[fbonetti]

Electricity, water, cable, and phone are all "natural" monopolies because of the significant amount of infrastructure they require. Having private companies lay their own competing water mains would be an absolute clusterfuck.

Facebook is, at the end of the day, a website that happens to be popular right now. It's not even close to being a public utility. Anybody can enter the space and create a competing service. Given how fickle consumers are, I'll be surprised if it's still around in 10 years.

[eric_h]

> I'll be surprised if it's still around in 10 years.

I agree that facebook the site, in its current form, is unlikely to exist in 10 years. I highly doubt that facebook the company is going anywhere in that time frame.

[RIMR]

Then what even is the definition of "Facebook" if the entire business model can collapse and you still consider it to exist just because they have some money left somewhere and can continue being a business?

[eric_h]

A company that doesn’t anticipate the end of a given revenue stream does a disservice to its shareholders.

Facebook is not its only web property and it will still have hooks in a majority of internet users for some time in aggregate by improving other properties and by acquiring new ones.

Does the Microsoft of 10 years ago look like the Microsoft of today?