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Comment by aeturnum | Hacker News Reader

>FB might be a bigger fish than we might be aware of.

I think we're aware of the size of the Facebook fish, but you might not be aware of the size of Microsoft at its peak.

Something like 75% of adults in the United States have a Facebook account[1], but at the height of their dominance Microsoft operating systems ran on ~98% of computers [2]. 75% is a lot, but it's probably not a monopoly - especially because Facebook does not make the devices or the OS on the devices. Lots of people use Facebook, but nothing is keeping them using it.

Being popular is not illegal.

[1] http://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/2015/01/09/pew-survey-soc... [2] https://arstechnica.com/features/2005/12/total-share/8/

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Your calculation of FB marketshare seems wrong: the right one should be about the share of people who have social networks accounts.

Right, the question shouldn't be what percentage of people have Facebook (which at 75% is incredibly high), but "what % of social media users have a Facebook account".

Or perhaps it should be "only have a facebook account"....

How many people owned a Windows PC peak Microsoft? 25%?

I think you're right, but I'm not sure where to get those stats :)

I wonder if Bell Telephone is a more apt parallel for FB than Microsoft is. I agree FB is not a monopoly today, so I'm not saying this is the case right now, but if they continue to dominate social networks (both through themselves & their subsidiaries), I could see a day coming when they have an effective monopoly on "online social messaging".

Of course, Bell also had a vertical monopoly in that they owned the physical wires in addition to being the service provider, and I think that was part of what brought them down in the end. Unless FB starts buying ISPs they won't be in the same position.

> Unless FB starts buying ISPs they won't be in the same position.

They tried (are trying?) becoming that in poor countries with their 'free' internet initiative.

The 75% that use Facebook is much bigger than 100% of the people that used computers back in the late 90s.

Yes, but that doesn't really factor into any calculation of "monopoly".

Impact is important as "monopoly" is subjective. For example, in Googles financial filings they can't break down numbers because *the search industry is highly competitive and we face challenges from the many other players in the industry".

So a company might have close to 75% market share in an industry that matters and they would be a lot easier to prosecute vs the company w/ 100% market (a fleshlight, or other trivial niche thing)

By the same token, nobody was ever forced to use Microsoft at their peak either.

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