Can Google or Facebook ever have a true competitor?

Yes they could. It's always possible that another company could somehow do search or social networking better than Google and Facebook, find a really clever way of marketing their services and catch on before the former has any chance to catch up.

It'd help if either got much worse at their core business (since that tends to be what dooms a lot of companies nowadays), but even a strong Google could have a competitor that simply offers people a much better and more user friendly service.

But more likely is that they don't die to direct competitors. They die because they become irrelevant. Their 'true' competitor isn't another social network or search engine, it's something that completely replaces the need to have a social network or search engine.

For example, if a company came along and figured out a way to give people results based on what they were thinking about without any direct input required, that could make Google's typical search box and results page and ads completely useless. They'd be like a horse salesman after cars were invented. Same with Facebook.

I agree that it's possible, but I think the last point in your argument actually makes Google harder to displace than easier.

If someone came out with a better web search engine than Google right now, I probably wouldn't switch. This is because Google search is so integrated with other services that they understand intent way better, and you can perform searches with far less input that you would have to give otherwise.

For example, doing a search for "my flights" or similar does not only search the web, but also my gmail account, matches upcoming flights with data, and returns what is relevant to me. Similar arguments can be made based on phone data (locations, activity) and integration with products like Maps, Calendar etc. Google Now and On Tap are great examples of features and functions that cannot be trivially replaced by a better search algorithm.

I think he meant something really advanced like an ear piece that can directly connect your mind to the Internet. One wouldn't even need to look at a browser for search results. Think of a programming question, and you get the answer without doing any reading.

If thinking about a programming question, just landed me on a StackOverflow page, even that would be miles ahead of Google search's offering!

That's exactly it. And if something like this happens, Google's ad model is pretty much toast. That would be bad news for them in general.

I don't want to think about such a future... One also wouldn't need to commit any crimes to summon the attention law enforcement, either. Perhaps it will be more automated though--the earpiece could double as Harrison-Bergeron-type equipment, rendering you miserable and meek if you step--no think--out of line.

The other important thing for a real competitor besides a better product is to resist the money that Google can offer to buy them.

What counts as a 'true competitor'? You seem to be asking if there's a chance that someone will upend Google at search, and Facebook at social networking.

But that's not how these companies pay the bills. They built massive ecosystems around their original businesses, and they use that ecosystem to mine data and serve ads. With this money, they've amassed social and infrastructure capital, so they can out-build competitors (Google Drive, Docs), branch out into other product lines (Google Cloud Services), or simply buy them out (Instagram, WhatsApp).

To compete against them, you need differentiation and feature that appeal to a passionate audience. Snapchat, for example, attracts people who've seen or heard how damaging it can be to publically post on Facebook. DuckDuckGo appeals to people who don't want trails of their web searches making it into ads they see on websites. Dropbox works for people because they put out a solid product and aren't trying to force you to be part of a large, monolithic ecosystem.

But it's an uphill battle. Facebook's preferred strategy is to buy out services before they become dangerous (they tried to buy Snapchat back when it was still known mostly for sexting), and Google's is to outbuild others. They form a very effective duopoly in a way.

FB has a "network effect" the value of the network increases with the square of the participants (i.e. the number of connections you can have). Similar effects occur with human languages, telephones, and the internet. It's a kind of natural monopoly, because once one gets big enough, no alternative can catch up. That's why we have the internet, and not internets.

Google is different, because it's easy to switch search engines. One competitive advantage they have is "google suggest" - this takes massive capital investment in server farms to be fast enough, which is difficult for smaller competitors to match.

NOTE: in Google's opinion, FB was a very serious threat (hence google+), because more information about users means better targetted ads. So they don't think they're unassailable.

This is a fundamental aspect of introductory economics.

In fact, many professors use Facebook as an example of monopolies due to the network effect.

I distinctly remember when "whenever I wanted to search something" I just visited altavista.digital.com. And then, somewhat reluctantly, altavista.com.

Granted, they did not have anywhere near the deep and broad reach that Google currently has, but I would not think it impossible for someone else to come along and tilt things in their direction.

And there was Myspace and Friendster before Facebook.

> Can Google or Facebook ever have a true competitor? Unlikely. But never say never.Both companies, have built dominant market positions and have advantages that competitors will likely be unable to overcome.Peter Thiel even argues Google is a monopoly.

> but is it going to be the same always? No. If it were, then the future is already fixed, knowable and stagnant.Unlikely :(

> If not, then what will cause us to move to a different search engine? What can XYZ make to cause people to leave FB and come to its network?

Three things.

1.The company loses direction, is taken over by less competent management or implodes under its own weight e.g Walmart, GM, Apple. 2. Government regulation or public pushback creates conditions for its dissolution. Think Bell, Standard Oil 3. New competitors emerge. A giant slayer in this case, may initially not seem like a threat at all and may even operate in a different market space or industry from search or social media eg gaming, VR, IOT. Paul Graham has a good article on this.

