[mullen]

This is silly. We don't have to have Twitter, Google, CloudFlare or Facebook in our lives. We can live perfectly happy lives without them and they can be replaced by other companies as quickly as they were created by Twitter, Google, CloudFlare or Facebook. Electricity and phones are two physical services that we really need and can be ran by any company. Cable television is regulated because cable companies need right of way on telephone poles and under the streets, which is owned, more or less, by the city, county, state or federal government.

[jerf]

"they can be replaced by other companies as quickly as they were created by Twitter, Google, CloudFlare or Facebook."

You may not have Free Speech on the biggest platforms on the Internet today, but if you wait 15 years and are lucky, you may have it by then.

As arguments defending the status quo goes, that stinks.

(I'd sharpen my argument by saying "biggest and growing", but I'm not sure that's the case anymore. Facebook is definitely showing some signs that they've peaked, for instance. I'm not saying it has 100% happened, but it's a lot stronger of a claim now than it was even six months ago.)

[tomp]

It's vastly easier to replace your electricity or phone provider than your Facebook provider.