> Sure they sell ads but so does Yankee Stadium

But in this case, Yankee Stadium sells seats, and Tv rights (that the station puts ads on)

My point though is, you can call Facebook an advertising company, but when asked "What are Facebook's competitors?" as the Senator did, it makes sense to list social networks because that's the core product they offer their users. For the purpose of this discussion it doesn't help to say Facebook is an ad company or "You are the product" or anything else.

There are a ton of ads in Yankee Stadium (and every major sport stadium I can think of, for that matter): https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/44/Yankee_S...

no, users are their single product.

Then their main competitors are whoever those users would see as an alternative to their products, no?

That has to be myspace