6 ms·

I don't think people are quite willing yet to fathom that Amazon and Facebook are on a rampage. Amazon copies succesful products and claims them as their own.

I don't think people are quite willing yet to fathom that Amazon and Facebook are on a rampage. Amazon copies succesful products and claims them as their own. Facebook looks at SSO authorization numbers to determine what should be the next product area to focus on. Their endgames are to take over everything, everywhere. Forums used to exist... now it's FB. Successful shoe manufacturers, bag manufacturers... decimated by Amazon's copy and paste attitude. I don't know if it's that kind of world I want to live in.

recursive 2y ago
> I don't know if it's that kind of world I want to live in. I do.
- Rexxar 2y ago
  The "do" refers to "know" or "want" ?
  - recursive 2y ago
    The knowing. I definitely don't want to live there. I have successfully unsubscribed my household from the Prime subscription. I haven't ordered anything from them in many years. And never will again if I can help it.
    - Rexxar 2y ago
      Indeed. Seeing the downvotes, it seems many people misunderstood your comment.
ubiquitysc 2y ago
I feel like it was Reddit who more successfully cannibalized forums.
- GuB-42 2y ago
  And Discord. It is not the same experience, but Discord servers often act as community hubs in the same way private forums did before. I seems to be eating Facebook too.
kjkjadksj 2y ago
You can extend the blame to anything. Look at reddit or hn. They not only took over all these old tech forums and sites, but their very existence means users who would have been on those would be forums aren’t even available. Maybe even worse is how news orgs like nyt or cnn or fox news have stolen their customer base from local news orgs. Chances are if you don’t live in dc or ny your local news org is a shell of its former self and probably mostly republishes ap wire news, and local issues aren’t well understood by most anyone.
- klodolph 2y ago
  And then there’s Discord, which also takes over from existing forums, but which has the additional distinction of being a complete pain to search.
  - eshack94 2y ago
    As well as being a pain to search, it's complete black hole for information. The trend of more and more projects and companies using Discord as their primary forum for support, docs, and discussion boards is probably not one that will be looked back on as having been a good idea. I worry that there's so much valuable information stored in prior chats that will simply disappear if Discord ever goes away. In addition to this, this valuable information is not accessible/searchable via the web without a Discord account. Plus there's the 100 server limit for free accounts, which can become a problem depending on how many projects/communities one is involved with. That being said, Discord is convenient and cheaper to license/host communities than Slack, which I think is part of the allure.
- the__alchemist 2y ago
  Something Awful is still alive and well.
- andoando 2y ago
  I feel like HN is just the right size. Reddit is a whole another ball game.
- Ensorceled 2y ago
swatcoder 2y ago
You're right about Amazon (and would have been onto something about Google or even Apple), but I think you overstate FB. They're in a quiet, desperate search for a new line of business to justify a trillion dollar valuation as ad tech revenue gets chipped away at by privacy regulation and eyeballs drawn to other networks. They even rebranded their whole identity around a moonshot idea for one. Poaching little startups is something you might be able to see here and there but isn't something they can or do distract themselves with overall; not nearly to the degree or scale that Amazon does. For Amazon, it's a top line business stragy. For Facebook, it's something a manager here or there might drive for a little attention.
idiotsecant 2y ago
Consolidation of capital into monopolies is a tale as old as the exchange of goods and services for currency.we just lived through a brief period where the Internet didn't follow those rules so rigidly. Those days are done.
- makmanalp 2y ago
  Perhaps it's also time for a new generation of antitrust protections with our newer, expanded understanding about how companies undermine competition: oligpolies that are technically not monopolies, price collusion (rather than explicit price fixing), undercutting to extreme levels to put others out of business, SLAPP lawsuits, etc. If we're going insist on a "free market", then a highly competitive market is in our best interest.
  - scoofy 2y ago
    I've been very critical of the Biden reelection campaign, but the thing that has put me at ease is the FTC going full tilt after very obviously anti-competitive behavior.
    - antisthenes 2y ago
      Is it full-tilt or is it just enough of measures to get through election season and then it's business as usual? I don't see any FAANGs being broken up by antitrust, even though that point has been well overdue for nearly a decade. It honestly should have been done ever since those CEO emails about poaching talent came out. Meanwhile they're grifting on collecting information from the entire population of North America, amassing untold wealth and influence.
      - deleted 2y ago
        [deleted]
  - int_19h 2y ago
    Perhaps it's time to just admit that monopolies are the inevitable end result of capitalism, its natural state - and all attempts at anti-trust are basically treating the symptoms rather than the disease.
atoav 2y ago
Come on a dystopian duopoly with corporate wars on the backdrop of draughts and starvation is exactly the future everybody pictures themselves and their kids in. Or as the kids say these days: but for a brief moment in time we created a lot of shareholder value. /S
BeetleB 2y ago
> Forums used to exist... now it's FB. Forums are alive and well. When I look at the forums I was active in pre-FB, about half are still up and active.

recursive 2y ago

> I don't know if it's that kind of world I want to live in. I do.

