>Mark Zuckerberg does not believe he has a monopoly.

I tend to agree with him. Facebook just happens to be the most popular Internet social network, right now, but there is nothing that makes it a monopoly.

Anyone could replace it, there is nothing actively stopping them from doing so.

I'm sure for decades the Ford Motor Company was thought of as a Monopoly... and then they went bankrupt, and that's just one company that comes to mind right now.

Ford was never considered a monopoly. GM and Chrysler have been around since the early days. And even in the Model T days there were plenty of other cars. Also, Ford never went bankrupt, you might be thinking of Chrysler or GM, both of which filed for bankruptcy in 2009, although neither ceased operations (so not "bankrupt" in the colloquial sense).

Facebook, on the other hand, what other network can I use? Twitter isn't really the same thing. Most people outside of China don't have WeChat (and why would I voluntarily give anything to the Chinese government). Same with LINE (Korea, Taiwan) and VK (Facebook for Russia). Instagram, which really isn't the same as Facebook is owned by Facebook, as is WhatsApp. The only competitor is Google+, and is that even still going? Is it really a competing social media network if no one I know is on it?

This reminds me of a Woody Allen joke:

Two elderly women are at a Catskill mountain resort, and one of 'em says, "Boy, the food at this place is really terrible." The other one says, "Yeah, I know; and such small portions."

All companies eventually go bankrupt, or change in some fundamental way.

By your definition, nothing can ever be a monopoly, can it?

>> Mark Zuckerberg does not believe he has a monopoly.

> I tend to agree with him. Facebook just happens to be the most popular Internet social network, right now

And it will remain the most popular one as long as it's allowed to continue buy the up and coming ones. People are fleeing Facebook for Instagram.

If they were viable competitors like Instagram, Whatsapp or even Snapchat, FB would try to buy them out and become monopoly-like again. But there is no perception that the gov should question these mergers for this industry.

>Anyone could replace it, there is nothing actively stopping them from doing so.

Sure there is; all of the people on FB already. The fact that the software can be replicated is not the only consideration. If, in practice, they have a virtual monopoly due to user lock in then it's a reasonable debate to have.

I'm certainly out of my depth on the legal end of this, but your definition is far too simplistic.

>virtual monopoly due to user lock in

But users aren't locked in. They have not paid a yearly fee which still has 11 months left, they don't have to pay a fee to leave, and they don't have to pay a fee to join the other network.

Users can come and go as they please, and there are alternatives they can use, if they choose.

If they don't want to use the other network because their friends aren't on it, that's just their choice, not "lock in".

Sure they are. I could go to some other social service... but literally no one I know will be there. In my mind, that's a form ot lock in. I'm not saying FB is evil because it has a large user base, but for many there really is no alternative. Note that MZ ducked this question in the hearing and there is a reason they bought whatsapp (and that reason isn't "talented developers")

Your premise only exists in a simulation where humans aren't human, where instead they're robots that think solely rationally and are not inconvenienced by anything. That's nearly the exact opposite of how people behave.

When you're actually dealing with human customers and users, it's nearly impossible to convince them to switch once they're comfortable with a product or service. Those people have to be tremendously inconvenienced to do so, while simultaneously being presented with a great alternative - often it requires a 10x-style superior product that isn't just great, it's a huge leap over what's already available.

Switching costs are immense with Facebook. If you have 100 friends on there, and you're the first to abandon their network and move to a new social network where none of your friends exists - that's a huge cost for the average person. It may or may not be a cost to you, it is an immense cost to most people. That also applies if you attempt to maintain profiles on both networks, it's a time and annoyance/inconvenience cost, people hate such.

> there is nothing that makes it a monopoly. Anyone could replace it, there is nothing actively stopping them from doing so.

While I don't entirely agree with this line of argument, it's usually argued that there is in fact a very massive cost in attempting to do so and that Facebook has a very large moat with its network effect. It's very difficult to unseat an entrenched & dominant company in any field first of all, second you need large amounts of capital to compete in such a set market. You have to change the minds of practically every adult American and switch them away from a product they already know and are comfortable with (that is also 'free' to use), that's beyond difficult.

Look at how much capital Facebook raised pre IPO, you will need more than that to unseat them; no venture capitalist is going to give you that (which is why nobody is seeding Facebook competitors with billions of dollars, despite the fact that they'll earn $20 billion in profit this year; it's the same reason nobody is seeding Google competitors by the thousands).

> I'm sure for decades the Ford Motor Company was thought of as a Monopoly... and then they went bankrupt

Ford Motor Company has never gone bankrupt. Perhaps you're thinking of GM, which has been dominant in the US over Ford since 1932.

There's other ways to communicate with other people online, you see? That's overlap! /s

Weird because he does everything he can to protect his monopoly by buying promising social companies while they're young.

He bought Instagram because they are talented developers, not because they are a competitor. /sarcasm

If we're talking globally then Facebook is quite obviously not a monopoly.

Just within the US, I guess you have to conclusively define what it has a monopoly in, i.e. what is "social networking". For online messaging there is iMessage, Hangouts, Skype, Snapchat. Photo sharing - Snapchat again, Twitter, probably even just email. For videos there is YouTube. For maps and check-ins there is Foursquare, Yelp. And the concept of having an online identity tying all these services together is done by Google as well.

He should have responded with every company having a chat platform, social graph, and ad platform. So google, linkedin, twitter, apple, microsoft, and so on. Then consult with the grandkids for an explanation on how things actually work. Trying compare FB that has been around for 14 years vs. the automobile for over a 130 years was silly.

FB is about making $$ with ads, the social aspect is a drug for the eyeballs. Why didn't they just ask him if he considered himself the worlds digital drug dealer?

Congress acting all worried "you have our private information and going to use it against us", where were you when the net neutrality vote was the topic?

People here told me Google+ was amazing and that everyone worth associating with was on there.

Is that no longer true?

Unless you're suggesting that nobody I interact with in real life is worth "associating with", then that statement has never been true.

Well he's certainly not going to testify that he thinks he does.

Mark has always thought his primary competitor is email. Let that kind of hubris sink in for a moment.

He's smart and capable but I don't think he has perspective. Perhaps he never did.

Why do you think that‘s hubris? I think that‘s a great way of looking at Facebook and what it provides.

What hubris?

Why didn't telephone companies suffer from a similar network effect, and isn't there a monopolist in telephony?

Can we apply the same principles in the case of Facebook?

They did suffer from a similar network effect, which was only broken when AT&T accepted a consent decree to spin off all its regional providers.

There's Google+

I actually liked Google+ but let's be honest, dozens of users is not a social network