Zuckerberg Dismisses The Idea That Facebook Is A Monopoly

[Lucian Armasu]

In responses to Senator Lindsey Graham, Mark Zuckerberg strugged to find a direct competitor to Facebook and also said that he doesn't consider Facebook to be a monopoly.

Zuckerberg Dismisses The Idea That Facebook Is A Monopoly : Read more

 

[alextheblue]

Lizard people don't believe in monopolies.

 

[wirefire]

This isn't really a fair assessment of the situation. First off Zuckerberg did not know what his creation would one day become. MySpace and others at the time were serious competitors and Facebook emerged as the big winner. This has happened before (Intel) and (Bell Atlantic) and other companies that started out at the center of competition but ended up being monopolies. Is Facebook a monopoly? there is definitely a case to be made but they don't "sell" anything material. There is no true "need" serviced my Facebook, they service the desire of people to communicate.

 

[mihen]

If the validity of a ToS is determined by if people can read it, than 99% of all laws are invalid.

 

[boju]

Where's Lester when you need him kidding.

#Lifeinvader

 

[Co BIY]

"No senator, there are plenty of high tech companies that can sell you detailed personal targeting data for your next political campaign. But we feel we can provide real value added and would like your business!"

Their primary business is what they get paid for, not what they give away for free.

 

[elbert]

Facebook isn't because that would be like AMD is a monopoly because its has both CPU's and discrete GPU's. IE Nvidia doesn't do both nor does Intel. Facebook has tweeter and email to compete with on messaging. A whole host of picture sites on their photo uploads compete with Facebook. Same goes for each part of Facebook. They are just the only company that brings the full package together.

 

[stdragon]

Feds are threatened. Facebook is encroaching in the domain occupied by the NSA. So, this hearing is nothing more than Congress letting the Zuck know who's boss in this area.

 

[SteveRNG]

Not that I want to be the dictionary nerd, but I will do it: "the exclusive possession or control of the supply or trade in a commodity or service."

Facebook does not have a monopoly to its user-base. Since we as users don't pay for it and are not obligated to use it, nobody can say the control the supply of ??? social media access? We can go anywhere else to communicate with people and we can post cat pictures elsewhere as well.

Where they may be a monopoly is to the people who pay to access our data and advertise. Except that I don't believe they are there, either. There are many places to advertise on the internet and Advertisers can get data from other sources (Google, for one). Now, as far as directly funneling our personal information to bad actors: nobody does it better.