Btw, I think FB is dying and that's part of the reason they acquired Whatsapp. It will be obvious in 5 years and they'll be gone in a decade or decade and a half.So is Apple,at least in its current form.

What makes you say that Apple is dying?

He's probably referring to when they fired Steve Jobs in the 80s.

Their business is overly-dependent on the iPhone. The fact that 60% of their revenue comes from iPhones might leave them vulnerable to shifts in consumer behavior and/or market saturation.

iPhone sales drive sales of their other products and services. Apple is already facing heavy competition to iTunes; overall sales are declining and app revenue is making up a larger % of iTunes revenue in recent years. The decline of iTunes revenue is largely attributed to the glut of streaming services. I suspect their competing streaming service will need to be a loss-leader in the future in order to fuel grow for their cash-cow.

Now, I don't think that Apple is dying, not at all. But I can see how their situation is a bit more precarious than a heavily diversified company like Microsoft (whose failures demonstrate their impressive resiliency).

How is Microsoft that much more resilient, though? They're an absolute joke in the phone/device market. They're a market leader in the least exciting, fastest-declining market - the Desktop.

On the server side, they're hovering at 30%-ish, and are almost completely absent from the start-up scene as well as the high-end super-computer space. The startup scene, which, I know, I know, but still, it is where the future is, is definitely not interested in anything MS, from what I can tell. Nothing bug a sea of MacBooks with people pounding away at Node/RoR/language-of-the-day. The hip 20-somethings pounding away at a thousand start-ups don't seem to be betting on the MS stack. And those are the tech leaders of tomorrow.

Forget about the start-up space, fine. What about other institutions like banks/finance/airlines? That's all Java, running on some kind of Unix-derivative as well, most likely hitting a non-MS database.

MS is doing ok in the video game console space, but Sony is doing better. They're doing ok with Azure, but nothing spectacular, AWS and Google Cloud and Dig. Ocean and the numerous others aren't feeling too much pressure.

I guess really besides Office - what do they have that's a giant run-away success that will ensure their long-term survival?

Most of the markets you name are not winner-take-all! Add to your list enterprise/consumer cloud services (Office 365, Outlook, etc) and also the Azure platform (I don't know how competitive their Azure offerings are).

Just by being a significant "also ran" in those markets Microsoft ensures its survival in the medium term. They are diversified enough that the rug cannot suddenly be pulled out from under them and they are in a position to pump money and pivot into any of those markets where they see traction.

While Apple's situation is better today, their ability to respond to rapid changes in the business is under question.

In addition to Office their Windows volume licensing is quite expensive, and I assume most of the Fortune 500 companies use Windows desktop clients.

Sure they're declining on the server-side, but the majority of mid-large sized companies except for tech startups use Windows OS.

For the companies who are 100% Microsoft and who happen to drift everything themself, it quickly gets ridiculously expensive if you calculate MSSQL, Sharepoint licenses etc.

MS's has money coming from all over the place, even they biggest segment, "commercial licensing" consists of a huge number of products, including Windows, Office, SQL Server, Visual Studio, etc.[1] So they can weather a decline or shift in one or two key markets because they have their hands in so many pots.

[1]https://www.microsoft.com/investor/earningsandfinancials/fin...

Maybe Facebook.com will be a shadow of it's former self, but I think Facebook the holding company that owns the namesake service, instagram and whatsapp has the potential to be a strong company many years from now.

I agree with this. In my (admittedly anecdotal) experience, many people hate FB the platform for different reasons but haven't found a decent alternative yet.

Apple is dying for the reasons other people mentioned above; plus the fact that it was built on the cult of Steve Jobs. In addition, it does not have a global presence. It struggles in Asia, is known only by name in Africa so in effect operates in a highly contested and mature market.

The one company I believe may be on a path to a position of true "anti-obsolescence" is Amazon. I consider the way people younger than me use it for everything. Then I consider my own Prime usage which is up perhaps 100-200% over last year. And even after that I look at the future innovation's Amazon is planning: 1-Hr delivery via drone, dev friendly alexa tasks from anywhere. And I can't think of anyone that can currently be termed a "true" competitor. And I am clearly not the only one to notice. $AMZN stock up %50 since Feb ;)

Only if Google / facebook stops inventing. Yahoo made a mistake of stagnation. Microsoft made a mistake of stagnation from 2000 to 2009 (Balmer period). Motorola made a mistake of stagnation. Apple is again making a mistake of stagnation. As long as companies not sitting on their arses and let the competition overtake them they will be fine.

Also you can live without FB but cannot live without google. You can remain days not visiting FB but everyday you will search atleast one time.

I think No for both cases. Default monopolies can go out of favor very quickly, and new technologies can ramp up very quickly.

On Facebook: Remember that Google got the whole world to sign up for Google Plus with their circles. They didn't do anything with it, but it was a clear sign that you can sign up a good portion of the internet.

