First Ring Daily 958: Facebook vs Goliath

Posted on December 16, 2020 by Brad Sams in First Ring Daily, Podcasts with 4 Comments

On this episode of First Ring Daily, Facebook targets Apple, Apple targets Facebook, and everyone else watches.

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Comments (5)

5 responses to “First Ring Daily 958: Facebook vs Goliath”

  1. hellcatm

    Active blocking of apps that collect data...except apples own apps, they'll collect all the data and then sell to facebook and other companies at a very high price. I'd love to see both facebook and apple torn apart.

    9 months ago
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  2. Stoicjim

    5 billion year-old carbon.

    9 months ago
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  3. Chris_Kez

    Paul, I'm with you on wanting to see Facebook go down. If I can play devil's advocate for a minute, though, maybe they do provide a valuable service for small businesses who are now able to advertise much more effectively and efficiently. No matter how niche your business, Facebook makes it possible to reach a sizeable audience. Previously you might have had to go to lots of different ad vendors or to individual websites, and do so with much less precision. I'm not sure that benefit, for those businesses, outweighs all of the terribleness of Facebook as a whole-- just pointing out that an ad platform the size of Facebook (or Google) can benefit smaller businesses in a way that the prior advertising landscape did not.

    9 months ago
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    • Paul Thurrott

      This is kind of the classic example of antitrust and monopoly. Here's this huge terrible company that acts as a gateway to whatever market and they can claim whatever benefit. The trick for regulators is demonstrating that there would be much more opportunity and much lower prices if this giant company didn't horde the access. And that's what's really happening here. Small businesses wouldn't disappear if Facebook went away. They would have more choice and/or lower prices for the services (advertising and otherwise) that they need. All Facebook is claiming, really, when you strip it all away, is that they have a lock on this market.
      9 months ago
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      • Chris_Kez

        In reply to paul-thurrott:

        Would advertising get cheaper though? I'd have to think it through for a while. Facebook doesn't set ad prices, there is an auction, so prices are a function mainly of supply and demand. I don't know how everything plays out if Facebook shrinks and advertisers move to other places. Are those places all auction based as well? How much supply is out there? It is a complicated question. I'd like to find out by knocking Facebook down a notch, though.

        9 months ago
        0

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