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Comment by hourago | Hacker News Reader

Facebook and other tech companies are a great example of what would have happened if AT&T had not been split up for monopolistic practices. AT&T would have become a middleman in all communications. Can you imagine having to pay AT&T and other internet providers a chunk of your on-line revenue? That is what Facebook, Apple, Twitter and others are doing.

The new monopolistic middlemen are taking a big percentage of the world economy just because they are providing the infrastructure needed to run business. They decide who can reach consumers and who cannot. It is not sustainable.

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But this isn’t happening because Facebook wants to extract a toll from someone. It’s happening because the government wants to extract a toll from Facebook – to be paid to news organizations, for the privilege of Facebook users being able to send other Facebook users links to those organizations’ content.

To be more accurate, the newspapers had a psuedo-monopoly, as they controlled what content got delivered to people's doorsteps. They made people pay huge amounts for classified ads and the like.

Now someone else controls the delivery mechanism, and they're passed.

They're still mad at Craigslist, but they don't make enough to be a worthwhile target.

AT&T was a monopoly; many consumers didn't realistically have a choice. When it comes to social media, FB isn't a monopoly. Twitter, SnapChat, and TikTok compete very successfully in the same market. You could include iMessage and YouTube in that segment too depending on your definition of social media.

I could argue the same for Apple; other companies compete successfully in the manufacture of phones, personal computers, and tech accessories.

A company can be large and powerful without being a monopoly.

One important difference is that Facebook is not cutting up streets and accidentally severing other utility cables, pipes etc in order to extend their reach into target markets. A rival telco would have to do that if it wasn't required to give them access to this physical infrastructure. They are also not using a precious limited resource (such as radio spectrum) that would be spoiled if everyone used it without regard for the impact on other broadcasters and consumers.

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