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Comment by Houshalter | Hacker News Reader

I'm generally libertarian leaning and expected to completely disagree with this. But he's got a point. Does anyone here really believe Facebook deserves to be a multi-billion dollar company? All of their success comes from the luck of being first (ish) and establishing a monopoly because of network effects. Someone might make a vastly better social network. But are you going to use that, or the one your friends and family use?

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> Does anyone here really believe Facebook deserves to be a multi-billion dollar company?

Multi-billion what? Revenue? Yes, because they managed to monetize their traffic and keep it up despite fierce competition (attempts... by Google, for example). Market-cap? Yes because enough people who aren't typically extremely careless with their money invested in FB.

> All of their success comes from the luck of being first

First at what?

>Yes, because they managed to monetize their traffic and keep it up despite fierce competition (attempts... by Google, for example).

They didn't have to do anything, that's the point. They have such strong network effects. They would have to completely fuck up to lose even a tiny fraction of their userbase.

But they do have to do something. In fact, they're constantly doing a whole bunch of somethings to keep people in their ecosystem.

Apps. Messenger. Instagram.

They didn't get that network by just being first(ish). They got it by continuously being the best of the imperfect options, and they can lose it just as easily.

>They would have to completely fuck up to lose even a tiny fraction of their userbase.

Look at Blackberry and Nokia. You don't necessarily have to fuck up, it can be you're simply not moving fast enough.

Flickr, Myspace, bebo, there are plenty of companies who were early and lost their advantage or went out of fashion.

>Does anyone here really believe Facebook deserves to be a multi-billion dollar company?

Not as soon as I find a link or invite to Marxbook, the non multi-billion dollar Facebook competitor all my friends and everyone I meet every day is on! Unfortunately - I don't know how - but somehow I can't seem to find a link. Do you need an invite? I've tried the obvious search[1] but I simply can't find it.

Since this is an anonymous forum where I won't face any repercussions, I am going to admit to you that in my heart of hearts I am beginning to question whether Marxism really works at all. In moments of weakness, I think the answer to the question

>Does Facebook deserve to be a multi-billion dollar company?

is, "obviously yes!". It would help if I could at least sign up to Marxbook. I feel like I'm not being a good member of the Proletariat. How does North Korea do it? Maybe we could try shutting off the electricity every night. It might not make Marxbook happen, but it would at least reduce Facebook usage. Capitalist pigs.

[1] https://www.google.com/search?q=marxbook

Have you considered the possibility that there might be more than two ways (Randian capitalism or Marxist communism) to run an economy?

we're not talking about the economy, but rather a social network that everyone you know is on - all your friends, and all their friends, and everyone you meet.

How is that not going to be a billion dollar company? Like, what do you imagine here?

Email meets those criteria if you define social network loosely enough. I don't see any reason that something more Facebook-like couldn't also work in a decentralized manner.

How is that not going to be a billion dollar company?

Back then we had public utilities. In the Sixties they envisioned the Cloud to be run like a public utility. The scary thing is that this model has become entirely unimaginable to a whole generation.

Well, that would certainly solve those pesky problems with search warrants and encryption.

Only half-kidding: they could pay a dividend to their content-creators rather than their investors. The company would be worth a lot less but the content-creators would be way happier (maybe).

See? Even if your totally out-there half-kidding, hypothetical, it's STILL a billion-dollar company. How would it not be? If the company you just described had everyone on it, it would be worth a billion. Or do you want it to be set up like a charity (like EFF?) Or run by the government?

I am having a lot of trouble imagining how your description is not worth a billion dollars, if everyone is on it. Even under the model you described.

Heh, good point. No doubt having the user base is valuable. But if, hypothetically speaking, 100% of the profits are distributed to users what do the investors have to gain? The profits can't be paid to investors or used to buy back shares. (There are still questions about growth and corporate voting rights not addressed here.)

you've just described a communist utopia. I think we can all agree that this wonderful pipe dream has not been proven to work at scale in practice. Theoretically it's a great idea of course, which is why a quarter of the world tried it.

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