4 ms·

The monopoly is not on the consumer side, it is on the advertising side. Google and Facebook are the only companies that have access to data on basically every

The monopoly is not on the consumer side, it is on the advertising side. Google and Facebook are the only companies that have access to data on basically every sale on the internet (almost every site that uses their ad tools reports back their sales). This data gives them a defensible duopoly on digital advertising.

spaced-out 5y ago
> Google and Facebook are the only companies that have access to data on basically every sale on the internet Amazon? eBay? WeChat?
- hardtke 5y ago
  Sites report their data back to Google analytics and Facebook by implementing their pixels. People don't do this for Amazon, ebay, wechat.
  - sanderjd 5y ago
    Amazon actually does have a quickly growing ads business FWIW.
sanderjd 5y ago
This argument makes way more sense, but it is also not well handled by existing anti-trust law and a much better response would be new regulation. Edit: It also doesn't speak to any of the issues with Amazon. (Also interestingly, Amazon's own advertising business is increasingly making this a tri-opoly.)