
Facebook critic: Company ‘will not survive long term’ - DyslexicAtheist
https://www.politico.com/story/2018/03/28/facebook-global-democracy-money-488720
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uptown
At this stage, regulation seems like it may help Facebook more than it'd hurt.
Regulations that restrict the very behaviors that allowed Facebook to grow to
its dominance might make it more difficult for startups to ever challenge them
in a meaningful way.

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rm_-rf_slash
This now common argument doesn’t hold water. What if regulation restricted one
social network per holding corporation? If Facebook was to lose Instagram and
WhatsApp it would be a huge blow to the company, while also promoting a
competitive business environment where major social networks can’t simply buy
the competition out of existence.

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hanklazard
What you’re suggesting sounds more along the lines of antitrust and seems
unlikely (though sounds great to me). I think that regulation around data
security would be more likely and is what most people are suggesting. Whether
this type regulation could be written competently in the US is my concern.

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jerf
Useless without the critic putting a number on "long term". In the long run,
we are all dead. I also predict that Facebook will not be around three billion
years from now. Can I have a politico article?

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ohsnapman
Does the word "long term" have no meaning, then?

I agree it would be better to say "within the few 2 decades" or slap a
timeframe on it. But this characterization is silly.

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jerf
Then what is the meaning, then?

I tend to use 50 years as my rough "long term" definition. "Facebook won't be
around in 50 years" is not very impressive. "Facebook won't be around in 2020"
would be a bold prediction, but doesn't seem very "long term". "Facebook won't
be around in 2025" might be starting to get into "long term", but is also
definitely starting to feel vacuous if we think of it as "The probability of
Facebook being around as a distinct entity in 2025"... well, no duh it's not
going to be 100%, but the probabilities get fairly uninteresting quickly.
50/50 is a decent initial guess for that, and it isn't until you get into the
90s on either side that it starts becoming an interesting prediction.

I don't know how to turn "Facebook won't be around in the long term" into an
_interesting_ prediction without a time horizon.

Here's a non-vacuous sort of example: There's a proof somewhere that the
maximal probability of the expected future lifetime of a given organization
like a country or a company is its current lifespan, projected into the
future. So the maximal probability of when Facebook will be gone if it is
currently 14 years old is 2032. However, I can not seem to Google up the
discussion of this; all the search terms I can come up with are flooded by
actuarial discussions of human mortality where this most assuredly is not the
case.

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btilly
If you make the naive assumption that you are observing the company at a
random point in its overall lifespan, the median of the distribution for how
much longer it will survive is how long it has survived already.

More than that, if it has survived N years already, the odds that it will
survive at least M more is N/(N+M). If you work out the probability density
and then integrate it, you come up with an arithmetic mean that is also N.
However the point where it is most likely a priori to die is tomorrow, and
that probability steadily decreases.

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rokhayakebe
Non Facebook user question:

Are we being unfair by only pointing to how FB had a negative impact on the US
election? They had a very positive impact on other elections and helped
(indirectly) overthrow bad governments.

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y4mi
_They had a very positive impact on other elections_

Every negative impact is a positive Impact for the other side.

 _indirectly) overthrow bad governments._

Are you talking about the arab spring? I thought it was generally agreed that
the new regime is way worse/more oppresive than the displaced one ever was?

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Zimahl
_Are you talking about the arab spring? I thought it was generally agreed that
the new regime is way worse /more oppresive than the displaced one ever was?_

Social media helped facilitate the uprising, but isn't responsible for what
replaced the previous regime.

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tw1010
"Thing I have publicly shorted will not survive in the long term."

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Bartweiss
Similarly: "the public is increasingly focused on this topic", says person
authoring scary stories about this topic for a major news source.

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m52go
No company survives forever...every company eventually declines, and then
either shuts down or gets acquired. It's clear Facebook won't just disappear--
its assets (data) are too valuable.

