Professor Who Coined Term 'Net Neutrality' Thinks It's Time To Break Up Facebook (theverge.com)

pgmrdlm shares a report from The Verge: Best known for coining the phrase "net neutrality" and his book The Master Switch: The Rise and Fall of Information Empires, Wu has a new book coming out in November called The Curse of Bigness: Antitrust in the New Gilded Age. In it, he argues compellingly for a return to aggressive antitrust enforcement in the style of Teddy Roosevelt, saying that Google, Facebook, Amazon, and other huge tech companies are a threat to democracy as they get bigger and bigger. "We live in America, which has a strong and proud tradition of breaking up companies that are too big for inefficient reasons," Wu told me on this week's Vergecast. "We need to reverse this idea that it's not an American tradition. We've broken up dozens of companies."

"I think if you took a hard look at the acquisition of WhatsApp and Instagram, the argument that the effects of those acquisitions have been anticompetitive would be easy to prove for a number of reasons," says Wu. And breaking up the company wouldn't be hard, he says. "What would be the harm? You'll have three competitors. It's not 'Oh my god, if you get rid of WhatsApp and Instagram, well then the whole world's going to fall apart.' It would be like 'Okay, now you have some companies actually trying to offer you an alternative to Facebook.'" Breaking up Facebook (and other huge tech companies like Google and Amazon) could be simple under the current law, suggests Wu. But it could also lead to a major rethinking of how antitrust law should work in a world where the giant platform companies give their products away for free, and the ability for the government to restrict corporate power seems to be diminishing by the day. And it demands that we all think seriously about the conditions that create innovation. "I think everyone's steering way away from the monopolies, and I think it's hurting innovation in the tech sector," says Wu.

Comments

And how would that solve anything for consumers?

[Anonymous Coward]

Facebook has grown because it offered the best social platform for users. The point of social platforms is to connect with everyone else. Fragmentation means people needing to belong to and check multiple platforms. Trying to force competition won't solve any user issues. However, once Facebook stops providing a compelling service, people will move on their own. The same as they gave up MySpace and the same as they rejected Google+. The market chose Facebook and will purge it when time comes.

The same with Google. There were plenty of entrenched search services when Google came to be. Users chose it because it was better. The old search services died because they didn't evolve. If Google stops being the best fit option, people will go somewhere else. They already have choices like Bing and Duck Duck Go. As the service is free, people are choosing based on functionality, not on price. Those that don't like the privacy price of Google are opting for other services. You can't just declare another search service is required and then force the public to use it so that you can claim to have multiple services with comparable market share.

If people were given a choice of all you can eat steak or beets at equal cost, odds are that the majority would choose steak. When you remove cost and scarcity, the premium option will dominate. Digital services don't have scarcity like physical products do. It's a different economy.

Re:And how would that solve anything for consumers

[turbidostato]

"Fragmentation means people needing to belong to and check multiple platforms"

No, it doesn't. How many email services do you connect to? There are thousands of them and still you don't have any problem to get and send emails from/to anyother. How can this be?

Hint: the fact that things are a given way doesn't mean it must be the only possible one.