
Zuckerberg struggles to name a single Facebook competitor - imartin2k
https://www.theverge.com/2018/4/10/17220934/facebook-monopoly-competitor-mark-zuckerberg-senate-hearing-lindsey-graham
======
tdewitt
I've been listening. His attempted answer was reasonable. Facebook doesn't
have a single competitor because they don't have just a single product. Name
the "biggest" competitors for Siemens or SAP or Google or Microsoft or
Honeywell. They're companies of companies and each unit may have a single
biggest competitor but asking for just one feels intentionally misleading.

Disclaimer: I hate Facebook and twitter and Pinterest and Snapchat and
whatever the hell else and have no personal investment in this whatsoever. I'm
listing purely for the entertainment value of watching zuck squirm.

~~~
tabeth
I fail to see what's misleading about asking for a competitor to Facebook.

Microsoft's competitors are Apple on the hardware and software front, Google
on the search engine front, Atlassian on productivity tools front, GitHub on
the repository/code storage front, AWS on the cloud storage front, etc. I
assume Microsoft's core solutions are their OS, their productivity tools and
cloud.

Google's competitors are Yahoo, Bing and Duckduckgo on the search front.
Garmin, TomTom and others on the map front, etc. And perhaps everyone on the
email front. Here I assume Google's core tools are search, email, and maps.

Facebook's competitors are... Instag- oh right. Uh, Snapchat, I guess?

~~~
loeg
Facebook is an ad company. The product they sell is targeted ads. As a
customer who wants to buy ad space, you can go to Facebook, or you can go to
Google, or a myriad of other players.

Yahoo and Bing are not significant Google competitors. They aren't even
independent — Yahoo search _is_ Bing.

As a social media _user_ , you're not the customer, you're the product.

~~~
eesmith
I don't believe your statement is complete.

Take a look at all of the companies where a court determined that the company
abused its monopoly power.

Every single one of them had "a myriad of other players" in the market.

So the existence of other players doesn't mean that Facebook doesn't have
market power, it doesn't mean that FB isn't a monopoly, and it doesn't mean
that FB can't abuse its market power.

Only a few hours ago, jwz (who blocks links from HN - fwiw, we are HN
products) at
[https://www.dnalounge.com/backstage/log/2018/04/10.html](https://www.dnalounge.com/backstage/log/2018/04/10.html)
wrote:

> Advertising anywhere that is not Facebook simply does not work. We keep
> trying and keep getting nowhere.

> We hear that from other promoters and venues, too: everyone says "Yeah we
> only advertise on Facebook. Nothing else does any good."

> I hate that this is the case. A lot.

This is the sort of comment you see if a company has market power, where
switching to other players is not an option.

~~~
aoeusnth1
If you use uMatrix, you can enable spoofing of your referrer header from HN so
the link works :)

------
basch
dumb. they didnt let him answer the question.

he asked for clarification. were they asking about tech companies, messaging
companies, or something else (advertising companies and publishers? they never
got to the other categories)

BUT had they been able to ask a clear question, they could have gotten to the
point that he doesnt have many messaging competitors
(wechat/snapchat/google/skype.) more importantly they could have gone a more
standard protocol/decentralization approach and asked him about going back
towards intra-messenger inoperability. should facebook messenger be able to
talk to skype and hangouts? ALL email providers talk to each other (within
reason) and if i leave gmail i can go somewhere else and CHOOSE not to email
other people with gmail.

this question should have been about anticompetitive acquisitions and
closed/open platforms.

~~~
sjg007
Maybe an inquisitive Congressional staffer reads HackerNews and can get their
boss to ask the question tomorrow.

~~~
thaumasiotes
Why?

If the boss wanted information, they could get it the normal way. The point of
calling someone to testify before Congress is to embarrass that person, and
that point is generally not well served by asking sensible questions.

~~~
sjg007
Is it? I think the point is to get more information, to ask questions that
have not been asked and decide if the government needs to take further action.
They do this by introducing legislation. I think the electioneering has them
spooked as well.

~~~
sfifs
The point of public political hearings is PR. To help legislators show voters
that they care about whatever crisis is top of news. Information seeking and
legislation writing happens in closed door negotiations with lobbyists and
lawyers.

~~~
sjg007
I think this is overly cynical. Plenty of politicians care what people think
and they do care if companies are acting badly. The lobbyists come in later to
defuse the situation. This issue in particular is a GDPR like issue. I see
some strong regulation coming. It won't hurt Facebook since they are the
social network but it will change the dynamic.

~~~
closeparen
A Senator is the CEO of a decent-sized public policy research and advocacy
organization. He steers the ship, appoints senior staff, and handles the most
important negotiations and appearances personally. He doesn't get in the weeds
on background research. His _office_ is in constant debate, negotiation, and
consultation with a complex web of think tanks, advocacy groups, pollsters,
campaign operatives, the White House, and other Congresscritters to develop
policy and negotiate its passage. There's an entire professional ecosystem of
policy wonks and career staffers dedicated to this sort of thing. (Only some
of them are corporate shills).

