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IMHO, consumers have the ability to cast their vote for the product/service offered. And the company’s decisions will determine if they succeed or fail.

This rational, free will, free market thing you’re thinking of doesn’t really exist at this scale.
 
I quit facebook and my wife asked why, I told her they were evil. Don't know if she's still on it.
 
I really don’t see what the point is of breaking them up. They are all essentially a monopoly on their own. I’m not sure what the answer is but social media has pretty much created monopolies by design. There really are no equal competitors because everybody will just follow everybody to the next hot social network until that also becomes a monopoly.
 
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This rational, free will, free market thing you’re thinking of doesn’t really exist at this scale.

Ahh, I see. I guess consumers are incapable of decided what’s in their self-interest, and companies are incapable of providing consumers what they want and thus survive. Only government knows whats best for both, consumers and companies. /s
 
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I don't see how his argument is invalid? If push came to shove, Facebook could just fold all of the features of their other apps/businesses into their one core business, Facebook. Then just shut down Instagram and Whatsapp, but retain the functionality under a much more bloated Facebook (as if it could get any more bloated).
edit -- To be fair, I did not go to business school.
Those three separate apps have such great value because they are three separate apps. While there is some crossover audience between the apps there are a great number of users who are exclusive to one. Some younger people for example think Facebook is uncool, but they love Instagram. By combining them all under one Facebook app you would lose a great percentage of that value they currently have with three apps.
 
I call for FB to be shut down and the original founders of Insta and WhatsApp to be put back in charge. Remove the likes and number of followers completely from Insta too if you really care about mental health. Focus on sharing, not the superficial bs.
 
I’m no fan of social media; Facebook, Twitter, etc (nor Google). Their stance on free speech and politics is heavily biased(as is their right).

But I don’t think government has(or should have?) the authority to break them up.(Yes I am fully aware of the ATT case from years ago).

IMHO, consumers have the ability to cast their vote for the product/service offered. And the company’s decisions will determine if they succeed or fail.

Antitrust law goes back to the 1800s and was originally designed to regulate railroads. It’s used to stop anticompetitive behavior that hurts customers. Microsoft was sued by many states for their practices against Netscape.

I think current practice is to leave companies alone until they are found to have harmed consumers by rising prices, etc. Some companies aren’t really customer facing though and consumers would have no knowledge of their improper behavior.
 
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All I see are politicians wanting to earn points from relatively few people who whine too much. You can quit using their services if you don't like them, like I did. Or maybe it's that people actually like using FB's services? Snapchat was a leader, but everyone's leaving them.

US gov't doesn't need the anti-monopoly hammer to deal with this, especially for something as unnecessary as Facebook and Instagram. Big waste of time and resources, and bad on principle.
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Wow. Really sad to see people in favor if this. People are so clueless as to the role of government. What is should be. And what power they actually have.
That's not how you convince people. At best it makes them think you're trying to sell something.
 
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Agreed. And it should be a lesson that you can’t just buy up your biggest upcoming competitors (Whatsapp, Instagram) or else how would we’d ever have competition/anything but a monopoly. The big always have more money than the small.
 
Mark & Sheryl should both be locked up imo. How they have gotten away with such careless treatment of private data, selling it out and lying to the public about it. Both appear to be pretty slimy, greedy, and thuggish scum. I wouldn't trust either of them as far as I could throw them.:(
Would be great if the government could punish corps for such leaks, but until the government can hold itself accountable in the same way, it's hypocritical, plus that priority is out of order. As it stands, govt sites leak way more about me than FB ever will (they also know more).
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Perfect time for iMessage to become what it could be
I deleted my FB a couple of weeks ago. Found that iMessage + SMS is all I need, assuming my friends are aware I have no FB anymore. The site is just crappy nowadays, not what it used to be.
 
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I really don’t see what the point is of breaking them up. They are all essentially a monopoly on their own. I’m not sure what the answer is but social media has pretty much created monopolies by design. There really are no equal competitors because everybody will just follow everybody to the next hot social network until that also becomes a monopoly.
I agree. I'm too old to keep pace, but the effects of social media (in general) are palpable. Some kind of oversight may be in order, as data-mining/privacy and social effect issues are very real.
 
How? What he described is what Facebook is doing.
I already replied to this question a few posts above yours.

