I think there's an argument for breaking up Facebook for antitrust reasons.

I used to be fine with the "Just don't use Facebook" argument. I quit it myself several years ago.

But recently I've found myself being genuinely inconvenienced by not being on Facebook. My gym for example, uses a Facebook group as its main forum. Several sports clubs and businesses I use now have a Facebook page as their main "web site". Friends tell me that Facebook marketplace is overtaking Gumtree as the best place to buy and sell. I am missing out on participating in all of these groups.

I don't blame any of these organisations for opting to use Facebook. They're all too small to employ anyone to maintain a website. Facebook no doubt gives them a great CMS and makes everything easy.

But it seems completely wrong that I have to submit to Facebook, with its real name policy and abuse of my data, to participate in these groups.

The markets for startups in any of these areas must be hugely stifled by Facebook's monopoly. Who would be brave enough to start a business building a CMS for gyms at this point?

I'm not a lawyer, but I don't see how this is different from Microsoft bundling a browser with an OS. In many ways it's worse.

As others have pointed out, there are benefits to Facebook et al, both individually and collectively (though some people may ignore the latter) however there's also great harm being done through these platforms, from the creation of echo chambers to data collection (personally, I'm more worried about the former, I don't really care about privacy wrt getting ads sent to me).

So I don't blame Facebook for building a platform people want to use, but I do blame them for the damage it's causing. People that care strongly about the open web (not really me, honestly, as long as it exists I'm content, imo people don't have to use it) likely feel similarly.

You do know that creators of the network also created positive feedback loops to get people addicted, right?