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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.
"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.
There's a simpler way:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
If they want to curate content according to their political bias, then treat them like the politically-biased media outlets they are, legally liable for the content they host, instead of platforms under "safe harbor" protections. If they want to continue to be treated like platforms, then they can keep their hands off their political opponents' speech.
We don't even have that anymore.
Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
exactly do you break up a company who offers a service for free?
Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
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.
Facebook has grown because it offered the best social platform for users.
As stated in the summary: Facebook has grown by purchasing their competitors. The summary mentions WhatsApp and Instagram specifically.
Your comment about the problem with fragmentation is an example of why Facebook needs to be broken up by an outside entity: they have a natural monopoly, since real competition from startups would lead to fragmentation.
I've said this before, but if the government came along and broke up the company by splitting off Facebook's front-end from its back-end, then we could have competition on the front-end without fragmentation of the userbase. This scenario can only happen through regulation though.
I don't like Facebook either but its not a monopoly, nor is it required in anyway to use the internet. Anyone could come up with the next social network thing anytime now or you can just NOT use Facebook. It isn't like an OS or a browser that is necessary for use or access to anything. Facebook or Twitter are tools of convenience and can easily be done without. If you don't like what is being said filter it out or don't use either.
errr....umm...*whooosh* *whoosh* Is this thing on ?
As stated in the summary: Facebook has grown by purchasing their competitors. The summary mentions WhatsApp and Instagram specifically.
While this is true, so far they have not bought their competitors to shut them down, or to raise prices to the detriment of consumers. They are building a monopoly, but so far, it is not harmful from an economic perspective, and unfortunately I don't think anti-trust law is concerned with privacy, so the case for breaking up Facebook is not strong.
Apple would be a much juicier target, especially as they recently became the world's first trillion dollar company (with Amazon close behind). Splitting out the AppStore with the condition that Apple does not get any favorable terms compared with the general public could precipitate opening up the platform to competing App Stores or sideloading, or at least AppStore Inc being forced to lower its margin to something more palatable to keep that scenario at bay.
I honestly want the monopolies to pretend to strengthen democracy.
... is horrifying. If Amazon for example were to centralize and when meat was ordered, then it would be defrosted and processed based on demand... it would make such a massive difference in our overhead to the planet.
At this point in time,
Jeff Bezos owns Amazon and news papers and whatever else
Satya Nadella is in control of one of the biggest new networks (which slashdotters will never see because it's through Edge and Bing)
The Alphabet boys are in control of what almost everyone in the world sees
Zuck and Dorsey could easily control a MASSIVE amount of what everyone sees.
What's also important is that most of these people seem to have some inkling of wanting to be good people. They're all stumbling their way through trying to be nice and fair and more powerful than the leaders of the UN nations.
Imagine if Facebook were broken into 20 different news and social media sites that were all controlled by basically the same people? It would be bigger, not smaller than it is today.
So... why can't these megabillionairs launch democracy sites which would break the two party system and allow equal access to all potential candidates. I mean seriously, politics is about gaining votes... which is about visibility. Zuck, Dorsey, Alphabet Boys and Nadella could easily outdo all the other mass media outlets in the world and offer a real political platform where "He who has the billion dollar fund raising power wins" isn't how it will work. They could make it a platform which works somewhat like a game or a reality TV series where interested candidates can compete on the merits of their beliefs over time and build up viewership.
These companies could capitalize by making their own kind of Apprentice style TV series that would allow the people to judge how different candidates lead and make decisions. But instead of making it about "You're fired" which still seems to be a mantra for Trump, make shows that simulate real political situations. Have episodes where they are confronted with issues like trying to mediate between Democrats and Republicans who disagree with each other just because they're both stupid. Or other episodes where as president they are presented with a bill to sign or veto which makes no sense, is nothing but 1000 pages of ear marks with a stupid name that exists only because congress can't discuss anything anymore. I for example would veto it and say "Don't send it back until you've actually read the thing and made the contents reflect what the title says... and actually discuss it... none of this passing the shit around until we get all our earmarks in bullshit. If you do that and the bill still sounds good, and you still have the votes, I'll sign it... otherwise, don't waste my time."
Imagine if it were possible for political science majors in school to learn more about administering the government rather than learning to establish, collect, distribute and manipulate political capital?
These mega-corporations are well positioned to make this happen in the real world. There's nothing wrong with Facebook interfering with what people seem to call the democratic system so long as they actually do it fairly and in the right way.
That being said... we need the mega-monopolies... consider Amazon grocery delivery. Instead of having 10,000 stores spread out over the whole country selling the same shit, there could be 50-100 well managed and automated warehouses. That means a lot of really important things.
1) Waste management... any idea how much meat we produce for no other reason than to stock shelves and make it look more attractive to buy and to provide selection? What about milk? What about vegetables? Do you really think there's a world food shortage? Is there a real resource consumption problem? Consumption means that we... well consume it. We don't. The massive amount of meat, fish, dairy etc... we produce and then simply throw away... in its packaging
Nope... that was back before we had mass real-time media and we didn't fully understand how incredibly fucked the entire government was.
... instead of representing the people.... which means ALL THE PEOPLE... not just your own voters have decided instead that Team Red or Team Blue need absolute control of the government to make decisions without discussing anything with the bat shit crazy people on the other team.
Then there was FDR who had the national radio and used it as a weapon against others in Washington to give him near-dictator powers. And then he completely without foresight fucked up the political system in America by imposing term limits which meant that politicians who have real plans that take more than 8 years to accomplish... won't.
