[mantoto]

A free market should regulate itself.

A company like Facebook can regulate the market.

That's when it becomes a problem.

[95014_refugee]

> A free market should regulate itself.

... but it won't. Never has, never will. 'Regulation' serves a larger context, and the market does not value externalities.

[canada_dry]

> A free market should regulate itself. ... but it won't. Never has, never will.

The concept that capitalism works best if it's free from any/all regulation could work with a very strong shared societal moral fabric.

Sadly, Western culture accepts and even promotes greed and selfishness over the common good.

[joe_the_user]

I don't think Facebook has a monopoly on eye-ball shares in particular. They might have monopoly on social networking as such but given they're not the only thing a person will see in a day by a long-shot, I can't see how they're being more anti-competitive than a TV network (which also has a large but limited share of views).

[paganel]

> They might have monopoly on social networking as such but given they're not the only thing a person will see in a day by a long-shot, I can't see how they're being more anti-competitive than a TV network

Almost no-one bellow the age of 40 cares about TV anymore (apart from sports events), you're pretty off on this one.

[joe_the_user]

Uh, even if you're right, the US is full of the 40+ people and their eye balls are high monetizable.

Even more, TV networks are just an example and it is fricken obvious that Facebook doesn't have an advertising monopoly in the US or world-wide.

[laughingbovine]

> A free market should regulate itself.

Hoo boy. I agree it totally should. Been waiting for a while on that one though...

[neffy]

That´s an incorrect theory from 18th century economics.

It´s equivalent to saying, the Internet should regulate itself, and there is no need for any kind of security to protect against exploits.

[bduerst]

Facebook can not regulate the market when it only controls 19% of it.