[danpattn]

The article ignores one of the biggest drivers of tech concentration, network effects. This is where 'tech exceptionalism' really stems from.

Facebook got big, not just from the failures of competitors or from acquiring them, but because the platform became more useful as more people joined. Network effects took over once Facebook hit a critical mass of users.

This happens with most social platforms, they either wither and slowly die or they hit a critical mass and grow towards monopolies. There is a reason everyone in a society speaks the same language. There is a reason why we only have a few operating systems. There is a reason everyone gravitated towards a few social platforms.

Enforcing antitrust laws is only a temporary fix. Unless everyone moves onto free and open source platforms where network effects can't hand control over to a central authority, this story will just repeat itself again and again with a new boogeyman each time.

This trend was identified 25 years ago. Before the internet took over business and before Facebook and Google were founded. https://hbr.org/1996/07/increasing-returns-and-the-new-world...

[specialist]

The question isn't how a network grows, but how it maintains it's dominance.

How did Facebook, for instance, avoid the fate of every prior social network? Its pivots (Instagram, WhatsApp, newsfeed, etc) were uniquely successful.

Why? How?

[danpattn]

No doubt the pivots and acquisitions were how Facebook stayed on top. My point was that it doesn't matter which company wins.

All breaking up Facebook would do is start the process over. No healthy market equilibrium can form when the winners benefit from increasing returns.

If it wasn't Facebook abusing the system it would just be someone else. The Chinese software market ended up the same way the US market did. Very different legal systems, almost identical outcomes.

If we want to solve the problem for good we need to correct what is causing the monopolies to form and we need to counter the strategies that monopolists use to stay in power.

Using free and open source software platforms that are built on top of open protocols is the way to solve both problems.

Linux's monopoly in the server market and the Internet's open protocols have been effective at preventing corporate monopolies. We just need to copy these solutions and apply them to social networks, consumer operating systems, and cloud services.

[foolmeonce]

I don't agree that it must play out this way. Some things stay open standards/federations once created. In general, any legal system should guarantee that closed systems have limits that hinder their normalization.

For example, if I can't do something with a 3rd party (be hired, enter a contest, ??) without doing it via FB, the 3rd party should be creating a liability for themself compared to email, or POTS where my terms with any compatible provider can be stated as a fact and dismissed in legal terms.

Having just received a change of TOS from Microsoft that claims to include their "products": One can invest in however much Microsoft Windows compatible infrastructure only to learn one has to stop using Windows completely within a few weeks if one disagrees with any new terms they care to name? Linux could do everything wrong from now on, yet the federation of similar distributions make it the only real option server side where one has investments to protect from future rent seeking by any one "winner".

[bsder]

> How did Facebook, for instance, avoid the fate of every prior social network?

By buying its competitors.

The complete lack of anti-trust enforcement is a big deal.

If Facebook couldn't buy its competitors, now it has to use money and development to compete. And it may or may not be successful.

[danpattn]

Antitrust would help, maybe even a lot, but would the world be that different if Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, and WhatsApp were independent companies? Things might be a bit better but we'd still be stuck with the same handful of platforms we already have.

Facebook is just the final form of the monster that silicon valley continually creates. Every unicorn software startup has the same strategy: create a competitive app, get VC backing, blitzscale until you are dominant, then abuse your power to monetize the platform.

The only difference is how far along a market is in the cycle. Desktop operating systems went through this in the 1990s, eCommerce went through this in the 2000s, smartphone operating systems went through this in the late 2000s, social media went through this in the 2010s, ridesharing is going through it now, autonomous vehicles will go through it soon, and AI platforms will go through it when they arrive.

It's the same story everywhere you look and the process begins at the startup stage. Attacking companies that reach the end of the cycle won't stop the cycle from happening.

I would love to see Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, Facebook, and Google broken up. I would cheer it. But it won't save us. It will only change who owns the leash we're controlled by.

I don't know about anyone else, but I don't care whether I'm being controlled by a millionaire, a billionaire, or a trillionaire. I just care that I'm being controlled. The only way to escape is to own digital infrastructure that you rely on and that possibility only exists with free and open source software.

[bsder]

> but would the world be that different if Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, and WhatsApp were independent companies?

I think it would.

If YouTube were independent, Google would have to try to invent it and then compete against YouTube. Or, perhaps, YouTube would be simply unsustainable without the infinite coffers of Google to support it. At which point we might get a smattering of paid video services that were actually viable.

If a business couldn't automatically get sold to a FAANG, you might actually have to make decisions to run it rather than lottery out. If you are running the business, you might actually eclipse one of the established companies.

Google is not in some inherently unassailable position.

Google has a TERRIBLE customer service record and pisses people off immensely. Google Cloud could be completely displaced by a competitor--if it weren't backed up by Google's immense amount of cash from other divisions. Gmail is a commodity and could certainly be displaced if it had to operate independently. etc.

> The only way to escape is to own digital infrastructure that you rely on and that possibility only exists with free and open source software.

While I agree, if we don't get the common people on board, the end result will be service too expensive for most of us (current example: running fiber to your house).

[specialist]

"By buying its competitors."

Yup.

Using its advantage in one market to muscle into emerging markets. Classic monopolist move.

The part I'm stuck on is how Facebook (Zuck) has repeatedly attained and leveraged their superior competitive intelligence. For just one example, their basically evil stunt with the Onavo VPN.

What Zuboff identifies as surveillance capitalism.

I now assume network effects (preferential attachment) leading to winner-takes-all outcomes in all open markets. It's tantamount to a natural law, so why fight it.

So I now happily advocate governments regularly harvesting victors by somehow periodically shaking the ant farm for a market reset.

What Scott Galloway calls "oxygenating the market".

I prefer repeated radical cashectomies, especially targeting windfall profits, but am ok with whatever works. Award the leaders a Presidential Market Victory trophy. Relocate them to the Freedom Markets™ lecture circuit to continue living in comfort and glory. Then divide the spoils.

But I don't think such common sensical measures will effectively curtail Facebook and Google. Per Zuboff and others, my current hunch is that we'll need new tools to defang (deFAANG? haha. just thought of that. I slay myself.) these monsters.