• PabloDiscobar@kbin.social
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    1 year ago

    The emails revealed that Zuckerberg wanted to buy Instagram as it was becoming a threat to Facebook.

    “Facebook, by its own admission saw Instagram as a threat that could potentially siphon business away from Facebook,” Nadler said during the hearing on Wednesday.

    “So rather than compete with it, Facebook bought it. This is exactly the type of anti-competitive acquisition the antitrust laws were designed to prevent,” Nadler added.

    Facebook bought Instagram for $1 billion in 2012, a shocking sum at that time for a company with 13 employees,

    Facebook bought the adoption, they bought the users.

    • Teppic@kbin.social
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      1 year ago

      You miss-represent the fediverse. Users aren’t locked in. If someone buys one instance and you don’t like it, you move. You still have all the same access, all the same content. An instance is only an access point, in many ways it is like an ISP, and people jump service providers all the time.

      • PabloDiscobar@kbin.social
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        1 year ago

        You miss-represent the fediverse. Users aren’t locked in. If someone buys one instance and you don’t like it, you move.

        Maybe you will but people in their majority won’t do that. It’s too much operations. Also they might not even be aware of the transfer. Plus if an instance offers good services there might be a technological price to pay for leaving, like leaving instagram. All instances are not equal, specially if there are more interfaces in preparation.

        • pjhenry1216@kbin.social
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          1 year ago

          What services can they offer that aren’t elsewhere? If it’s unique, it won’t actually be that effective. It can only be scoped to the instance.

          Instagram isn’t a comparison because it works entirely differently. By even saying “like Instagram” belies a lack of understanding of the topic.

          It’s true all instances are not equal. But your extension theory is not very strong. Nor is your instance-for-sale concept. They gain nothing from buying an instance. Users don’t matter. They’re just as reachable as another federated instance.

          • PabloDiscobar@kbin.social
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            1 year ago

            They gain nothing from buying an instance. Users don’t matter. They’re just as reachable as another federated instance.

            ok, cool.

            remember how the lemmy.ml admin asked that people join other instances.

            lemmy.ml is overloaded, use other instances instead

            People want to be with people, if you don’t get that then you don’t get social networks.

    • 0xtero@kbin.social
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      1 year ago

      So none of that applies to fedi then. Can’t buy up users because we’re federated and can’t buy up competition, because we’re a just fart in Sahara in comparison, both in numbers of people and in revenue dollars

      And since there’s no privacy here he can datamine the shit out of content already

      • PabloDiscobar@kbin.social
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        1 year ago

        We have a login, that’s all the requirement. We have adopted the platform and we are attracting more users by our numbers. It’s all about adoption.

        because we’re a just fart in Sahara in comparison, both in numbers of people and in revenue dollars

        So was Instagram when it began.

        If Ernest sold the platform tomorrow you wouldn’t even notice it.

        • pjhenry1216@kbin.social
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          1 year ago

          Buying one instance doesn’t change anything though. Instagram was the whole kit and caboodle. It made a difference. Buying one instance, even a large won’t doesn’t give the same leverage. Plus, it doesn’t destroy competition or anything. It’s not equivalent.

    • pjhenry1216@kbin.social
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      1 year ago

      Do you understand what siphoning business means? What business do you think Facebook is in? It wasn’t users. It was ads.

      • PabloDiscobar@kbin.social
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        1 year ago

        There is only one metric for a social network, the number of users.

        Youtube channel? subscribers

        Twitch channel? subscribers

        Twitter? Followers

        That’s about who gathers the most people, end of the line. If an instance managed to become a pole of gravity then it will be worth money.

        And before you tell me that you can subscribe to a different instance, well, you can also subscribe to a different social network.

        but fine, we disagree.

          • bvanevery@kbin.social
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            1 year ago

            Well I can see one thing that kinda belies your point of view at present. Stability. Some people have presciently worried that their instance can implode, taking all content a user has made with it. Larger instances that are more stable, that have more backup infrastructure and ongoing commitment to operations, could out-compete smaller instances. Why this might arise, could be a historical accident of successful crowdfunding campaigns or something. I’m not sure how someone might do a better job of securing more server resources than others. Obviously a deep pocketed corporation who wants to influence the Fediverse, could do that.

            • pjhenry1216@kbin.social
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              1 year ago

              But those are unrelated. We’re talking about admins not acting in the best interest of the users so they can pump up numbers and sell their instances. You’re talking about related concepts, but different motivations and intentions.