The last time I saw Mark Zuckerberg was in the summer of 2017, several months before the Cambridge Analytica scandal broke. We met at Facebook’s Menlo Park, Calif., office and drove to his house, in a quiet, leafy neighborhood. We spent an hour or two together while his toddler daughter cruised around. We talked politics mostly, a little about Facebook, a bit about our families. When the shadows grew long, I had to head out. I hugged his wife, Priscilla, and said goodbye to Mark.
Since then, Mark’s personal reputation and the reputation of Facebook have taken a nose-dive. The company’s mistakes — the sloppy privacy practices that dropped tens of millions of users’ data into a political consulting firm’s lap; the slow response to Russian agents, violent rhetoric and fake news; and the unbounded drive to capture ever more of our time and attention — dominate the headlines. It’s been 15 years since I co-founded Facebook at Harvard, and I haven’t worked at the company in a decade. But I feel a sense of anger and responsibility.
This New York Times articles, written by Facebook co-founder Chris Hughes, is an absolute must-read. Facebook – along with Apple, Google, and possibly Amazon and Microsoft – must be broken up to reduce their immense power.
Hughes quotes John Sherman, who said in the late 19th century on the floor of US Congress, “If we will not endure a king as a political power, we should not endure a king over the production, transportation and sale of any of the necessities of life.If we would not submit to an emperor, we should not submit to an autocrat of trade with power to prevent competition and to fix the price of any commodity.”
He was right then, and he’s still right now.
Why stop there? Also vital to add to the list: Hollywood, AT&T, Comcast, Charter, Verizon, P&G, Luxottica, most banks, Ford, GM, Chevrolet… basically, EVERY “big” corporation. Too big to fail? Too big. Period. Break them up.
Breaking up Facebook won’t fix anything. It might make political left leaners who hate big business feel better, but will it increase the responsibility of the individual entities? Will it make up for the scandals and data leaks? Will it impose upon whatever new entities replace it a sense of responsibility and a desire to not fsck up so badly again?
Of course not.
Let’s say it happened. You broke up Facebook, or Google, or any other tech company. What’s your next step? Are you going to magically create competition out of the vacuum?
I’m genuinely interested in the responses to this, since no one seems to think further ahead then “they’re getting too big, break them up!” My question is, what then? What should happen, or would we all hope to happen? What if the users still stick with Facebook/Google/whatever and competition still doesn’t win out? Should we try to legislate something else to force a market that might not exist or results most people simply don’t care about?
It’s trendy to want to break up big businesses, but I don’t go in for trends. What, precisely, is it that you all really want who say this?
I’m not opposed to companies being allowed to grow to huge sizes. In fact, it takes companies of great size to advance society because it takes great resources to do so. Everything people like is probably the result of investment by a big company. Advances in medicine, advances in technology, advances in travel, entertainment, convenience, etc. The government doesn’t do all that, big companies with deep pockets do.
So, is the real problem that companies can get so big, or is it that they’re given vast political power by things like Citizens United, legal lobbying, and so on? Like you said, you can break these companies up but competition doesn’t magically appear. Peoples decisions don’t magically change. I’m far more concerned with Amazon’s power to influence law in our corrupt government than I am their ability to build out a nationwide delivery network and soon making 1 day/same day delivery the standard for their Prime members.
I’d +100 you if we still had a modding system. You’ve hit the nail on the head with regard to the real problem and articulated it far better than I.
friedchicken,
Are you hallucinating? Practically all the biggest advances in technology comes from public funding, especially in research of the fundamental sciences.
Advances in medicine don’t come from big companies – all they do is patent minor changes to drug manufacturing and creating drugs from poor studies, and (in the US) let the insurance system control the rest of healhcare.
Advances in technology don’t come from the pockets of big companies – they come from trying to win government grants and contracts and spending as little of their own money on R&D as much as possible.
“Are you hallucinating? Practically all the biggest advances in technology comes from public funding, especially in research of the fundamental sciences.
Advances in medicine don’t come from big companies – all they do is patent minor changes to drug manufacturing and creating drugs from poor studies, and (in the US) let the insurance system control the rest of healhcare.
Advances in technology don’t come from the pockets of big companies – they come from trying to win government grants and contracts and spending as little of their own money on R&D as much as possible.”
You’re simply wrong. Pubic funding plays a part, sometimes, and it does not fuel all the biggest advances across science, technology, and medicine. The grants you mention typically only cover a portion of the total cost. The government contracts happen after the application is proven and the big money has already been spent getting it to that point. Companies aren’t just out all that money though, in the US companies get to write off 100% of the billions upon billions they spend each year on R&D.
The one thing you got right is companies do commonly try to minimize the cost of achieving their R&D goals but that’s also a general practice in business.
friedchicken,
Empirically false. Just take the internet and WWW for example. One was a defense funded project. The other is an offshoot of CERN.
Military technology and offshoots would not happen if there was no promise of government money being gifted to them.
Companies spending billions on R&D, like the internet giants, would not exist without government programs creating the infrastructure.
I’m sorry, most if not all the biggest advances were all publicly funded first. They either needed big bunch of cash or were to risky for business to even try,
Lennie, you’re completely ignoring the difference between partial public funding and full public funding. If you think for a second that big companies haven’t, aren’t, or don’t pour tons of their own money into R&D then you are sorely out of touch with reality. Do you think public funding pays for everything and for some unknown reason all the patents, rights, and financial rewards are just given away to the companies? Yeah, that’s not how it works.
darknexus,
Forget about thinking ahead, you seemed to not even have thought this out in the present.
