Free Speech and (Big Tech) Censorship Thread

[Cherico]

Twitter has only very seldom actually makes positive net income IIRC, and didn't at all until I think like 2018. And they're one of the platforms that makes more ad revenue per user.

Regardless of what you think about long term profitability, that pretty clearly hasn't been the stumbling block for alternative social media platforms. The stumbling block for most alternative social media has always been when they get denied hosting or get de-listed from app stores.

As for where the ads would come from, idk I think a lot of companies just aren't going to care. You might not be able to ever get the big US multinationals but is a sketchy Chinese company selling 'oil filters' or whatever really going to care?

Actually thats how the black newspapers during the day operated they got their money from companies that didn't give a fuck. So its an old way of doing things.

 

[Bear Ribs]

Your two examples are both utilities and built around natural monopolies based on physical infrastructure. Neither are true with social media platforms. Even internet access itself isn't acknowledged as a utility or governed by those rules.

Due to the Network Effect, social media are natural monopolies.

As @LindyAF has pointed out, they also behave in a trust-like fashion and if any competitor starts getting traction, somehow said competitor loses access to the physical infrastructure in the form of server space as well.

 

[Abhorsen]

Due to the Network Effect, social media are natural monopolies.

As @LindyAF has pointed out, they also behave in a trust-like fashion and if any competitor starts getting traction, somehow said competitor loses access to the physical infrastructure in the form of server space as well.

No, they aren't a natural monopoly. A natural monopoly is when there aren't competitors. Twitter, Facebook, TikTok, etc. all have competitors (each other). Natural monopolies are a specific term referring to high cost of infrastructure stopping competition. But to add new people to an existing social network doesn't take a high amount of infrastructure. It's actually really cheap.

 

[Largo]

The problem is that people want a free lunch. The water company isn’t allowed to cut off convicts and sex offenders. It sells them water same as everyone else. The fact that FB extracts money in different ways then simply billing you should not change that dynamic.

Likewise, the letting companies claim inability to fully police their space because of size should not give them licence to just crack down on the people they dislike. Just like the fact that phone company can't keep track of everyone using the phone to commit crimes. Bell does not cut phone service to people it does not like the political opinions of.

If the water and power companies were to collapse tomorrow because government regulation caused them to become unprofitable, the government would step in and start running things themselves.

Would the government do the same thing for Facebook? Should the government start doing the same thing for Facebook? I mean, we are seeing some people on this thread suggesting that Facebook should be nationalized.

Due to the Network Effect, social media are natural monopolies.

As @LindyAF has pointed out, they also behave in a trust-like fashion and if any competitor starts getting traction, somehow said competitor loses access to the physical infrastructure in the form of server space as well.

What server space? Twitter doesn't control its competitors' servers. That's a completely separate company.

 

[Bear Ribs]

No, they aren't a natural monopoly. A natural monopoly is when there aren't competitors. Twitter, Facebook, TikTok, etc. all have competitors (each other). Natural monopolies are a specific term referring to high cost of infrastructure stopping competition. But to add new people to an existing social network doesn't take a high amount of infrastructure. It's actually really cheap.

No, they don't compete with each other. Twitter's structured entirely differently from FaceBook and serves a completely different niche, as does TikTok. You might as well say freight trains and container ships are competitors because both haul cargo. In reality they serve entirely different functions and work together rather than competing with each other. Nobody would suggest that a single company owning all the US's rail infrastructure isn't a monopoly because another company owns the container ships.

If the water and power companies were to collapse tomorrow because government regulation caused them to become unprofitable, the government would step in and start running things themselves.

Would the government do the same thing for Facebook? Should the government start doing the same thing for Facebook? I mean, we are seeing some people on this thread suggesting that Facebook should be nationalized.

I disagree with calls for nationalizing to be sure, I simply want internet sites to follow the same rules as other media rather than getting to be a platform or publisher at will and double-dipping on the benefits while avoiding the responsibilities of either. I don't much care for

What server space? Twitter doesn't control its competitors' servers. That's a completely separate company.

Of course it is, of course it is. There's absolutely no collusion going on whatsoever, just pure coincidence. It would be absolutely crazy for somebody to note how Amazon uses Twitter as a major lead generator, Twitter was threatened by the growth of Parler as an alternative, and then suddenly Amazon yanked the servers out from under Parler.

And what's your excuse for the app stores, all two of them, they aren't a monopolies (they serve different bases and can't be swapped between, hence not a duopoly) because?

 

[Largo]

I disagree with calls for nationalizing to be sure, I simply want internet sites to follow the same rules as other media rather than getting to be a platform or publisher at will and double-dipping on the benefits while avoiding the responsibilities of either. I don't much care for

Internet sites and particularly social media aren't the same as other media. I can go on Twitter and can start saying whatever I want to whatever audience chooses to listen to me. I can't do that with Simon & Schuster, or Fox News. Do you want Twitter to be like that?

Like, it's pretty ridiculous what you guys want in the end. Either Twitter turns into a space where every post you make has to be pre-approved by mods. Or it turns into 4chan. I'm fairly confident that most people do not want an Internet environment where every giant social message board looks like 4chan.

Of course it is, of course it is. There's absolutely no collusion going on whatsoever, just pure coincidence. It would be absolutely crazy for somebody to note how Amazon uses Twitter as a major lead generator, Twitter was threatened by the growth of Parler as an alternative, and then suddenly Amazon yanked the servers out from under Parler.

And what's your excuse for the app stores, all two of them, they aren't a monopolies (they serve different bases and can't be swapped between, hence not a duopoly) because?

