[coding_lobster]

A lot of people seem to be happy about the possibility here in the comments and I can't really blame them. But one thing to consider is the impact this would have. I have a client with a small-ish e-commerce website that gets about 80% of revenue from Facebook ad campaigns and promotions. They spent a lot of time tinkering with that and optimizing it to improve sales of physical goods in all the areas they can ship to. This is of course an anecdotal example but I imagine there's a fair amount of small business that rely heavily on Facebook like that. There's also businesses where Facebook is an important tool for direct communication with customers.

[unionpivo]

There are tons of small shops, small radio stations doing the same all over world including EU.

But ... there were tons such small shops, and small stations before there was Facebook.

Right now Facebook is best tool for them. If facebook goes by by, they will go to second best tool.

They will find out new way to promote them self, it might just work in their favor, since there will be a lot of smaller competitors in that space, there will be innovation and at least in the beginning cheaper ads.

[_Microft]

Sounds like Facebook is a single point of failure for them.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_point_of_failure

[Vespasian]

Neither online marketing nor "Social" Networks will ever be gone from this world.

If Facebook is replaced by the next thing, it just means that the data is not longer officially siphoned off to the NSA but only to local agencies.

I doubt much will change for (most) users or small businesses. There will be some collateral damage and for some it will indeed be devastating but the overwhelming majority won't notice much.+

[rusk]

Gosh, that's kind of sad, but platform upheavals happen all the time. I hope that whatever platform their market shifts to isn't too hard to figure out. Hopefully it will even be an improvement!

[PopeDotNinja]

It is sad. This is how I see it...

A platform is usually supplanted by something else. Big auto supplanted big horse drawn carriage. Jet engines pushed out propeller engines. Murdering EU Facebook with nothing is like ripping out grandma’s USA made hearing aids until & hoping a local starts a hearing aid company.

[rusk]

How Futurist of you. It's sad for the people who lose out in those transitions. I'm not saying we should hold back progress but we should be mindful of the impacts on society. With that said net impact in this case is probably less than zero.

[alxlaz]

There are plenty of successful businesses that have adapted to, and thrived after, way more radical things than a social platform pulling out of one of its markets. There are plenty of small businesses that are doing fine, and have been doing fine, since before the Internet era, let alone Facebook.

Surely this wouldn't have a non-zero impact but nothing lasts forever -- especially not free services! Dealing with that is an integral part of doing business.

Besides, it's not like this will result in a complete communication blackout. If indeed the service Facebook is providing is valuable, there are plenty of other companies that will jump in. A little competition never hurt anyone ;).

[Woodi]

> but I imagine there's a fair amount of small business that rely heavily on Facebook like that

Imagine FB ditching them. Not specially hard thing to do...

Oh, and you are saying that e-commerce company relays on not lawfull analytics ? Targeted ? Using medical data ? etc, etc...

[josefx]

Facebook can be replaced, worst case we end up with dozens of competing platforms like we had before Facebook entered the market.