On Google owning search, if Apple goes downmarket in the phone market, they could crowd Google out of search on the phone. Or there may be some other new paradigm - searching out of apps, with a non-Google choice winning. And if the search algorithm is MUCH better, it could win. Bing doesn't need to be 5% better - it would need to be 500% better.

Yes. When I worked at Google, people were very aware that their market position is not a given and could change any time - eg as people are far less locked in to Google than they used to be to Microsoft in the 1990s. Eric Schmidt used to point to an article from the late 1990s saying "the search wars are over - Yahoo won"...

It wouldn't be easy obviously, but it is conceivable that someone comes up with something that is significantly better than Google/ FB, causing people to switch.

Basically, I believe it will be much harder for a competitor to reach the same capital as Google or Facebook.

Google and Facebook have massive networks, specialized storage strategies, proprietary protocols and hardware, and not to forget the actual data they have acquired. Lots of hard-to-acquire capital.

On the other hand, I do believe that both products could be better. Competitors could have better products, but not for a long time more capital.

I think Google and Facebook will face the same enemy that Microsoft faced back in the 1990s - the nameless and faceless, Open Source!

Maybe, if FOSS can build a self-syncing co-operating network spanning multiple nodes across the globe, they can solve the infrastructure/data-storage problem (we already have two precedents here, namely Bitcoin and Bittorrent networks).

Finally, if FOSS can also convince a good proportion of masses to crowdsource their efforts, they would have solved the data acquisition problem too!

>self-syncing co-operating network spanning multiple nodes across the globe

It's already there, see http://yacy.net/en/index.html.

The idea is great and I wish them good luck. But, unfortunately, it isn't usable yet IMO.

Every empire has its rise and fall. "To every thing there is a season ... A time to be born, and a time to die"

Do you think a FB competitor that offered really nice encryption and privacy features would be successful?

I'm imagining an app that let's you choose where to store data, let's you store your data encrypted and offers message encryption, and of course allows you to sign up anonymously and permanently delete data.

I hate Facebook but I recognize it serves a useful function - I only use it because everyone else does.

> Do you think a FB competitor that offered really nice encryption and privacy features would be successful?

> ...

> I hate Facebook but I recognize it serves a useful function - I only use it because everyone else does.

I think privacy is a very niche interest for most users. It's very hard for non-technical users to understand and therefore appreciate online privacy in my opinion. Understanding what the padlock in the browser location bar is difficult enough for most people.

A year ago, I think you could have included Apple in this list and they have begun their spiral.

Google and Facebook are not immortal beings infallible of mistakes. These two entities are companies comprised of people. At whatever level you look at inside these two organisations, you’ll see people making decisions. Whenever there are people involved there are bound to be some inefficiencies and mistakes made on the way. These inefficiencies and mistakes can be masked however because of the size of the organisation and the actual impact of a single decision made. Nonetheless a series of compounding “mistakes” could lead to these companies being open to other competitors.

A strength of these two companies lies in the amount of talented individuals in these organisations. Google and Facebook both have a reputation to hire the best and brightest. If this is the case, then we can assume they’d have the raw ability to make right decisions. (debatable point) Given enough time and resources these people could do almost anything. This can be illustrated by the number of moonshots being attempted at Google.

Another point of strength of these large companies is the ability to diversify. Diversification comes in handy when you’re in an ever changing world like we are in. Diversification comes in the form of external investments into potentially game changing industries and technologies (AR, BioTech, etc). Alternatively, change could come from within the organisations, albeit a little harder and riskier,

These are a few of the strengths of large companies like Google and Facebook. Despite these strengths new opportunities and new competitors will still arise. Google is a search engine, but it has moved into email and other markets. Google had existed before Facebook, and Google had more resources than Facebook when it got started. Why didn’t Google takeover social networking instead?

The OP posed the question about if Google will always be the default search engine it has acted as for the last two decades. In my opinion, this can change. With the advent of Amazon’s Echo and Siri, more and more searches are being conducted via these platforms. Both of these platforms use the Bing search engine. [1][2] If Bing did a better job [3], then it’s conceivable that more marketshare can be had by Bing. As human computer interface progresses, the act of visiting Google.com will become antiquated. This leads to opportunities for other search engines to gain adoption more or less transparently.

Facebook is a social network we access via our web browser and mobile device. If VR becomes what is promised and more widely adopted, then social networking as a category will become redefined. Facebook is at an advantage because of the Oculus acquisition, but the VR space is still so young; There are no real experts in VR.

TLDR; A series of “mistakes" made by these people comprised organisations could lead to true competitors. Strengths, like talented people and diversification, could counteract any risk to competitors. New platforms like Echo, Siri, and Cortana abstracts the use of the Bing Search Engine. VR could redefine social networking which opens more opportunities.

[1] https://www.quora.com/Can-I-change-Siris-search-engine [2] https://www.reddit.com/r/amazon/comments/2lsg9n/amazon_echo_... [3] http://thenextweb.com/gadgets/2015/07/08/alexa-y-u-no-answer...