Economics: What a monopoly isn't.

[Speaker to Animals]

And because of it Facebook never amounted to anything and MySpace reigns supreme.

There were at least a dozen social networks at that time competing for market share. But the nature of a social network dictates the more users on the network, the more attractive it becomes to users, and therefore the larger market share it gets.

The user base and actual time usage of any social network in the early 2000s was nothing like today. There was no equivalent of current Facebook that 2000s Facebook had to beat. All they needed was a better interface and social network model to beat their competitors.


The best interface hands down from that era was Zaads, but it's model was limited to new age type shit, so it fizzled. Facebook has a slightly less shitty interface than Google's original social network (they used essentially the same model) so people tried both and stuck with Facebook.

Now that Facebook won, the only thing that can really upset their monopoly is themselves and their shitty behavior driving people from social media altogether. But if somebody else replaces them, everybody will switch to the new network platform and you still get a monopoly.

The only way you can overcome the network effect at this point is interoperability. If it does not matter which service you use (for basic social media operations), and you can easily interact with other network platforms from the one you use, then you can have competition.

Basic social media operations here involve finding profiles, adding friends, sending private messages, and writing posts on a user's profile. Everything else can be unique to the network platform.

Just do that and I guarantee Facebook would implode because it is a particularly awful social network interface. Just on so many usability levels that site gets a fat F. The only reason they even lasted this long is the network effect.

Blah blah blah
Still subject to market forces
Not a monopoly

I do think it won’t be long before facebook feeds is appropriated into another “app” whereby you can get your feed independent of their algorithms and have it meld feeds from different socials.

As drudge report is to news media, so will this be.

You did not even read what I wrote and wrongly assumed what I argued.

[BjornP]

There's a misconception that monopolies are businesses that have captured 100% of the customer base. This isn't true. Think about the first general store to crop up in Texas. Were they a monopoly? If "owning" all the customers makes a business a monopoly, then every new type of business that crops up is a monopoly by default.

No, a monopoly exists when a business is protected from facing competition. The first general store in Texas isn't a monopoly because they had no power to prevent the second general store, or third, from setting up in Texas.

Now . . . what entity can prevent new businesses from arising to challenge established ones?
The government.

That's it. The government is the only entity that can put up anti-competitive barriers to ensure no new challengers enter a particular market space. So the takeaway is this - if a monopoly exists, then odds are the government is responsible for allowing or facilitating its existence. Thus, turning to the government to craft anti-monopoly legislation is like turning to the Luciano/Genovese family to create anti-organized crime legislation.
Be wary!

I was with you up to the bolded part and beyond. Two issues here:

1. (Minor issue, mostly choice of rhetoric).

You (seem to) ignore or downplay the responsibility of the party that instigates, and seeks to profit from, a monopoly - the private company seeking a monopoly. Do you think it is primarily and most often government that approaches private industries, and - without any past lobbying by the private company - offers them to become a monopoly?

2. (Greater issue, concerning how you reach your conclusion)

If monopoly is the government granting, allowing and facililating an unfair, anti-comptetitve advantage, then is the obvious solution to that problem (assuming you consider it one..) then not to make any such monopoly creation entirely impossible? In your American case, by writing a new amendment to the constitution, preventing government from engaging in such practises?

Are monopolies in your opinion wrong at all, DB? If they are, then by which means should they be replaced by more free market forces? Law? Boycuts? Sitting yourselves down in a circle in a park, playing drums and tambourines, while singing "Imagine AAaalll the capital! That could - all be youuurs - oooh-whoo-ooooh!", just hoping it all goes away?

[DBTrek]

I was with you up to the bolded part and beyond. Two issues here:

1. (Minor issue, mostly choice of rhetoric).

You (seem to) ignore or downplay the responsibility of the party that instigates, and seeks to profit from, a monopoly - the private company seeking a monopoly. Do you think it is primarily and most often government that approaches private industries, and - without any past lobbying by the private company - offers them to become a monopoly?

No ... but so what? That's akin to saying "Do you think it's hammers that most often seek out carpenters?" - if the job is nailing wood, and a hammer is required to do it, it doesn't matter who sought out who. The fact remains the hammer has to smack the nails for the job to get done . . . even if it's the carpenter who wants to accomplish the task.


2. (Greater issue, concerning how you reach your conclusion)

If monopoly is the government granting, allowing and facililating an unfair, anti-comptetitve advantage, then is the obvious solution to that problem (assuming you consider it one..) then not to make any such monopoly creation entirely impossible? In your American case, by writing a new amendment to the constitution, preventing government from engaging in such practises?