Rexxar 2y ago
The "do" refers to "know" or "want" ?
- recursive 2y ago
  The knowing. I definitely don't want to live there. I have successfully unsubscribed my household from the Prime subscription. I haven't ordered anything from them in many years. And never will again if I can help it.
  - Rexxar 2y ago
    Indeed. Seeing the downvotes, it seems many people misunderstood your comment.

ubiquitysc 2y ago

I feel like it was Reddit who more successfully cannibalized forums.

GuB-42 2y ago
And Discord. It is not the same experience, but Discord servers often act as community hubs in the same way private forums did before. I seems to be eating Facebook too.

kjkjadksj 2y ago

You can extend the blame to anything. Look at reddit or hn. They not only took over all these old tech forums and sites, but their very existence means users who would have been on those would be forums aren’t even available. Maybe even worse is how news orgs like nyt or cnn or fox news have stolen their customer base from local news orgs. Chances are if you don’t live in dc or ny your local news org is a shell of its former self and probably mostly republishes ap wire news, and local issues aren’t well understood by most anyone.

klodolph 2y ago
And then there’s Discord, which also takes over from existing forums, but which has the additional distinction of being a complete pain to search.
- eshack94 2y ago
  As well as being a pain to search, it's complete black hole for information. The trend of more and more projects and companies using Discord as their primary forum for support, docs, and discussion boards is probably not one that will be looked back on as having been a good idea. I worry that there's so much valuable information stored in prior chats that will simply disappear if Discord ever goes away. In addition to this, this valuable information is not accessible/searchable via the web without a Discord account. Plus there's the 100 server limit for free accounts, which can become a problem depending on how many projects/communities one is involved with. That being said, Discord is convenient and cheaper to license/host communities than Slack, which I think is part of the allure.
the__alchemist 2y ago
Something Awful is still alive and well.
andoando 2y ago
I feel like HN is just the right size. Reddit is a whole another ball game.
Ensorceled 2y ago

swatcoder 2y ago

You're right about Amazon (and would have been onto something about Google or even Apple), but I think you overstate FB. They're in a quiet, desperate search for a new line of business to justify a trillion dollar valuation as ad tech revenue gets chipped away at by privacy regulation and eyeballs drawn to other networks. They even rebranded their whole identity around a moonshot idea for one. Poaching little startups is something you might be able to see here and there but isn't something they can or do distract themselves with overall; not nearly to the degree or scale that Amazon does. For Amazon, it's a top line business stragy. For Facebook, it's something a manager here or there might drive for a little attention.

idiotsecant 2y ago

Consolidation of capital into monopolies is a tale as old as the exchange of goods and services for currency.we just lived through a brief period where the Internet didn't follow those rules so rigidly. Those days are done.

makmanalp 2y ago
Perhaps it's also time for a new generation of antitrust protections with our newer, expanded understanding about how companies undermine competition: oligpolies that are technically not monopolies, price collusion (rather than explicit price fixing), undercutting to extreme levels to put others out of business, SLAPP lawsuits, etc. If we're going insist on a "free market", then a highly competitive market is in our best interest.
- scoofy 2y ago
  I've been very critical of the Biden reelection campaign, but the thing that has put me at ease is the FTC going full tilt after very obviously anti-competitive behavior.
  - antisthenes 2y ago
    Is it full-tilt or is it just enough of measures to get through election season and then it's business as usual? I don't see any FAANGs being broken up by antitrust, even though that point has been well overdue for nearly a decade. It honestly should have been done ever since those CEO emails about poaching talent came out. Meanwhile they're grifting on collecting information from the entire population of North America, amassing untold wealth and influence.
    - deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
- int_19h 2y ago
  Perhaps it's time to just admit that monopolies are the inevitable end result of capitalism, its natural state - and all attempts at anti-trust are basically treating the symptoms rather than the disease.

atoav 2y ago

Come on a dystopian duopoly with corporate wars on the backdrop of draughts and starvation is exactly the future everybody pictures themselves and their kids in. Or as the kids say these days: but for a brief moment in time we created a lot of shareholder value. /S

BeetleB 2y ago

> Forums used to exist... now it's FB. Forums are alive and well. When I look at the forums I was active in pre-FB, about half are still up and active.