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Comment by beaner | Hacker News Reader

Is it? There are more forums on the internet than there have ever been. It's not like FB and Twitter are the only 2 platforms that exist.

I'm skeptical that "breaking them up" would really do anything. People would continue to use the thousands of other platforms that are out there, but there would still be a desire for a sufficiently abstract social network that another one would grow. Then there would be calls to break that one up...

To fight against large social networks is to fight against natural human organization and interaction. Attempting to is pointless and probably even harmful, since the velocity of good ideas would be reduced along with the bad.

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They may not technically be the only platforms (extending to include all big tech), but practically speaking they are effectively the only platforms, which is what really matters. Someone may technically be able to change from Comcast to Verizon, but if it would cost them 10k then it becomes rather impractical and the net effect is the same as if Comcast was the only option. The barrier to switching must be considered as well as the existence of options.

However I agree that breaking them up may not be the solution - mandated interoperability may be. At least then there would be the benefits of having freedom of choice with plenty of options without the downsides of losing access to your data and your social network (which I think constitute the majority of the switching barrier). Similar mandates in healthcare and education would also be beneficial. This would of course not immediately solve the problem, but I would rather have to deal with getting developers to be mindful of the needs of their users than face the impossibility of getting users in the first place.

An entity should be allowed to be as successful as they can manage, so long as the practical barriers to competition are not affected (ie, network effects)

Switching costs are low. People use YouTube, Telegram, Slack, Instagram, Snapchat, and Reddit all day. Countless smaller forums are wildly popular for specific interests.

If they fell, whatever platform is next in line would start receiving the criticism.

But further, I think we've seen many times in tech that about the time something gets so large that people start wanting to regulate it is about when tides are shifting anyway. The thing to reduce the influence of these networks won't be regulation, it will be some combination of boredom, disillusionment, a better alternative, the next generation wanting something different from their parents, etc. To force split before that happens just ensures the market-provided solution is weaker and less revolutionary than it could be, since the competition it is overcoming has artificial handicaps. That makes progress slower overall.

> Then there would be calls to break that one up...

Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty. Many markets naturally tend towards monopolies - that is no reason not to break them up.

As for the thousands of other platforms - those can't sway elections like Facebook can.

What is really being asked to be broken up isn't a monopoly, but the way people interact with each other and organize themselves, which so far has manifested as large corporations because it has been the most efficient expression of our own built-in networking.

What I hear when you say "smaller platforms can't influence elections like facebook" is "citizens vote differently when they are disconnected from their peers - in a way that I like".

>the way people interact with each other and organize themselves, which so far has manifested as large corporations because it has been the most efficient expression of our own built-in networking.

[citation needed]

> isn't a monopoly, but the way people interact with each other

But it's more than just the way people interact - it's also a company controlling it. E.g. no-one is calling for breaking up IRC or XMPP - because you couldn't.

I'm just not comfortable giving a handful of companies so much soft power over national/global discussion.

I think the point is that even if such a service were completely decentralized, there would be the same calls to action against it.

The point being made in the article is not so much about the companies themselves, it's about how people communicate with each other on such platforms (even if the author intended otherwise).

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