[zethraeus]

> I want this to be the start of a forced breakup of Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram.

okay

> There’s zero benefit to consumers, and a lot of harm.

There's a ton of potential societal benefit in centralization and/or monopoly in theory. There's also a ton of potential downside. What in particular makes this fall in the latter bucket?

[dx034]

Where's the advantage of instagram, whatsapp and Facebook belonging to one company? The only advantage on any side I can see is combining user data and behavior data to improve ad revenue.

You could argue that features can make it easier across products, but each product would be big enough on their own to develop these features at little cost compared to their income. Apart from that there's no potential upside I can see for a user to have these products under one company.

The same applies to Giphy. Right now, messenger companies don't own Gif companies and it's still very easy to use them together. I don't see the benefit here for a user to have them owned by the same company.

[zethraeus]

> Where's the advantage of instagram, whatsapp and Facebook belonging to one company?

Common-ish arguments for monopolies, as applied to this situation:

* potentially the interoperability you indicate

* infrastructure investment leading to stability

* similarly: best in class client side software

* security / privacy guarantees (yes. I know, ironic, etc. but the fully distributed multi-company alternative is likely worse on these dimensions)

* single point of accountability for the state and law enforcement. (yes. not likely a HN concern. Still valuable to the state and potentially regular consumers.)

* general pro monopoly argument: fewer resources are wasted in competition, and so can be applied to product development and research. i.e. bell labs

IDK how I feel the scales tip in this case, but treating it as cut and dry feels a bit naive.

[blowski]

All of those points would likely be true of independent Instagram, WhatsApp, and Facebook. They are still huge companies, with huge budgets.

If anything, being a centralised conglomerate makes them less stable, less secure. And with less competition, they actually become more wasteful.

[zethraeus]

The argument’s about societal wastefulness, not FB’s business acumen.

I.e. It’s nontrivial to be more wasteful than it would be to have multiple teams duplicating the same product.

(Strong disagree on your suggestion that the centralisation generally makes them less stable/secure, but granted on the tail risks.)

[blowski]

If we want to talk about "societal wastefulness", then we can probably stop wasting resources on Facebook in the first place.

[ShamelessC]

Sounds good to me. My social media usage is restricted to GitHub and Hacker News. HN is on the chopping block however.

[gmueckl]

So turn it all into a state run company instead? Your points sound as if that would be a potential solution. But that would have its own issues with somewhat twisted incentive structures.

[zethraeus]

FWIW State granted monopolies are a common pattern for infrastructure.

Strong +1 on the ensuing twisted incentives.

[ClumsyPilot]

"* general pro monopoly argument: fewer resources are wasted in competition, and so can be applied to product development and research. i.e. bell labs"

You are arguing for Central Planning. You can't be pro-free market and pro monopoly.

At least government monopoly is theoretically accountable to the voters.

[blowski]

"In theory" is an important caveat there. .

Downsides:

* Higher risk - a bigger database to attack.

* A very big single point of failure

* Slows down innovation

* Less private

Upsides (for society):

* ???

[zethraeus]

There’s a pretty good argument for functional monopolies facilitating innovation! We like our transistors and all that.

[blowski]

Transistors were originally invented during WW2. Reductio ad absurdum - we should have one big state monopoly controlling everything in the interests of permanent warfare.

[Y_Y]

The vacuum tube transistor was invented in 1907 by Forest, the modern solid-state transistor in 1947 by Bardeen and Brattain.

[hoseja]

That does feel like pretty much what is happening.

[ClumsyPilot]

There's a ton of potential societal benefit in a benevolent dictator in theory. There's also a ton of potential downside.

Usually we dont ask "What in particular makes this fall in the latter bucket?"