[skewart]

> For the last 40 years, Google would never have been challenged as a monopoly because its products were free to consumers, hence there could be no harm to them, hence no monopoly. Same for Facebook.

Google and Facebook's primary products are advertising. Things like web search, email, maps, and social networking are part of their supply chain for building their ad product. (And people who use these services are suppliers who are trading our exposure to ads in exchange for access to search, email, maps, social networking, etc.)

Google and Facebook don't give away advertising space for free, and they both have very dominant positions in a number of ad markets.

[skybrian]

On the other hand, there is plenty of competition in the ad industry and prices are low in general. It's quite hard for publishers to make money unless they have vast scale. So if you are looking at the cost to advertisers, it's hard to argue for monopoly status there.