If Senator Graham genuinely wanted to know about Facebook's competition, there
would be legions of staffers and thousands of pages of reports on it. If
Senator Graham were genuinely not sure what to do about Facebook, there are
exceptionally well-informed people in his office to summarize the landscape,
the propsals, the pros and cons, and to debate the finer points, who are
deeply familiar with everything AEI/Heritage/Cato/Brookings have to say about
it, etc. because that's their full-time job.

By the time you hear a pointed question in the committee hearing room or a
speech in a floor "debate" from a Senator, they've been over it with staff,
decided on a position, and calculated the optimal move to present to the
cameras. That you enjoy or agree with the thrust of this particular show has
no bearing on the theatricality of committee hearings as a tactic. They
wouldn't do it if no one enjoyed it.

It's not that politicians don't debate things in good faith. It's that they do
it with and through staff (who are more like the people you find in high
school debate than televised election debate), behind closed doors, and not on
the floor.

------
jeffchuber
This article has 0 insight. This was the most strategic answer. \- A: facebook
does a lot of things and it's true it competes across many categories

\- B: Admitting competition is bad for wall street, legitimizes them, and
turns the narrative into whether that is true or not (you don't want that to
happen either)

\- C: The senator was obviously trying to bait Mark into saying that they have
no competition... why? Easy anti-trust/regulation. He avoided that as well.

Mark took the most strategic path. Sure - it could have been delivered better.

------
40acres
This reminds me of a point well made in Peter Thiel's 'Zero to One'.
Monopolies make it seem like they have a lot of competitors to avoid anti-
trust and companies that are in a dog fight like to make it seem like they are
monopolies in a niche area.

------
birthcert
Facebook has effectively a monopoly on social networking. Even further:
Facebook can be seen as an essential service for maintaining your social life.
Not using it puts you at a severe disadvantage.

I don't think monopolies are necessarily a problem that needs fixing, but call
it what it is. Facebook makes decisions based on their understanding of
dominance.

If you don't like Ford, you can buy a car that you can't drive on most public
roads and even fewer gas stations offer you the type of gas you need.

~~~
qume
I dont use it and I see that as a severe advantage.

~~~
birthcert
I never had an account, and due to this, lost out on many social gatherings
(exclusive Facebook) and lost the ability to stay in touch with old friends or
get all updates on my family (parents mostly).

The good outweighs the bad for me, but it hurts nonetheless. If you fare
better, all the more power to you, but do note: out of sight, out of mind. You
may not fully realize what you are giving up by not having a digital social
network, from not being able to use Tinder, to more serious stuff, like not
knowing a childhood friend has died.

Not being on social media is the equivalent of not having a mobile phone 10
years back. The "essential"-part of Facebook (and other companies, like
Google) actually plays a role in European directives. It is why Google has to
clean its index on request, and a small niche search engine does not have this
responsibility.

~~~
StudentStuff
I have an account, but I ceased using it 5 years ago. My "friends" were
essentially all people I had met in highschool and rarely talked to, and upon
a recent visit (over Tor of course) I was wholly unimpressed with my news
feed.

The only benefit was reconnecting with a former exchange student we had
hosted, luckily she already had Signal! Besides that, my feed was just tales
of woe from people I used to have a coincidental connection to.

Perhaps I'm an oddball, but my SO is banned from Facebook (real name policy),
parents consider Facebook to be spyware, and extended family has held it in
poor regard (not of my doing surprisingly) for a decade thus far. Getting lots
of pressure to join a Mastodon server though, seems the extended family is all
on that. Not what I'd expect from a bunch of mid-westerners!

------
c-smile
He should answer: vk.ru / vk.com :) ( as that's really functional equivalent
of fb )

And to amplify the impression to mention "Putin" somewhere.

That might stop all further questions to Mark.

Or even start procedure of canonization [1] of fb.com in general and Mark in
particular by Congress.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canonization](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canonization)

~~~
newsbinator
Functionally and visually... down to the color scheme, logo, etc.

Although the music integration is better.

~~~
lostlogin
At first I thought you were meaning the church and Facebook, then I looked at
vk.com and now I can’t tell.

~~~
newsbinator
Oops, not sure if GP edited their post about church, or if I missed it.

I meant VK.com is visually and functionally similar to Facebook (because it
started as a clone).

Now if you live in a Russian-speaking country, it's unusual not to have a VK
account.

------
spullara
I wonder why he didn't say Google? They compete for online ad dollars and that
is clearly his biggest competitor.

~~~
spullara
I wonder if he was worried about the follow up question:

Senator: "But that is just for advertising. What about competitors for your
customers that use the social networking product?"

Zuckerberg: "Oh them. They aren't our customers, they are the product."

------
battalgazi
He probably didn't want to promote Google Plus, VKontakte, Diaspora and others
by mentioning their names.