When we got TV and had 1-3 channels, we had hope in people like Kennedy who was raised by a small group to a beacon of hope.
When we got 30 channels, we got CNN and things went rapidly south from there. People found out that we didn't need just 1 hour of news a day... we needed 24.
Then we got C-SPAN, BBC, MSNBC, Bloomberg, etc... and we ended up with 10,000 hours of broadcast news a day.
Then the news networks realized that they needed to differentiate themselves from each other in order to earn ratings and keep enough viewers to justify their jobs. So they started catering to groups.
And then came the Internet.
And the RSS feed.
And the Tweets.
And now in order for each news source to survive, they have to offer something. And what do they offer? Sports!!!
They've turned Republicans and Democrats into team Red and team Blue. They have actively stacked the teams... not with political leaders.... not we law makers... not with anything like that. They stacked the decks with "Good TV"!!!
So... the presidential campaigns are now reality TV series which have gone so far as to turn the presidential debates into a competition with a score board and which betting sights actually operate on. They've made sure that all the players on both teams are going to fight each other tooth and nail... not because of right and wrong but because of Team Red and Team Blue.
Both parties
No... neither party was ever sane... but what we have now is not democracy... It's the roman senate shortly before it was dissolved and an empire was declared.
Let me tell you something I know... anyone who backs a team is generally incompetent. Anyone who wants one team or player or the other to win... is well... I hope natural selection will eventually do away with those. We are a single team. There is no white hats and black hats. We are in this together. But so long as America has Team Red and Team Blue, there is no hope for American civilization to elevate itself out of the second world again.
It's correct that people want one point of access to a thing, but nobody really wants a monopoly.
Assuming that one inevitably leads to the other is part of the problem.
For example, with the video streaming sites, what we really need is for them to collaborate on the platform (how you login and watch shit) but compete on the content, meaning that if you watch American Gods on the shared platform, Amazon gets paid a share of your subscription, yet if you watch Luke Cage on the same platform, Netflix gets paid instead
That would be a great outcome for viewers but won't happen as long as these monopolist assholes can afford to be duplicating the effort of making yet another streaming service
The same sort of thing could play out for chat apps or social networks: common protocol with interoperable services built on top.
If you don't like how Facebook is fucking up your government, it should be trivial to leave them but take all of your data and existing social connections with you.
Of course, none of that will happen unless these companies are broken up into something smaller, and forced into a collaborative state
If you think that this is unreasonable, impossible etc, consider that the Internet you're on right now is designed in this way already.
Just imagine how bad things would be if you couldn't even send an email because the recipient is on Outlook but you're on GMail.
That's what the instant messaging market looks like right now.
"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.
"I think everyone's steering way away from the monopolies, and I think it's hurting innovation in the tech sector..."
Monopolies exist everywhere (not just the tech sector), but what has truly killed innovation is the patent system.
When companies amass tens of thousands of patents they'll never actually use in huge patent "war chests", it only serves one purpose; to allow Greed to stifle and control innovation.
Innovation reform is pointless without patent reform. You can't throw a stick 10 feet without hitting something that is patented 746 ways, to include throwing a stick 10 feet. When the world is controlled at that level, any attempt to innovate becomes more and more pointless and frustrating.
Interesting comment. A few points...
Then there was FDR who...fucked up the political system in America by imposing term limits which meant that politicians who have real plans that take more than 8 years to accomplish... won't.
This proposed and passed by Republicans after FDR died.
Then the news networks realized that they needed to differentiate themselves from each other in order to earn ratings and keep enough viewers to justify their jobs. So they started catering to groups.
After the Fairness Doctrine was repealed, networks eventually realized that news could now be entertainment. And profitable beyond their dreams.
They've turned Republicans and Democrats into team Red and team Blue. They have actively stacked the teams... not with political leaders.... not we law makers... not with anything like that. They stacked the decks with "Good TV"!!!
"Good TV", good line!
Both parties ... instead of representing the people.... which means ALL THE PEOPLE... not just your own voters have decided instead that Team Red or Team Blue need absolute control of the government to make decisions without discussing anything with the bat shit crazy people on the other team.
The trouble is, each side will say that their decisions *are* "for the good of all the people".
No... neither party was ever sane... but what we have now is not democracy... It's the roman senate shortly before it was dissolved and an empire was declared.
Whether or not we've ever had a democracy can be debated. Also, the Roman senate was never dissolved. The label "Empire" was a later conclusion of historians, and was not declared as such at the time...for a century or two the Ceasars played the "Republic Game" where they followed all the old forms. People were fine with that for a while because they were tired of civil war.
Let me tell you something I know... anyone who backs a team is generally incompetent. Anyone who wants one team or player or the other to win... is well... I hope natural selection will eventually do away with those.
I guess eons of tribal evolution has produced a humanity that is generally incompetent. No argument there.
We are a single team.
Continuing with the metaphor, when a single team gets everyone together, what do they do? They break down into different squads and have intramural competition. There may be awards and honors for being the best squad. Competition is strong. And if there is no "other team" to compete with, to beat, then the intramurals will evolve into...different teams.
There is no white hats and black hats.
Have you watched any old westerns? The term has a very long history. And goes back even further if you include different colors.
thx, sr
His ignorance covered the whole earth like a blanket, and there was hardly a hole in it anywhere. - Mark Twain