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>'I despise it.' Hear that beleaugered holders of Facebook stock? That kind of talk would make my blood run cold. How many companies can you name that you activ

>'I despise it.' Hear that beleaugered holders of Facebook stock? That kind of talk would make my blood run cold. How many companies can you name that you actively despise? Actually? Quite a few. I despise Comcast. I despise the big-4 cell phone companies (Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile, Sprint). I despise the oil companies (BP, Chevron, Texaco, et. al). Notice a pattern? Despite my (and presumably many others) despising these companies, they are all enormously profitable. I think Facebook has got to the state where they at least think they have a monopoly on their users' social graphs and are willing to raise access prices sky-high. I'm not surprised it happened. I'm surprised it took this long.

dredmorbius 14y ago
Sprint Nextel aren't exactly profitable: http://www.google.com/finance?q=NYSE%3AS&fstype=ii&ei=YWaIUIidLeTgiAKbHw http://www.google.com/finance?q=NYSE%3AS&fstype=ii&e... I believe most of the others are. The more salient characteristic of these companies is that they 1) dominate their respective markets (as monopolies or one of a small number of oligopolistic suppliers), and 2) are spectacularly unresponsive to customer/user sentiments. "We don't care, we don't have to. We're the Phone Company". https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k9e3dTOJi0o https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k9e3dTOJi0o
- quanticle 14y ago
  >1) dominate their respective markets (as monopolies or one of a small number of oligopolistic suppliers), Check. Most people can't be bothered to maintain a presence on more than two social networks. So Facebook, Twitter (and in a distant third place) Google Plus have a de-facto oligolopoly on users' ad viewing. And given Facebook's enormous userbase, it's not exactly convenient for users to switch away, due to network effects. >2) are spectacularly unresponsive to customer/user sentiments. Every change Facebook has made lately has been vociferously opposed by its userbase, usually because it erodes privacy and reduces the perceived level of control that people have over the broadcast of their status updates. >"We don't care, we don't have to. We're the Phone Company". Replace "Phone Company" with Facebook and that may as well be a paraphrase of Mark Zuckerberg.

dredmorbius 14y ago

Sprint Nextel aren't exactly profitable: http://www.google.com/finance?q=NYSE%3AS&fstype=ii&ei=YWaIUIidLeTgiAKbHw http://www.google.com/finance?q=NYSE%3AS&fstype=ii&e... I believe most of the others are. The more salient characteristic of these companies is that they 1) dominate their respective markets (as monopolies or one of a small number of oligopolistic suppliers), and 2) are spectacularly unresponsive to customer/user sentiments. "We don't care, we don't have to. We're the Phone Company". https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k9e3dTOJi0o https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k9e3dTOJi0o

quanticle 14y ago
>1) dominate their respective markets (as monopolies or one of a small number of oligopolistic suppliers), Check. Most people can't be bothered to maintain a presence on more than two social networks. So Facebook, Twitter (and in a distant third place) Google Plus have a de-facto oligolopoly on users' ad viewing. And given Facebook's enormous userbase, it's not exactly convenient for users to switch away, due to network effects. >2) are spectacularly unresponsive to customer/user sentiments. Every change Facebook has made lately has been vociferously opposed by its userbase, usually because it erodes privacy and reduces the perceived level of control that people have over the broadcast of their status updates. >"We don't care, we don't have to. We're the Phone Company". Replace "Phone Company" with Facebook and that may as well be a paraphrase of Mark Zuckerberg.