Do you not understand what breaking up a company is? The bits they break into don’t magically disappear. That’s where the competition comes from. They compete with each other. It’s not difficult, only your lack of understanding on the matter makes it difficult for you.
“Forget about thinking ahead, you seemed to not even have thought this out in the present.
Do you not understand what breaking up a company is? The bits they break into don’t magically disappear. That’s where the competition comes from. They compete with each other. It’s not difficult, only your lack of understanding on the matter makes it difficult for you.”
Let’s pretend for a second that Microsoft gets broken up. Please explain how the Xbox, Windows, Online Services, Business, and Devices divisions suddenly become each others competition.
Breaking companies up doesn’t automagically create X small competing companies out of 1 large one. Were Microsoft to be broken up, it would look vastly different than what happened with Bell Systems. Breaking big companies up isn’t always a great or appropriate solution. There can be unintended consequences that cause more harm than good. Walmart, due to it’s size, has killed off tons of small businesses. At the same time it has also driven down prices and is the worlds largest employer. Do you think it’s better to have a few small stores charging higher prices and employing far fewer people, or a big Super Walmart with lower prices, employing far more people? Like I said in my other post, big business is responsible for many of the things people like.
friedchicken,
Not when you break them up like that. Your lack of imagination on how to break up companies to drive competition is your fault.
You say that like everyone likes this situation. Recent political outcomes show at least half of the population do not like big businesses like Walmart buying cheap stuff from China and killing off local manufacturing.
“Not when you break them up like that. Your lack of imagination on how to break up companies to drive competition is your fault.”
Those are the core components of that company. What do you recommend happen, take everyone out of the areas of knowledge & experience and place them elsewhere in an attempt to break the company up in an `imaginative` way? Put your money where your mouth is and explain how you think Microsoft could be broken up while creating multiple competing entities. You keep telling everyone they “lack” understanding — time to prove you have any.
“You say that like everyone likes this situation. Recent political outcomes show at least half of the population do not like big businesses like Walmart buying cheap stuff from China and killing off local manufacturing.”
No, I didn’t imply everyone likes it but in poll after poll after poll people overwhelmingly say they’re unwilling or can’t afford to pay higher prices. It’s not just big companies like Walmart that destroyed American manufacturing, America itself is largely responsible via horrible trade policies, unions, labor laws, pollution regulation, etc. Are you willing to trade these things in order for America to be competitive again? I didn’t think so, and neither is anyone else except maybe the fools who bought into Trump’s “Make America Great Again” nonsense.
So while some people may not like Walmart, they like the low prices, convenience, and jobs that Walmart brings with it. Most people don’t want to give that up, especially those in all the small towns that are only alive still because Walmart is there.
By the time we agree on how to break up Facebook, they would probably be obsolete. People think Facebook has a monopoly in social relations, however we’ve already moved on. Ironically I use WhatsApp, which is owned but not integrated by Facebook as an alternative. If it becomes too “facebook like”, I’ll probably switch again.
It has happened several times in the past. When Microsoft was sued for including Internet Explorer in Windows, undercutting Netscape sales, it took almost a decade to reach a decision. When that was done, both Internet Explorer and Netscape were things of the past, replaced by Firefox (another Netscape product, with a completely different business model).
This is part of the “cycle of life” for businesses. They are formed, many fail, and some of them become very large, even giving the impression of being a monopoly. Even then they are uprooted by younger startups and eventually die off, or become a niche.
So I would not be for breaking Facebook up, unless they demonstrate intentional harmful behavior.
Facebook is planning on integrating Facebook, Instagram and Whatsapp.
Breaking up Facebook won’t break up Facebook the service product. It will only reverse the acquisitions. Acquiring competitors is anti-competitive by definition and is already regulated. So maybe that is what should be “broken up”. However, Instagram is putting Facebook out of business with the younger generation and WhatsApp is kicking Messenger’s butt as a way to connect by voice. So I am not sure what would change after a break up, unless you literally broke up the Facebook Service. It’s not like there are Apps and Operating Systems separate sides of that business. It can’t really be broken without hurting the customers the breakers are trying to protect. Also there are a million highly motivated young entrepreneurs frantically out there innovating as they try to get bought by the big guys. Or take them out, like Facebook and Microsoft did in their day. So I am not sure what is wrong with that either.
The elephant in the room (and already mentioned here) is the issue of political influence. Trump hires tycoons and Obama created panels of then to get advice. And both parties are in the pay of tycoons effectively as well. Talk about the foxes running the hen house!
I’m in favor of these companies being broken up… save for Microsoft and Apple. Microsoft had a propensity for being anti-competitive but no-longer. Apple not so.
Facebook isn’t very important. For most people, our data isn’t that important. If Facebook follows the same trajectory as every human activity that has come before, at some point, people will be talking about it like they talk about AOL now. Moral responsibility? We have an entire military on which we spend more than the next 8 nations, last time I looked. 12,000 children die every day – from starvation. All the hubbub is almost completely about humans getting their panties in a bunch. In 20 years, my guess, no one will give a shit about Facebook. All of our so called human moral quandaries are from words that we carefully string together. Facebook is a focus, presently, for whatever we put into it. In the grand scheme, and even in our short history, Facebook is merely a symptom of humanity, and not a cause.