~~~
newsbinator
I wonder if he's heard of Diaspora?

~~~
anaxag0ras
Of course he knows. He once even donated it.

[https://www.wired.com/2010/05/zuckerberg-
interview/](https://www.wired.com/2010/05/zuckerberg-interview/)

------
staunch
Only a group of politicians could make Zuckerberg look like the human one.
These senators are a disgrace. Their questions and statements are ignorant,
intellectual dishonest, and bullying. They're mostly shitty people.

We do not need these ignoramuses making decisions about social networking
technology. They're as clueless as it gets. We just need users to become aware
of the value of data privacy and then demand it. Technology will deliver.

I'm not worried because I think users will support the right things in the
end.

~~~
notfromhere
The best description of MZ i've ever read was "a wax doll cursed into life"

------
thejerz
The answer is: Twitter. Similarities are...

\- Social media platform ( _you_ are the content).

\- Advertisers pay for eyeballs.

\- Hashtags and groups collect similar users.

\- Privacy settings control who sees your content.

\- Text, pictures, videos, & polls.

\- People leave Facebook for Twitter, & vice versa.

I'm not sure why he didn't just say "Twitter". In some very abstract way,
Facebook overlaps with Apple. But that wasn't the question. The spirit of
Lindsey Graham's question was to determine if consumers have a choice, and the
answer is yes, they do: Twitter.

~~~
dfxm12
_The spirit of Lindsey Graham 's question was to determine if consumers have a
choice_

While this may or may not be true, part of Graham's job here is to make sure
that the meaning of his questions can be ascertained by the actual wording of
the question with no interpretation required, unless he's intentionally trying
to confuse Zuck or get him to misspeak.

If Graham wants to determine if consumers have a choice, _he should ask
consumers if they have a choice_. I'm sure the fine folks of South Carolina
would be glad to help him out with that one. That would get him a more
accurate answer than asking Zuck's opinion on the matter.

------
oconnor663
It's a weird question. If you're posting photos on FB, then Flikr/Yahoo is a
competitor. If you're messaging people, then Google is a competitor (in 9
different partially overlapping ways :p). But saying "Google is Facebook's
biggest competitor" is weird, cause FB doesn't have a search engine.

~~~
sjg007
Their product is ads... so you would define competitors as anyone that takes
away marketshare in advertising.

~~~
oconnor663
Facebook's arch nemesis: turning off your computer and going outside :)

~~~
eesmith
You joke, but Coca-Cola's biggest competitor is water.

Any guesses on who sells bottled tap water for a huge markup, and who is part
of the marketing effort to convince us to buy bottled water?

(Blame is not solely on C-C of course. Look to the Spectrum Stadium as an
example of what happens when water is seen as a profit center, not a basic
necessity.)

------
havetocharge
Surprised to see no one mention LinkedIn. On LinkedIn it's popular to comment
on objectionable content with "This is not Facebook".

------
csours
A better analogy would be to road networks, not car companies.

If you don't want to use roadways, what is the alternative? Flying? Railroads?
Boats? Other roadways?

------
ElCapitanMarkla
What's the correct answer here?

I get where the senator is going with his questions but there are plenty of
alternatives out there, just no one wants to use them.

To quote the senator - "If I buy a Ford, and it doesn’t work well, and I don’t
like it, I can buy a Chevy." but to put that into perspective here - "If I buy
a Ford, and it doesn’t work well, and I don’t like it, I can buy a skateboard
with two wheels."

------
neo4sure
Social networks are baked in. What more can you invent? Unless another major
technology is invented Facebook is here to stay...

------
camgunz
It was really more like:

> LG: Are there any other social platforms that reasonably compete with
> Facebook?

> MZ: Don't really want to say no because that's clearly a monopoly, but don't
> really want to cop to our core business being a data farm and not a social
> network, so... here is some convoluted non-answer.

> LG: Didn't expect that to be a stumper....

------
sjg007
We can't be a monopoly because we compete with everyone.

------
fuzzieozzie
You define a business based on customers and costs: 1\. Facebook's customers
are advertisers. 2\. Facebook's costs are for IT systems development,
infrastructure and operations.

As such it competes with other advertisers: e.g. Google, TV broadcasters,
et.c.

The fact that it does this using a "social network" has nothing to do with the
question!

~~~
eesmith
Anti-monopoly has a different set of criteria to determine the relevant
market, where a company with market power might be able to abuse that power.
The three points listed at
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relevant_market](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relevant_market)
are 1) demand-side substitution, 2) supply-side substitution, and 3) potential
competition.

If FB were to change its fees or policies, can 5%-10% of the advertisers who
are currently using FB switch to Google, TV broadcasters, etc. to get a
roughly equivalent service?

If not, that would suggest FB is also in a more specific market than
'advertising', and has market power in that market.

------
tannranger
Google+?

duh

~~~
ninkendo
Wow, did it fail so miserably that people can’t even remember it exists?

~~~
stuntkite
Except that almost everyone has one and there is barely an opt out. G+ is
insidious in a way.

I miss google buzz.

------
DimitarIbra9
renren.com wechat

------
user5994461
Instagram. The answer is Instagram!

Go to a high school and you'll notice that young people are more on Instagram
than Facebook.

~~~
dnob
Facebook owns Instagram.

------
payne92
Facebook's biggest competitor is the US government.

I'm not being flippant.

