4 ms·

Great, lets get on it then

sam0x17 5y ago
I also think if we're being charitable, AWS would be split off from Amazon, and possibly sub-divided further, likewise for the other public clouds -- Google search and Google Cloud shouldn't be owned by the same entity, etc.
- ivirshup 5y ago
  How so? Facebook buying Instagram and WhatsApp is essentially them buying out their competition. Google running a cloud service is more like renting out excess capacity – which is quite common across industries. Plus there's a lot of competition in the cloud space.
  - oblio 5y ago
    There's a clear conflict of interest when owning the platform and services on top of it. You'll be <<very>> tempted to do things to the platform to favor your own services. The incentives are so strong I don't think we've even invented things to prevent this on a long enough time scale.
  - sam0x17 5y ago
    Yeah, a charitable reading of the old trust-busting laws and the motivations behind them would suggest that something like a search engine company should not have any products other than the search engine itself, lest there be a massive conflict of interest. If you have an interest in receiving incoming web traffic, you have a conflict of interest if you also own a search engine (or online advertising network, for that matter).
  - inetknght 5y ago
    > Google running a cloud service is more like renting out excess capacity If that were actually the case, then sure. But it's not. Alphabet's Google Cloud services have whole data centers dedicated to renting to the public and Alphabet's Google and other businesses entities are their own customer.
baby 5y ago
That’s a dumb idea.
- vorpalhex 5y ago
  Try to make arguments and not just insults. WhatsApp has been a goldmine for Facebook and they've been terrible stewards of the platform, with significant moderation woes cutting both ways. It's meant to be their foray into countries that don't typically use Facebook and serves to force people onto their platform. I'd be very ok if Facebook was forced to offload it.
  - baby 5y ago
    > WhatsApp has been a goldmine for Facebook Come on, FB ran whatsapp for many years with zero revenue. Whatsapp would not be what it is today without FB. > they've been terrible stewards of the platform In what sense? When they enabled end-to-end encryption for billions of people? Or launched encrypted backups?
    - vorpalhex 5y ago
      > Come on, FB ran whatsapp for many years with zero revenue. And Walmart undercut prices to the point of losing revenue to establish their position. Your lack of profitability does not somehow undo your monopolizing. > When they enabled end-to-end encryption for billions of people? Whatsapp still does not have global E2E [1]. > Or launched encrypted backups? Yet the FBI still puts pen registers on the service [2] which makes backups moot. > Whatsapp would not be what it is today without FB. I think WhatsApp would be a much better product in someone elses hands. [3] [4] [1] - https://nypressnews.com/news/technology/meta-confirms-messenger-and-instagram-wont-get-full-e2e-encryption-for-some-time/ https://nypressnews.com/news/technology/meta-confirms-messen... [2] - https://propertyofthepeople.org/document-detail/?doc-id=21114562 https://propertyofthepeople.org/document-detail/?doc-id=2111... [3] - https://m.dw.com/en/whatsapp-in-india-scourge-of-violence-inciting-fake-news-tough-to-tackle/a-52709823 https://m.dw.com/en/whatsapp-in-india-scourge-of-violence-in... [4] - https://techhq.com/2021/11/after-record-gdpr-fine-whatsapp-finetuned-its-privacy-policy-in-europe/ https://techhq.com/2021/11/after-record-gdpr-fine-whatsapp-f...

I also think if we're being charitable, AWS would be split off from Amazon, and possibly sub-divided further, likewise for the other public clouds -- Google search and Google Cloud shouldn't be owned by the same entity, etc.

ivirshup 5y ago
How so? Facebook buying Instagram and WhatsApp is essentially them buying out their competition. Google running a cloud service is more like renting out excess capacity – which is quite common across industries. Plus there's a lot of competition in the cloud space.
- oblio 5y ago
  There's a clear conflict of interest when owning the platform and services on top of it. You'll be <<very>> tempted to do things to the platform to favor your own services. The incentives are so strong I don't think we've even invented things to prevent this on a long enough time scale.
- sam0x17 5y ago
  Yeah, a charitable reading of the old trust-busting laws and the motivations behind them would suggest that something like a search engine company should not have any products other than the search engine itself, lest there be a massive conflict of interest. If you have an interest in receiving incoming web traffic, you have a conflict of interest if you also own a search engine (or online advertising network, for that matter).
- inetknght 5y ago
  > Google running a cloud service is more like renting out excess capacity If that were actually the case, then sure. But it's not. Alphabet's Google Cloud services have whole data centers dedicated to renting to the public and Alphabet's Google and other businesses entities are their own customer.

baby 5y ago

That’s a dumb idea.

vorpalhex 5y ago
Try to make arguments and not just insults. WhatsApp has been a goldmine for Facebook and they've been terrible stewards of the platform, with significant moderation woes cutting both ways. It's meant to be their foray into countries that don't typically use Facebook and serves to force people onto their platform. I'd be very ok if Facebook was forced to offload it.
- baby 5y ago
  > WhatsApp has been a goldmine for Facebook Come on, FB ran whatsapp for many years with zero revenue. Whatsapp would not be what it is today without FB. > they've been terrible stewards of the platform In what sense? When they enabled end-to-end encryption for billions of people? Or launched encrypted backups?
  - vorpalhex 5y ago
    > Come on, FB ran whatsapp for many years with zero revenue. And Walmart undercut prices to the point of losing revenue to establish their position. Your lack of profitability does not somehow undo your monopolizing. > When they enabled end-to-end encryption for billions of people? Whatsapp still does not have global E2E [1]. > Or launched encrypted backups? Yet the FBI still puts pen registers on the service [2] which makes backups moot. > Whatsapp would not be what it is today without FB. I think WhatsApp would be a much better product in someone elses hands. [3] [4] [1] - https://nypressnews.com/news/technology/meta-confirms-messenger-and-instagram-wont-get-full-e2e-encryption-for-some-time/ https://nypressnews.com/news/technology/meta-confirms-messen... [2] - https://propertyofthepeople.org/document-detail/?doc-id=21114562 https://propertyofthepeople.org/document-detail/?doc-id=2111... [3] - https://m.dw.com/en/whatsapp-in-india-scourge-of-violence-inciting-fake-news-tough-to-tackle/a-52709823 https://m.dw.com/en/whatsapp-in-india-scourge-of-violence-in... [4] - https://techhq.com/2021/11/after-record-gdpr-fine-whatsapp-finetuned-its-privacy-policy-in-europe/ https://techhq.com/2021/11/after-record-gdpr-fine-whatsapp-f...