“Those three separate apps have such great value because they are three separate apps. While there is some crossover audience between the apps there are a great number of users who are exclusive to one. Some younger people for example think Facebook is uncool, but they love Instagram. By combining them all under one Facebook app you would lose a great percentage of that value they currently have with three apps”
 
Personally, I have no problem with the breaking up of huge corporations. It's been done before. They more or less have a monopoly on social media.

Not quite true - there's still Snapchat, Twitter, YouTube, Reddit, and countless others...

But the most popular ones where most users produce public content* are both owned by Facebook.

*As opposed to Twitter, YouTube, and Reddit, where most users passively consume stuff, and Snapchat where most stuff is private.
 
Mark & Sheryl should both be locked up imo. How they have gotten away with such careless treatment of private data, selling it out and lying to the public about it. Both appear to be pretty slimy, greedy, and thuggish scum. I wouldn't trust either of them as far as I could throw them.:(
Some of Zuckerberg's statements made to Congress seem pretty close to the crime of "lying to Congress" IMO. You can argue all day about "what the meaning of 'is' is" but he made statements that were not true and you have to do a lot of mental gymnastics to interpret them in a way that the "inaccuracies" were innocent errors rather than attempts to deliberately mislead Congress. I'm with you, I would not trust any promise made by him or any of his leadership team (or any FB employee for that matter).
 
then... just don't use it. easy as that.

Simplistic comment, black and white thinking, it's not easy.

A majority of Americans have iPhones, easy, they have iMessage, in Europe the majority have mobile phones running Android, there's no iMessage for Android, so, Whatsapp got huge.

I told all my family, friends, colleagues and others I quit Whatsapp a few weeks ago, I got a storm of negativity.
Most people do NOT know it's owned by Facebook, most people are not aware by the evil dirty game Facebook plays, most people don't know of all the Data breaches, most people are too blind to see the damage Facebook (and Google) do.
Luckily there are smart people, like the ones which made the current internet, they too say there's a need for a reboot of the internet, a so called version 2.0, your private data should be yours and yours only, should be on your device(s) like a server, you grant or deny acces, even after granting acces you could still change your mind.
 
Those three separate apps have such great value because they are three separate apps. While there is some crossover audience between the apps there are a great number of users who are exclusive to one. Some younger people for example think Facebook is uncool, but they love Instagram. By combining them all under one Facebook app you would lose a great percentage of that value they currently have with three apps.
We don't know what the branding will be. Maybe they don't call the new thing Facebook, or maybe they combine everything under IG. After all, they've been moving lots of FB features into IG.
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Simplistic comment, black and white thinking, it's not easy.

A majority of Americans have iPhones, easy, they have iMessage, in Europe the majority have mobile phones running Android, there's no iMessage for Android, so, Whatsapp got huge.

I told all my family, friends, colleagues and others I quit Whatsapp a few weeks ago, I got a storm of negativity.
Most people do NOT know it's owned by Facebook, most people are not aware by the evil dirty game Facebook plays, most people don't know of all the Data breaches, most people are too blind to see the damage Facebook (and Google) do.
Luckily there are smart people, like the ones which made the current internet, they too say there's a need for a reboot of the internet, a so called version 2.0, your private data should be yours and yours only, should be on your device(s) like a server, you grant or deny acces, even after granting acces you could still change your mind.
Sounds like the solution is to educate people or to offer them alternatives, not limit their choices by force.

Also, I know what FB does, but I just don't care. I knew what I was giving them and assumed they'd do whatever with it, and it didn't matter to me, and I think this is the majority opinion among younger people. Telco and government are much bigger privacy issues just cause they have access to a lot more sensitive info and are much worse at keeping it safe.
 
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I think that's true. I've heard people proudly declare that they no longer use "Failbook" but they're still using Instagram. I don't think they even know that Facebook owns it.

Personally, I have no problem with the breaking up of huge corporations. It's been done before. They more or less have a monopoly on social media.

Social Media is such a broad term as it literally encompasses thousands of applications or places to do social networking. Any place where multiple people can gather and communicate is basically a social media platform. Other than having over a billion users, I'm not sure how Facebook would be considered a monopoly.
 
We don't know what the branding will be. Maybe they don't call the new thing Facebook, or maybe they combine everything under IG. After all, they've been moving lots of FB features into IG.
You seem to have absolutely no idea how business works.

You think they’re going to abandon the Facebook name? You are talking about one of the most recognizable brand names on the planet, and you think they might abandon it? LOLOLOLOLOL
 
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