5 ms·
The explanation is that the platform firms operate with a high level of market power, which is another way of saying that they benefit from monopoly or near-mon
by safety1st 10mo ago
The explanation is that the platform firms operate with a high level of market power, which is another way of saying that they benefit from monopoly or near-monopoly effects that make them relatively immune from things like what their customers want.
This is actually textbook monopoly stuff, well established in antitrust literature and well understood by regulators: when you see a firm institutionalizing how to defend criminal activity as a part of their business model, it's a big flag that said firm probably has some kind of immunity from how healthy, regulated markets operate. Why America has decided not to prosecute corporate criminals anymore (given that at various points in its history it was actually pretty good at this) is the really interesting question of our time.
- nickff 10mo agoI suspect that your explanation is what people in those organizations think is happening, but I believe that what’s really going on is that they’re ‘spending’ (and depleting) their brand equity.
- socialcommenter 10mo agoI'm not sure it stops there, either - I wonder if others feel the same. If every platform is doing this, then are they destroying the trust of online media (the internet?) in general? Facebook isn't exactly alone in its reputation of monetising people's attention and serving them dangerous content. I'm eagerly waiting for the day when the elderly people in my family swear off the internet entirely.
- llmslave2 10mo agoI think it's more likely that the newer gens swear it off than the older ones, who have become thoroughly brain rotted by it. It's like they have no immunity. At least gen-z is more aware of the damage it does. We're at the "hmm, I think smoking is probably bad for us" stage. Next up, serious attempts at quitting.
- tremon 10mo agoBeing immune to the "depletion of their brand equity" is part of the near-monopoly effects the GP was referring to.
- nickff 10mo agoI do not believe that those brands are immune.
- llmslave2 10mo agoThose brands are not immune at all. Everybody I know (who isn't in tech) has a negative opinion of these brands.
- bigbadfeline 10mo ago> Everybody I know... has a negative opinion of these brands. Not uncommon but they still use them, that's how monopolies work. I mean, people do hate monopolies but that changes absolutely nothing. The network effect is real and cannot be broken without a concerted media push, which is another can of worms I'd rather not open this year.
- llmslave2 10mo agoSomething can be both flawed and hated, yet still useful, and still good enough. There is also a cost to switching products, and that has nothing to do with monopolies. Unfortunately the M word is thrown around to describe basically any company with a significant market share and it totally dilutes the meaning of the term.
- awesome_dude 10mo agoThis is fascinating - your complaint appears to be that someone used the term "near-monopoly" and you claim that its being used to describe companies with a "significant market share" - which is the actual definition of the term.
- conception 10mo agoThe reason started in the 70’s - https://reclaimdemocracy.org/powell_memo_lewis/ https://reclaimdemocracy.org/powell_memo_lewis/
- thanksgiving 10mo agoSomehow I knew in my heart this was about Ronald Reagan even though you said the seventies.
- PaulHoule 10mo agoWe remember Reagan because he was a colorful character and vociferous advocate of markets, but the changes we associate with him (e.g. Ralph Nader getting shut out of Congress) started under Carter and were continued under Clinton.
- jonners00 10mo agoEr, that example most definitely isn't one of 'the changes we associate with him'.
- SoftTalker 10mo agoThings go in cycles because people who get into power on a crusade against something are never satisfied that they've done enough to address that issue. In the gilded age we had robber barons and trusts. That lead to trust-busting and anti-monopoly regulation. Eventually the history is forgotten and people see the current regulations as burdensome. Someone gets into power with a mandate to deregulate, and we eventually end up with monopolies again. Private enterprise and free markets are good. Monopolies are not. It doesn't have to be one or the other but nobody can seem to take their hands off when we reach a happy middle ground.
- godelski 10mo agoDon't forget that there's implicit collusion. No back door deals need to be made between competitors when they see they can both benefit. There's a Carlin quote about conspiracy somewhere in there
- RajT88 10mo agoFacebook ads absolutely allow criminal activity. https://www.thestar.com/news/investigations/we-ordered-cocaine-for-100-through-a-facebook-ad-heres-why-it-was-easy-to/article_17a6a904-5bec-4f60-a5b5-891dba7fa369.html https://www.thestar.com/news/investigations/we-ordered-cocai...
- gruez 10mo agoOnly in the sense that USPS "allows" for drugs to be delivered through their service. Here's an image purporting to be for criminal activity: https://bloximages.chicago2.vip.townnews.com/thestar.com/content/tncms/assets/v3/editorial/2/7a/27a09348-09ac-5be9-bc08-09f1280b4b60/690fdd7dede37.image.jpg https://bloximages.chicago2.vip.townnews.com/thestar.com/con... While I can see how this could be "obviously" for drugs if you're specifically looking out for this sort of stuff, it's disguised well enough (eg. no overt references to drugs) that an automated algorithm would have a hard time detecting this without massive collateral damage.
- RajT88 10mo agoSome articles on the topic observe that ads like you show above magically disappear once you are across the US border. They likely know exactly what is going on.
- monerozcash 10mo agoHmmm, could it be the Canada-based drug dealer has his advertising set to target Canadian customers only? No, it has to be Meta covering up ... something?
- llmslave2 10mo agoIt's definitionally not a monopoly. Just because a company can provide a flawed product and maintain customers doesn't mean they are abusing monopolies. Jfc, it's like people throw darts at a grid to ascribe causes to problems and every square these days is either "capitalism" or "monopolies"
- clickety_clack 10mo agoI’d say the real explanation is that individual PMs have KPIs tied to ad sales, and that is more important to them than the overall success of either the company or the ideals of social media.
- tempodox 10mo agoEnabled by the fact that criminal acts aren’t being prosecuted. If they were, this kind of behavior wouldn’t last long.
- red-iron-pine 10mo ago"my job security and bonus is tied to how much I increase X" and the company and other teams provide the framework to absolve any moral responsibility -- "the higher ups gave me the tools, and I need to pay rent"
- pyrale 10mo ago> the really interesting question of our time. The answer is corruption.
- immibis 10mo agoA single buyer is a monopsony, FWIW
- NoToP 10mo agoRecently I've been reading the report of the Knapp Commission, which was a 1972 inquiry into police corruption in New York City. That sounds tangential at first but it really isn't, the findings of the commission are broadly applicable. One of the major points of it being that corrupt officers correctly judged they had very little to fear from prosecution. There's this great table on page 250 showing the complete lack of prosecutions in the years leading up to the commission, driving home the point. The reasons for that utter lack of prosecution leading to massive corruption is a microcosm of the broader circumstance to which you've pointed out. Having read the Knapp Commission report, I am no longer of the view I have anything original to say on this.