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Comment by Const-me | Hacker News Reader

Facebook is a natural monopoly: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_monopoly

No matter how they treat users, people won't leave due to network effect.

I don't believe the problem is solvable with more tech or free market. I think the only way forward is political, with laws and regulations.

Long ago railroad networks, water pipes networks, and landline phone networks were private companies free to do whatever they please with the property they own.

It's time to add social networks to the list.

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What? Facebook obviously isn’t a natural monopoly. WSB is mainly on reddit, was active on discord, and congregates elsewhere.

I don’t think Facebook should have shut down WSB but that doesn’t make them a monopoly.

As for monopoly in general, there’s Tiktok, Snapchat. Clubhouse just raised a big round.

The blue facebook app is actually anything but a monopoly, as Instagram (a facebook property) gets much more enthusiasm. There’s no “natural” monopoly for Facebook blue there.

It’s easy to pick a concept and try to apply it everywhere, but Facebook can act objectionally without being “a natural monopoly”.

> Facebook obviously isn’t a natural monopoly

Why not?

It fits the definition from the article. “An industry in which high infrastructural costs and other barriers to entry give the largest supplier in an industry an overwhelming advantage over potential competitors”

In case of FB the infrastructural cost is less of an issue, at least not anymore. I think Amazon and Microsoft are capable of hosting at least a dozen Facebooks each on their clouds should they want to. The main barrier to entry which causes that overwhelming advantage is network effect.

Natural monopolies don't have to continuously buy up emerging competitors. Facebook's network effects are strong. But they aren't insurmountable.

Not sure killing competitors is the main reason for FB’s behavior. Their stock price is somewhat linked to their userbase. This alone creates an incentive to buy competitors.

It's much better to argue that FB is a monopoly than a natural monopoly. It's not at all obvious why FB cannot instantly die like all social media companies before. I'm not sure what inspiration is hoped by linking to Wikipedia on a fiercely discussed issue.

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

> It's much better to argue that FB is a monopoly than a natural monopoly.

Many laws and public discussions related to monopolies in general, as opposed to natural monopolies, are focused on pricing. FB can argue by saying "that's not applicable because our product is free for users".

> It's not at all obvious why FB cannot instantly die like all social media companies before.

About 35% of global population use facebook at least once a month. Global population counts newborn babies, and 10-15% of adults who can't read or write.

None of the prior social media companies achieved that size of their network.

The question is, what is Facebook a monopoly of? If you say "social media" it's almost self-referential. Facebook's customers are advertisers. Facebook is ultimately a media company competing with other media companies for eyeballs.

Agreeed. And there are several obvious laws without touching 230. Off the top of my head

- Ban businesses engaged in online advertising from compiling real world data / mixing physical world data with the online profiles of users

- Ban businesses engaged in online advertising from building profiles of people who have not opted into their platform; require permanent removal of all data within 30 days of any user leaving their platform

- Require businesses provide human based appeal process to any user or business that spends or earns $1,000 in a year before suspending or terminating an account

These could even be done at the state proposition level, absent state authority

> Long ago railroad networks, water pipes networks, and landline phone networks were private companies free to do whatever they please with the property they own.

I agree about social networks, but I'm not sure how good of an argument this is. In the US all those things (railroads, water networks, landline) have gone to crap.

Are you looking around? So is Fakebook.

Social networks come and go. There's an entire new generation of people who don't use Facebook.

It would be solvable with the free market as long as we don't allow big companies to consistently purchase their own competition.

Yeah, well, Facebook did indeed buy some other social networking companies. I don't pay any attention to them, but how many people who don't use Facebook are also not using any of their brands?

Such things don't make logical sense to me. So assuming Facebook is a "natural monopoly", it is only so because of millions of people (the voters) choose to use it. Instead of voting for legislation, those people could simply vote with their feet and choose a different social network. There is no need for regulation. (If the people already WANT it, they could simply do it, without government intervention).

I mean, what's the utility that I get from the network effect as a user? Lots of people that I barely know and don't care about are on it, great who cares.

People said the same thing about MySpace.

Facebook is trivial to leave (I haven’t been on it in years now). It was not trivial to change to a different railroad, plumbing provider, etc.

Facebook is trivial, Whatsapp is not

> People said the same thing about MySpace.

That gets brought up a lot however:

* MySpace never had the revenue of Facebook

* Far more people are on Facebook than were ever on MySpace. There are not that many of my personal friends/family were ever on MySpace. Now however, almost every one of my personal friends and family members is on Facebook.

* MySpace did not spend billions acquiring potential social network competitors. The two biggest c(non Chinese) social networks that might have challenged Facebook were acquired for billions (Instagram and WhatsApp) and the other network (SnapChat) had an offer, and when it was turned down, a competing service was created by Facebook.

* As a market matures, it becomes harder to unseat incumbents. The social media market is far more mature than it was before.

* as an example, Google dethroned AltaVista and Lycos rather easily. However, I would bet money that 10 years from now, absent regulation, Google will still have the dominant search engine. In the same way, 10 years from now, I would bet that Facebook will still have the dominant social network.

Until your family suffers the consequences or the side effects of FB, you will ignore the critics but I am convinces that most families will eventually experience the side effects.

>Facebook is trivial to leave

Your experience (and mine fwiw) does not generalise. It is significantly harder for many people to do so while keeping up with familial and social obligations. Not to mention some business obligations for many. Facebrick is trying ever harder to make being a citizen impossible without a Facebook account. Government departments have Facebook accounts and use it for communication. WhatsApp is used for payments on much of the world. Don't kid yourself it's as easy for everyone as it is for you and I.

That said. Delete your Facebook account. Plan it. Do it. It feels so, so very good pushing the button and your quality of life improves significantly. Facebrick is as vile as any serious addiction tends to be once it has hold of you.

Facebook exists because the boomers are there and the boomers don’t like change, once they die off (and ig degenerates into what FB is) the monopoly is gonna start to topple

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