[onion2k]

For a company to replace Facebook (or even scale to a point where they're a legitimate competitor) they would have to turn down offers from Facebook/MSFT/Apple/etc to buy them. If Facebook buys then they just stop being a competitor and become part of Facebook. If anyone else buys then they're unlikely to want to go up against Facebook consider Facebook's marketing power. That alone makes it highly unlikely.

There is one the notable exception though - a startup that got enough traction to worry Facebook and then sold to Google might actually come out on top. Google actively wants to compete with Facebook. The problem for such a startup would be Google's track record in social, so they'd need to resist Google's desire to assimilate them too much. That would (probably) be quite hard.

[henriquea]

Good point! Feels like a lot of products start having the "quick exit" mindset, only a few are trying to build a product that last.

[nathankleyn]

I wonder if we'll see a fresh approach here with the new Alphabet organisational structure. Perhaps Google's finally structured in such a way to let such a company be separate from the rest of the products.

[ConfuciusSay]

If you're growing like crazy, it's not that hard to turn down offers. Indeed that's what Facebook itself did, so there's your model.

[onion2k]

Facebook turned down Yahoo's $1bn offer because Mark Zuckerberg realised that Yahoo didn't really understand social, and that they were making an offer because 'social is the hottest thing right now'. It's entirely understandable that a founder wouldn't want to sell their business to someone who wouldn't know what to do with it.

A Facebook competitor faced with an offer from Facebook would not have that problem. It's very likely that the competitor and Facebook would be very well aligned strategically. Selling would mean the competitor would get to where they want to go. Very few founders would say capable of saying no.