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Comment by joebadmo | Hacker News Reader

I don't think he's comparing FB to water, he's comparing social networking/communication/connection to water. Facebook would then be the utility company, with a de facto monopoly, but no check on its power. (Personally I think competition is the check, and I'm on team Google.)

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I don't think he's saying Facebook is like water. I think he's saying facebook is NOT like a stable utility like water or power.

From the top-level comment: "this is very basic and very global stuff, similar to water or power, and you shouldn't have to question its integrity."

So yes, unless my English fails me, he is indeed saying that social networking is (or should be) like a utility.

Well he's saying it should be like a utility, but it isn't.

I believe he means in terms of it being a platform for development. So for instance as a platform for development it might be compared to a utility in which case you wouldn't expect the people that run your water or electric to shut those off because some manager at the plant was playing god. Whereas in Facebook's case this apparently has the potential to happen. Making Facebook a not so attractive platform.

It is a metaphorical comparison. I believe he is saying FB has become so ubiquitous and pervasive in our lives, that in the social media it dominates as a fundamental utility. It has become so important to 100's of millions of people and that there is little recourse if you did not want to use them. and yes there is Google plus, but there is not enough people on that service currently to rival the social interactions of Facebook. And regardless of how well a service is designed it is pointless if you can't have the same level of interaction with other people. I think a better comparison would be the monopoly AT&T had over long distance telephone service in the mid-20th century. It was not as essential to living as water or power was but still seen as a monopoly and was broken up into the Baby Bells. I think Facebook falls in that category while you can definitely live your life without it, it has become the de facto place for social interaction. That being the case, you should not have to worry about the integrity or perhaps the malicious behavior of said company.

For me a better comparison is emails. Social content should be produced and consumed with the tool of your choice, like emails. cf http://www.douban.com/note/174513094/

don't you ever question the strange phenomenon of these giant inhuman corporations manipulating us to the point where we choose one as a team, adopting our allegiance to them as an salient feature of our identity?

they don't give a fuck about us, at all - by definition, they are incapable of doing so.

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