First Ring Daily 958: Facebook vs Goliath

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• hellcatm

  16 December, 2020 - 10:09 am

  <p>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.</p>

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• Stoicjim

  Premium Member

  16 December, 2020 - 10:13 am

  <p>5 billion year-old carbon.</p>

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• Chris_Kez

  Premium Member

  16 December, 2020 - 9:03 pm

  <p>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.</p>

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• Paul Thurrott

  Premium Member

  17 December, 2020 - 8:20 am

  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.

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• Chris_Kez

  Premium Member

  17 December, 2020 - 11:05 am

  <blockquote><em><a href="#600501">In reply to paul-thurrott:</a></em></blockquote><p>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.</p>

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