It seems to me that a social network is one of those natural monopolies. It works so well because so many people use it. Remember the big reason many social network alternatives failed, no one else was on them.
There are some things (very few in fact) that just work better as monopolies. But that just means you need to regulate it differently. And there's an interesting discussion, how best to regulate natural monopolies.
The big reason many other networks failed, is because no one else was on them? Prove that as the cause, as opposed to them sucking as the reason. MySpace & Friendster were already very substantial when Facebook came along and destroyed them, because they were horrible services.
The better question is, why would you need or want to regulate it as a natural monopoly? Specifically: to accomplish what?
Let me give you some examples.
1) To force FB to open up, allowing other social networks to openly ride on its network / social data (the broadband one pipe lots of delivery companies premise). Ok, now you're begging for a radical increase in abuse of personal data. And you're going to need some new (or expanded existing) bureaucracy agency to manage it all, which will open up new government abuses without a doubt (happens every time; and said agency will radically slow down innovation, which also happens every single time). Some obnoxious SNEA - Social Network Enforcement Agency - will get created, and that'll be the end of any innovation in social media; if you give the Feds an inch of new power, they'll take a thousand miles.
Besides, you can already replicate your social network onto other platforms by allowing FB apps to access your list of friends. Most people don't care because there simply are not that many highly compelling social concepts to explore that are worth the effort to maintain/use. There will never be large numbers of compelling social offerings; there inherently can't be as people have finite time, the hurdle to acquire it is very high. It's work/effort to maintain these networks for the end user, they do not want to have to upkeep it all.
2) To enforce higher standards on privacy. Well, we can already pass legislation to do that comprehensively across all media platforms, if it makes sense. It'd be ridiculous to regulate one platform for that purpose.
3) To limit various corporate abuses by FB (Instagram/Snapchat, ala Internet Explorer/Netscape). Well, we already have anti-trust laws for that and thousands of other laws & regulations and numerous giant three letter enforcement agencies.
Meanwhile, while the argument is being made for regulating Facebook as a natural monopoly, the next technology paradigm is being born somewhere to make them far less relevant. That process has been repeating itself for 60 years or so now, requiring very little actual regulation by the government.
>Meanwhile, while the argument is being made for regulating Facebook as a natural monopoly, the next technology paradigm is being born somewhere to make them far less relevant. That process has been repeating itself for 60 years or so now, requiring very little actual regulation by the government.
^^ Just world fallacy
In reality, the DoJ deal with Microsoft is probably partly what led to the second internet startup renaissance. MS were still bullies and they still inhibited innovation by squashing smaller competitors but it would have been a whole lot worse if Microsoft were not defanged by that deal.
Unfortunately anti-trust enforcement seems to have gone out of vogue these days (starting with Bush, but Obama was worse than useless in that respect as well).
Well there are certain features that can't be done without the mass amount of people. All that ML that Facebook does? No one can replicate it without the data. Yes, they have fancy algos, but it is the data that drives it.
We definitely have seen plenty of Facebook clones that are better at protecting your privacy, have better messaging systems, and lots of other features. Everyone that has tried to use these networks gets the response from most friends of "eh, I'll just use Facebook. I don't need another account." Having the best product does not always mean you win. Marketing plays a big role, and it is hard to market against one of the biggest marketers. (If you're going to talk tech and markets, you do need to know "'better' doesn't always win")
But as to your questions, we would want to regulate natural monopolies differently than we would in the competitive market. Things such as: how data is handled and distributed; how privacy is handled (when you have so much on almost everyone); different regulations on how to check that news being spread is accurate.
AT&T was treated as a natural monopoly and that caused Bell Labs to be born. And we all know Bell invented the modern world. Since new tech has come out, AT&T lots its natural monopoly treatment.
I'm not suggesting to treat it like a natural monopoly forever, but while it is one. When some new innovation comes and competes, Facebook should then be treated as if in a competitive market (because it will be then). But right now it isn't in one.
Just tell me, who is Facebook's competition? Google+? Ello? People compete with parts of Facebook, but they have no real competition.
Facebook is pretty much where myspace was back in the day on the "hype cycle", where every aunt tillie and whatsnot is on there. Thus you see fewer and fewer young people being active on there, because they used to see Facebook as somewhere they could talk among themselves without parents and whatsnot peeking.
Yes, exactly. That's pretty much the reason I never really got into Google+; most of my friends weren't on there, and didn't care to be, so I was just reading a lot of the same things I could read on Twitter -- public posts by more tech-savvy people.
There are some things (very few in fact) that just work better as monopolies. But that just means you need to regulate it differently. And there's an interesting discussion, how best to regulate natural monopolies.