Dude . . . we can't get our "leaders" to bother defending our borders . . . you really think they'll voluntarily limit their own powers when it comes to granting monopolies? That's exceedingly optimistic on your part.

Are monopolies in your opinion wrong at all, DB? If they are, then by which means should they be replaced by more free market forces? Law? Boycuts? Sitting yourselves down in a circle in a park, playing drums and tambourines, while singing "Imagine AAaalll the capital! That could - all be youuurs - oooh-whoo-ooooh!", just hoping it all goes away?

Economic monopolies are bad for distributing resources efficiently. Most people aren't economically literate enough to understand that, as we see from the number of folks struggling to simply comprehend what a monopoly is. They have a basic, animal-instinct level understanding of a single entity controlling the entirety of a market being bad, but that's about it. Which explains why they turn to the monopoly-makers time and time again for solutions. Derp.

[BjornP]

1.
No ... but so what? That's akin to saying "Do you think it's hammers that most often seek out carpenters?" - if the job is nailing wood, and a hammer is required to do it, it doesn't matter who sought out who. The fact remains the hammer has to smack the nails for the job to get done . . . even if it's the carpenter who wants to accomplish the task.

Fair enough.

Dude . . . we can't get our "leaders" to bother defending our borders . . . you really think they'll voluntarily limit their own powers when it comes to granting monopolies? That's exceedingly optimistic on your part.

Ok, so they won't give up those powers voluntarily you say... but so what, and then what? Above you seem to regard the government as the carpenter, rather as the tools (businesses, I assume?). As the "leader", IOW. Well, if you want to hold government somehow accountable... what are you - or rather the people you want to correct it - supposed to do, DB? How do you hold government accountable? Do you just...hope they don't get create monopolies, anymore? If government is the carpenter, what is the citizen? Always the nail, waiting to be hammered?

Economic monopolies are bad for distributing resources efficiently. Most people aren't economically literate enough to understand that, as we see from the number of folks struggling to simply comprehend what a monopoly is. They have a basic, animal-instinct level understanding of a single entity controlling the entirety of a market being bad, but that's about it. Which explains why they turn to the monopoly-makers time and time again for solutions. Derp.

Yeah, it's just awful when people keep using the wrong, often personalized, definitions of words and terms. I hear it's a favorite tactic of those Socialists, in fact.

I'm one of those who don't see government as this foreign country-like entity. But IF I was, I'd establish some sort of organization for my country's businesses, like a chamber of commerce, and let it decide whether or not a business was trying to establish an...unfair market dominance, let's call it. Of course, since government in this scenario still gets to create monopolies, I'm not sure what good it will do. But it's a work around - in conjunction with boycuts, and it might pressure government.

Or it might not. Meh.

[DBTrek]

Theoretically our role is to elect officials to carry out the will of the people.
In reality Democrats don't have socialized medicine and Republicans don't have a border wall.

So you can see the problem.

[Martin Hash]

Theoretically our role is to elect officials to carry out the will of the people.
In reality Democrats don't have socialized medicine and Republicans don't have a border wall.

So you can see the problem.

Nice

[heydaralon]

Just land on Free Parking and get the community chest a few times and you can break any monopoly. That and rolling the right amount to skip Boardwalk. Staying in jail is also a viable option.

[Kath]

I was not disagreeing with you.

Ok, I misunderstood. I think FB overtaking MySpace is completely relevant in illustrating this point.

[Speaker to Animals]

There was no social network monopoly when that happened.

The nature of what a social network actually is dictates that there is only going to be one social network in the end, which is a monopoly. The way around that is for social networks to be designed for interoperability. Good luck convincing Facebook to allow competition like that.

[Kath]

There was no social network monopoly when that happened.

The nature of what a social network actually is dictates that there is only going to be one social network in the end, which is a monopoly. The way around that is for social networks to be designed for interoperability. Good luck convincing Facebook to allow competition like that.

Wow! Sounds a lot like Highlander. "There can be only one!" Lol...

If that is true, it won't be Facebook. People are leaving FB in droves, in favor of other social media sites. Nerd and his kids all left FB about two years ago. I only stay because my account is linked to a couple of my silly games. I rarely post; haven't accepted a new friend request in over a year. It's no longer interesting. It's just ads and click bait, and every once in a while, a friend posts pictures of food.

It's a snooze fest.