why can't you just use your Twitter account to communicate with someone on Facebook? There's zero technical reason for this not to be possible. > This is already a thing. https://www.pidgin.im/plugins/?publisher=all&query=&type= https://www.pidgin.im/plugins/?publisher=all&query=&type= It's not. It's a third party workaround that Facebook could kill at any point if it gave a shit. Do I really need to explain to you how that's different than first party support for something so basic? Just like with email, you should be able to enter a username and a IM provider and just talk to them as if you're using the same platform. It's really not rocket science. Fediverse (Mastodon and compatible providers) already does that without any hiccups. It's possible, we know it works for decades (since we all use email), and it should be a requirement for every social network / IM service in existence.
rossdavidh 6y ago
We split up Standard Oil, and many other trusts, without resorting to authoritarianism. I'm not saying it's trivial, but it's probably not harder than breaking up AT&T (also a network to connect people) was.

anp 6y ago

They exist because they’re popular and because the currently successful ones acquired or strangled all of their smaller meaningful competitors using investment capital and money from first mover advantages.

root_axis 6y ago
Can you give some examples?
- fakedang 6y ago
  Haha, are you serious? Instagram, WhatsApp, Snapchat... Instagram's Systrom explicitly said that he sold because otherwise Facebook would snuff him away.
  - root_axis 6y ago
    Facebook never acquired Snapchat so I'm not sure what you're talking about there. Instagram and WhatsApp have continued to thrive since their acquisition, so from a user perspective nothing really changed, it's not like you need a FB account to use insta or whatsapp.
    - fakedang 6y ago
      GP: > They exist because they’re popular and because the currently successful ones acquired or strangled all of their smaller meaningful competitors using investment capital and money from first mover advantages. Facebook literally copied Snapchat features into Instagram rightaway - Systrom even openly admitted it. That fits the bill of "strangled". Snapchat is in stagnation now, because everything it has is there on Insta. Instagram and WhatsApp thrived only because Facebook acquired them, else both companies new they would be smothered to death. That pretty much fits the bill of "acquired... Using investment capital and money from first mover advantages". They don't need you to use your FB account because they cross share data anyways. It's not like it's a painstaking operation to link different accounts, once you have all sorts of device data (which Facebook had, even on Apple devices up until recently).
    - _flux 6y ago
      That may be the case now, but Facebook did start requiring Facebook accounts for their Oculus VR headsets. Much to the dismay of many. Maybe it's the test case FB is monitoring to look how to move ahead with their other acquisitions. Last I heard Quest 2 sales are good..
- baash05 6y ago
  whatsapp. It's been drastically changed by facebook
hntrader 6y ago
There's definitely an anti-trust dimension here, but it's not related to first mover advantage; Facebook wasn't nearly the first mover, or due to capital; Facebook was somewhat widely thought to have over-paid for Instgram, it was Zuck's foresight (or perhaps risk aversion) that gave him the conviction to proceed with the transaction.

fiddlerwoaroof 6y ago

You don’t have to dictate popularity: just create legal liability frameworks that make a solution like Mastodon more appealing than a solution like Facebook or Twitter

root_axis 6y ago
People can still be banned on Mastadon, it changes absolutely nothing. In a world where Mastadon becomes more popular than FB people will complain about being banned from the most popular node instead of the most popular http website.
- fastball 6y ago
  Mastadon is federated, so you can be banned from someone else's instance but you can always start your own instance, or join one where you're not banned.
  - root_axis 6y ago
    Right, just like how you can start your own website if you get banned from someone else's, it's servers all the way down. The people complaining about being banned don't care that they can create their own instance, they care about losing access to the popular instance.
    - fiddlerwoaroof 6y ago
      The advantage of mastodon is that banning is not monolithic: so, if I have instances A, B, C, D: B can decide (through whatever process it uses for such things) they don’t like A’s content and ban it without affecting users on C and D. But, the problem it really solves is moderation: if I start an instance with 10 friends, moderation of posts on the instance is almost a non-issue that can be handled by a couple admins in their spare time. Handling off-instance posts is more difficult, but you can either maintain a ban list to block a list of bad instances or you can adopt a default deny policy and only federate with instances that have content your local community wants to see. Either way, the Mastodon model seems better because it allows policy to be specified at the “local” level rather than requiring a uniform policy across the network.

aserafini 6y ago

They exist because they’re profitable. They can become unprofitable through democratic legislation.

root_axis 6y ago
Twitter is only barley profitable as of a year ago, yet it has continued to exist as a large social network during that time, so that explanation doesn't fit.

input_sh 6y ago

Sure you can, just require interoperability with similar services and prevent them from straight up buying the competition and watch their "popularity" fade away.

root_axis 6y ago
I think preventing FB from buying competitors is perfectly reasonable, but that doesn't really mean much with respect to FB's popularity. It's not as if users have to choose "should I use FB or instagram" they can and do use both, and that would still be possible whether FB owned instagram or not.
- input_sh 6y ago
  How about the other part of the comment that you've ignored? If people could use Alternative X without losing their Facebook/Instagram connections, Facebook would fade into irrelevance. There's absolutely no technical reason for everyone to have a separate Facebook/Instagram/Twitter account with dozens of other IM services instead of picking one and communicating with others regardless of what they've picked. That future is only one regulation away. The most common reason for staying on Facebook ("all my friends are there") disappears.
  - root_axis 6y ago
    > If people could use Alternative X without losing their Facebook/Instagram connections They can already do that. Using an alternative does not cause someone to lose access to FB. > There's absolutely no technical reason for everyone to have a separate Facebook/Instagram/Twitter account with dozens of other IM services instead of picking one and communicating with others regardless of what they've picked This is already a thing. https://www.pidgin.im/plugins/?publisher=all&query=&type= https://www.pidgin.im/plugins/?publisher=all&query=&type=
    - input_sh 6y ago
      I feel like you're just trolling at this point. > Using an alternative does not cause someone to lose access to FB. Deleting Facebook causes you to lose access to your Facebook connections. Why can't you just use your Twitter account to communicate with someone on Facebook? There's zero technical reason for this not to be possible. > This is already a thing. https://www.pidgin.im/plugins/?publisher=all&query=&type= https://www.pidgin.im/plugins/?publisher=all&query=&type= It's not. It's a third party workaround that Facebook could kill at any point if it gave a shit. Do I really need to explain to you how that's different than first party support for something so basic? Just like with email, you should be able to enter a username and a IM provider and just talk to them as if you're using the same platform. It's really not rocket science. Fediverse (Mastodon and compatible providers) already does that without any hiccups. It's possible, we know it works for decades (since we all use email), and it should be a requirement for every social network / IM service in existence.

rossdavidh 6y ago

We split up Standard Oil, and many other trusts, without resorting to authoritarianism. I'm not saying it's trivial, but it's probably not harder than breaking up AT&T (also a network to connect people) was.