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> I want this to be the start of a forced breakup of Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram. okay > There’s zero benefit to consumers, and a lot of harm. There's a

> I want this to be the start of a forced breakup of Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram. okay > There’s zero benefit to consumers, and a lot of harm. There's a ton of potential societal benefit in centralization and/or monopoly in theory. There's also a ton of potential downside. What in particular makes this fall in the latter bucket?

dx034 5y ago
Where's the advantage of instagram, whatsapp and Facebook belonging to one company? The only advantage on any side I can see is combining user data and behavior data to improve ad revenue. You could argue that features can make it easier across products, but each product would be big enough on their own to develop these features at little cost compared to their income. Apart from that there's no potential upside I can see for a user to have these products under one company. The same applies to Giphy. Right now, messenger companies don't own Gif companies and it's still very easy to use them together. I don't see the benefit here for a user to have them owned by the same company.
- zethraeus 5y ago
  > Where's the advantage of instagram, whatsapp and Facebook belonging to one company? Common-ish arguments for monopolies, as applied to this situation: * potentially the interoperability you indicate * infrastructure investment leading to stability * similarly: best in class client side software * security / privacy guarantees (yes. I know, ironic, etc. but the fully distributed multi-company alternative is likely worse on these dimensions) * single point of accountability for the state and law enforcement. (yes. not likely a HN concern. Still valuable to the state and potentially regular consumers.) * general pro monopoly argument: fewer resources are wasted in competition, and so can be applied to product development and research. i.e. bell labs IDK how I feel the scales tip in this case, but treating it as cut and dry feels a bit naive.
  - ClumsyPilot 5y ago
    "* general pro monopoly argument: fewer resources are wasted in competition, and so can be applied to product development and research. i.e. bell labs" You are arguing for Central Planning. You can't be pro-free market and pro monopoly. At least government monopoly is theoretically accountable to the voters.
  - gmueckl 5y ago
    So turn it all into a state run company instead? Your points sound as if that would be a potential solution. But that would have its own issues with somewhat twisted incentive structures.
    - zethraeus 5y ago
      FWIW State granted monopolies are a common pattern for infrastructure. Strong +1 on the ensuing twisted incentives.
  - blowski 5y ago
    All of those points would likely be true of independent Instagram, WhatsApp, and Facebook. They are still huge companies, with huge budgets. If anything, being a centralised conglomerate makes them less stable, less secure. And with less competition, they actually become more wasteful.
    - zethraeus 5y ago
      The argument’s about societal wastefulness, not FB’s business acumen. I.e. It’s nontrivial to be more wasteful than it would be to have multiple teams duplicating the same product. (Strong disagree on your suggestion that the centralisation generally makes them less stable/secure, but granted on the tail risks.)
      - blowski 5y ago
        If we want to talk about "societal wastefulness", then we can probably stop wasting resources on Facebook in the first place.
        ShamelessC 5y ago
        Sounds good to me. My social media usage is restricted to GitHub and Hacker News. HN is on the chopping block however.
blowski 5y ago
"In theory" is an important caveat there. . Downsides: * Higher risk - a bigger database to attack. * A very big single point of failure * Slows down innovation * Less private Upsides (for society): * ???
- zethraeus 5y ago
  There’s a pretty good argument for functional monopolies facilitating innovation! We like our transistors and all that.
  - blowski 5y ago
    Transistors were originally invented during WW2. Reductio ad absurdum - we should have one big state monopoly controlling everything in the interests of permanent warfare.
    - Y_Y 5y ago
      The vacuum tube transistor was invented in 1907 by Forest, the modern solid-state transistor in 1947 by Bardeen and Brattain.
    - hoseja 5y ago
      That does feel like pretty much what is happening.
ClumsyPilot 5y ago
There's a ton of potential societal benefit in a benevolent dictator in theory. There's also a ton of potential downside. Usually we dont ask "What in particular makes this fall in the latter bucket?"

dx034 5y ago

Where's the advantage of instagram, whatsapp and Facebook belonging to one company? The only advantage on any side I can see is combining user data and behavior data to improve ad revenue. You could argue that features can make it easier across products, but each product would be big enough on their own to develop these features at little cost compared to their income. Apart from that there's no potential upside I can see for a user to have these products under one company. The same applies to Giphy. Right now, messenger companies don't own Gif companies and it's still very easy to use them together. I don't see the benefit here for a user to have them owned by the same company.

zethraeus 5y ago
> Where's the advantage of instagram, whatsapp and Facebook belonging to one company? Common-ish arguments for monopolies, as applied to this situation: * potentially the interoperability you indicate * infrastructure investment leading to stability * similarly: best in class client side software * security / privacy guarantees (yes. I know, ironic, etc. but the fully distributed multi-company alternative is likely worse on these dimensions) * single point of accountability for the state and law enforcement. (yes. not likely a HN concern. Still valuable to the state and potentially regular consumers.) * general pro monopoly argument: fewer resources are wasted in competition, and so can be applied to product development and research. i.e. bell labs IDK how I feel the scales tip in this case, but treating it as cut and dry feels a bit naive.
- ClumsyPilot 5y ago
  "* general pro monopoly argument: fewer resources are wasted in competition, and so can be applied to product development and research. i.e. bell labs" You are arguing for Central Planning. You can't be pro-free market and pro monopoly. At least government monopoly is theoretically accountable to the voters.
- gmueckl 5y ago
  So turn it all into a state run company instead? Your points sound as if that would be a potential solution. But that would have its own issues with somewhat twisted incentive structures.
  - zethraeus 5y ago
    FWIW State granted monopolies are a common pattern for infrastructure. Strong +1 on the ensuing twisted incentives.
- blowski 5y ago
  All of those points would likely be true of independent Instagram, WhatsApp, and Facebook. They are still huge companies, with huge budgets. If anything, being a centralised conglomerate makes them less stable, less secure. And with less competition, they actually become more wasteful.
  - zethraeus 5y ago
    The argument’s about societal wastefulness, not FB’s business acumen. I.e. It’s nontrivial to be more wasteful than it would be to have multiple teams duplicating the same product. (Strong disagree on your suggestion that the centralisation generally makes them less stable/secure, but granted on the tail risks.)
    - blowski 5y ago
      If we want to talk about "societal wastefulness", then we can probably stop wasting resources on Facebook in the first place.
      - ShamelessC 5y ago
        Sounds good to me. My social media usage is restricted to GitHub and Hacker News. HN is on the chopping block however.

blowski 5y ago

"In theory" is an important caveat there. . Downsides: * Higher risk - a bigger database to attack. * A very big single point of failure * Slows down innovation * Less private Upsides (for society): * ???

zethraeus 5y ago
There’s a pretty good argument for functional monopolies facilitating innovation! We like our transistors and all that.
- blowski 5y ago
  Transistors were originally invented during WW2. Reductio ad absurdum - we should have one big state monopoly controlling everything in the interests of permanent warfare.
  - Y_Y 5y ago
    The vacuum tube transistor was invented in 1907 by Forest, the modern solid-state transistor in 1947 by Bardeen and Brattain.
  - hoseja 5y ago
    That does feel like pretty much what is happening.

ClumsyPilot 5y ago

There's a ton of potential societal benefit in a benevolent dictator in theory. There's also a ton of potential downside. Usually we dont ask "What in particular makes this fall in the latter bucket?"