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Didn’t even have to scroll before I found the lynchpin. When you reach the size and “market penetration” that Facebook in social networking , Google in search,

Didn’t even have to scroll before I found the lynchpin. When you reach the size and “market penetration” that Facebook in social networking , Google in search, or Microsoft’s Windows operating system have attained, you can’t go around demanding everyone sign agreements containing clauses that do things like this… > requiring third-party app developers to agree not to create products that could compete with Facebook. That’s textbook anticompetitive behaviour, once you pass that fuzzy threshold that defines market dominance in a legal capacity for the sake of antitrust/anti-competition legislation. Before anyone mentions Twitter. Facebook is dominant in social networking not because Twitter isn’t, but because Twitter and Facebook are different enough it’s unfair to compare them directly and qualitatively, by extension Discord represents a social network platform of a sort, yet it would be hard to say Discord is completing with Twitter… yet they definitely are competing with Facebook because of their internally developed Facebook Messenger and ownership of WhatsApp. Facebook has built or acquired its way into almost all “forms” of social networking and continues to do so any time anything new crops up (see their clubhouse clone) which they are effective at by leveraging their existing position in the rest of social networking, a cycle of behaviour which is synonymous with being dominant in a market. You’re big enough to keep all of it under your control as best you can control it.

iamstupidsimple 5y ago
Is Discord competing with Slack? Is Discord competing with Skype? What about Facebook Messenger? Most of my friend group uses Discord exclusively, after trying all the aforementioned options. We don't feel tied to Facebook whatsoever.
- techdragon 5y ago
  Discord definitely competes with Slack. But it’s in mindshare not customers. Slack targets businesses and the server owner pays, Discord seems allergic to the notion of a more “serious” product and it’s revenue comes from individuals paying a subscription for a bundle of extras that individuals can use in multiple servers across the entirety of Discord. Discord is competing with Skype indirectly, users communicating via voice chat in a private Discord server may have previously used Skype and represent a loss of users for Skype, but at the same time Discord and Skype are targeting their customers differently enough that I don’t see them as “fishing in the same stream” to use an analogy. Facebook Messenger is competing with Discord because it’s always there, if you have Facebook you have Facebook Messenger, “why use something else?” … Facebook are trying to be good enough to keep users active in their apps instead of any one else’s. Discord are trying to be better at group chat use cases but I don’t see the same focus on direct message style chat between individuals in Discord as I see when watching people use Facebook Messenger.
  - smoldesu 5y ago
    > if you have Facebook you have Facebook Messenger, “why use something else?” If you have a Microsoft account you have OneDrive, if you have a Gmail account then you have a YouTube channel, if you have an Apple ID then you have iMessage. This is not a new (nor novel, nor frankly illegal) tactic by big tech, and I honestly doubt the FTC gives a shit. Our current government benefits greatly from the centralization of these services, so disrupting that would be against private (and to a degree, public) interest.
- kwere 5y ago
  Facebook has a very big walled garden that will be protected and monetized. Go and ask to all your hoa members or old classmates for example to move to discord
  - techdragon 5y ago
    Exactly, Facebook has built a huge garden, and to extend the walled garden metaphor… the garden is now so big it crossed the line beyond which, we as a society, agree that you aren’t allowed to put up certain kinds of walls. If that sounds like a bad analogy, imagine how the government would treat a single private company that owned more than 70% of the private land in the country. “It’s our gland we should be able to do what we want…” has to break down at a certain point, the alternative is a slow relentless slide into crypto-capitalist (crypto like cryptozoology not cryptocurrency) dystopian oppression.

iamstupidsimple 5y ago

Is Discord competing with Slack? Is Discord competing with Skype? What about Facebook Messenger? Most of my friend group uses Discord exclusively, after trying all the aforementioned options. We don't feel tied to Facebook whatsoever.

techdragon 5y ago
Discord definitely competes with Slack. But it’s in mindshare not customers. Slack targets businesses and the server owner pays, Discord seems allergic to the notion of a more “serious” product and it’s revenue comes from individuals paying a subscription for a bundle of extras that individuals can use in multiple servers across the entirety of Discord. Discord is competing with Skype indirectly, users communicating via voice chat in a private Discord server may have previously used Skype and represent a loss of users for Skype, but at the same time Discord and Skype are targeting their customers differently enough that I don’t see them as “fishing in the same stream” to use an analogy. Facebook Messenger is competing with Discord because it’s always there, if you have Facebook you have Facebook Messenger, “why use something else?” … Facebook are trying to be good enough to keep users active in their apps instead of any one else’s. Discord are trying to be better at group chat use cases but I don’t see the same focus on direct message style chat between individuals in Discord as I see when watching people use Facebook Messenger.
- smoldesu 5y ago
  > if you have Facebook you have Facebook Messenger, “why use something else?” If you have a Microsoft account you have OneDrive, if you have a Gmail account then you have a YouTube channel, if you have an Apple ID then you have iMessage. This is not a new (nor novel, nor frankly illegal) tactic by big tech, and I honestly doubt the FTC gives a shit. Our current government benefits greatly from the centralization of these services, so disrupting that would be against private (and to a degree, public) interest.
kwere 5y ago
Facebook has a very big walled garden that will be protected and monetized. Go and ask to all your hoa members or old classmates for example to move to discord
- techdragon 5y ago
  Exactly, Facebook has built a huge garden, and to extend the walled garden metaphor… the garden is now so big it crossed the line beyond which, we as a society, agree that you aren’t allowed to put up certain kinds of walls. If that sounds like a bad analogy, imagine how the government would treat a single private company that owned more than 70% of the private land in the country. “It’s our gland we should be able to do what we want…” has to break down at a certain point, the alternative is a slow relentless slide into crypto-capitalist (crypto like cryptozoology not cryptocurrency) dystopian oppression.