Intriguing questions to ask: what happens when Facebook does eventually
decline? How much is Facebook's data worth? Who will ultimately acquire it?
And perhaps more critically: what will their intentions be?

This is why Zuckerberg's opinions / testifying don't really matter. He's
created a tool that's more powerful and more dangerous than humans have any
business creating. As with any such tool, it will be used to wreak havoc
sooner or later...even if he's an innocent, well-meaning guy, he will not
always be the one in charge of this power.

I think of Facebook's power as similar to that of the atomic bomb. Yes it's a
triumph of human ingenuity, and it _can_ be used for good, but there's a
catastrophic flip side.

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pwython
Just for fun, your comment reminded me of this:

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

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davidkuhta
For the curious:

Kongō Gumi Co., Ltd. is a Japanese construction company which was the world's
oldest continuously ongoing independent company, operating for over 1,400
years until it was absorbed as a subsidiary of Takamatsu in 2006.

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danschumann
I'm not pro facebook, but the fact that so many people are saying bad about
facebook means they still care, and that also means facebook knows there is a
problem.

I think a bigger indicator of death is when a company neglects problems, or
lies about them. Facebook has not denied problems, which makes me think they
might fix them.

I had problems with facebook since 2005ish, and actually creating a rival to
facebook was a big motivator for me to learn to code, but now I've since taken
up my own interests, and am not so concerned with facebook, since I see it, in
some ways, as a necessary evil. (though I would rather see some sort of
decentralized blockchain thingy that serves as the global directory of
connecting all people)

Also, if you are in the valley, you are posh and already "over facebook", you
are an early adopter of a facebook-less world, and you don't realize how
obsessed with facebook people are in the midwest(where I am). I'm not saying a
facebook-less world won't catch on here, but where I am, people aren't anti-
facebook at all.

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ghostbrainalpha
What I don't understand is this, Facebook makes $7 per customer through
selling their data to advertisers and other groups.

I know most people don't want to PAY for Facebook, but maybe the people who
really care about their privacy would.

Could I opt out of advertising, or sharing my data with 3rd party apps of my
friends if I paid Facebook $20 per year? For me $20 per year would be a good
price for an ad free experience on Facebook.

That way some people pay with real dollars, some people pay by being
receptacles for advertising. Just like how there is Free TV, and there is HBO.

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dingo_bat
You can say that about any company though.

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cvaidya1986
Instagram and WhatsApp will survive.

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jadeddrag
And Oculus VR.

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taneq
That's still around?

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vectorEQ
it will survive atleast as long as the main user base is still alive... new
people perhaps look at alternatives, but they have plenty of cash to become
part of a future platform for these people too. long term , a company
generally changes and adapts, and these adaptations don't seem to be accounted
in these kinds of critiques. anyone who thinks a company as big as this
wouldn't take into acount the changing world around them is as stuborn or more
as they suggest/assume the target of their critique to be...

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anocendi
>> but they have plenty of cash to become part of a future platform for these
people too

And don't forget: Facebook has been buying out every social media platform of
any legitimacy (well, except Snap Inc.?) which might rise up to challenge it
one day, especially at times like these.

With copious cash it has and no legitimate contender in sight, Facebook has a
lot of time and opportunity to morph and adapt itself into a future platform.

I find this article's assessment kind of near-sighted, and naive.

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thomasjudge
"In the long run we are all dead." \- J.M. Keynes

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overcast
It will survive in some form, at the very least the social authentication
aspect. It's become a utility for many, MANY other websites around the world.

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sjg007
I mean it is easy to change your Oauth provider if they both use the same
underlying email address.

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mpg33
I mean you can say this with any company really..

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phonebucket
"“But Facebook is essentially a 14-year-old design that for all its evolution
is still founded on the ideas of 14 years ago. So no, the answer is it will
not survive long term.”"

author of that quote will likely just increment that 14 each year until they
are right?

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stuffedBelly
I'd say the company might still be there but pivoting of core business will
likely happen. Lots of companies survive this way, especially when they cover
multiple business fields.