Well, Parler sued Amazon basically using the argument you're making, and we saw how that turned out for it. And I have no idea what your argument even is with the app stores. Are we now arguing that stores are required to carry apps on their stores?

Like, here's the thing if we want to speak on a more fundamental problem: I have zero problems with societal censorship. Every society practices societal censorship in that there are things which you are and are not supposed to say in decent company. That is part of enforcing the common values and ethics which every society must have to survive. Those ethics vary from nation to nation and from age to age, but what those ethics are frankly is less important than that the community has agreed to be bound by those ethics.

I object to society using the government to enforce those ethics, because the government as an agency of violence can do things to those outside the ethic which society cannot, and those outside the ethic should not have to face those consequences. But that does not mean those outside the ethic should not face any consequences at all.

If there is no societal censorship, the result will be chaos, a weakening of the societal ethic, and a collapse of the nation and nihilism. If societal censorship has failed, the response is nog some idealistic freedom. The response will be that the people, bereft of morals, will turn to a government to enforce censorship and morals for them, generally in the form of a singular individual.

 

[LindyAF]

As @LindyAF has pointed out, they also behave in a trust-like fashion and if any competitor starts getting traction, somehow said competitor loses access to the physical infrastructure in the form of server space as well.

To clarify, I don't really think it's about it being a competitor. The big social media companies don't move against existing smaller competitors like that, SnapChat didn't get straggled in the crib even though it competes pretty directly with Facebook's Instagram. I also don't really think Twitter was genuinely threatened by Parler or Gab any more than SB is threatened by us. It is purely an ideological thing, it's not about the money. I think on some level a lot of right-wingers, particularly conservatives, want to believe that corporations are woke only for cynical reasons, that it's just to get money. And maybe it was at one point, but the Kool-Aid is in their drinking water now, so to speak.

 

[Abhorsen]

No, they don't compete with each other. Twitter's structured entirely differently from FaceBook and serves a completely different niche, as does TikTok. You might as well say freight trains and container ships are competitors because both haul cargo. In reality they serve entirely different functions and work together rather than competing with each other. Nobody would suggest that a single company owning all the US's rail infrastructure isn't a monopoly because another company owns the container ships.

First, social media companies are very similar. The serve the same rough purpose, that of communicating with large amounts of others, and are exploited to deal with others. The means by which this happen are immaterial.

Second, yes, freight trains and container ships are competitors. A monopoly would occur if, for example, someone owned all railroads between two cities where there wasn't a port or river connection, but having a monopoly on railroads between New Orleans and Chicago isn't worth much because of the Mississippi.

Other examples of competitors that do similar things in different ways: Amazon Fresh and grocery stores. Both provide food, but differ in how they do it. Also competitors: Record Stores and the Itunes Store, as well as music radio stations and Spotify. Both sets provide access to music, just in different ways.

What makes a competitor a competitor is not how the particular good or service needing to exactly match, but whether the good or service of one serves as a sufficient substitute for the other good or service. In fact, figuring out a different spin on a good/service is frequently how competitors are outcompeted and innovation happens.

 

[Marduk]

Internet sites and particularly social media aren't the same as other media. I can go on Twitter and can start saying whatever I want to whatever audience chooses to listen to me. I can't do that with Simon & Schuster, or Fox News. Do you want Twitter to be like that?

Like, it's pretty ridiculous what you guys want in the end. Either Twitter turns into a space where every post you make has to be pre-approved by mods. Or it turns into 4chan. I'm fairly confident that most people do not want an Internet environment where every giant social message board looks like 4chan.

Who cares. At this point the only difference is that you don't need pre-approval, only post-approval, and get yeeted/shadowbanned/otherwise restricted depending on the severity of any disapproval you may get. Its a procedural difference only. You can say that the post-approval procedure is certainly more convenient to both sides, but in context of free speech arguments that's a cosmetic difference.

So, unless you happen to be in agreement with the media's staff about everything they care about, you are better off with 4chan style free for all.
You may slip under the radar if you are among the 99.999% of not so high profile users that don't disagree too hard or keep your politics on different platforms (though the screws are being slowly tightened on that), but there has been plenty of cases of more well known people getting hit with that stuff for off-platform behavior and fame too.

That is part of enforcing the common values and ethics which every society must have to survive.

Bullseye.
There are hardly any common values and ethics remaining anymore, and even then they tend to get interpreted differently by all sides. That's where this whole problem begins, and doubling down on the enforcement only makes this problem more clear - as it makes it more visible what exactly does everyone want to enforce, and how different that is along political lines.

Its akin to certain third world countries where one side wants to ban blasphemy, according to own definition of it, by any means necessary, and the other wants to ban Islamism, also according to own definition of it, also by any means necessary.
Which one is "enforcing the common values and ethics which every society must have to survive"?

In both cases, everyone wants to enforce their particular faction's values and ethics, sometimes with extra glee when they get to enforce them on people who don't share these values and ethics.

I object to society using the government to enforce those ethics,

Just be aware that for the left its "whatever works, prefer both working together on it".

The response will be that the people, bereft of morals, will turn to a government to enforce censorship and morals for them, generally in the form of a singular individual.

So, kinda too late in light of the above point. Its no secret that progressives/leftists want "hate speech" laws where there aren't any, and stricter ones where there are some, and they aren't going to change their minds on that matter depending on any position their opponents take on it.

Due to the Network Effect, social media are natural monopolies.

As @LindyAF has pointed out, they also behave in a trust-like fashion and if any competitor starts getting traction, somehow said competitor loses access to the physical infrastructure in the form of server space as well.

TBH the worst stuff we are seeing is some kind of trust or serendipitous conspiracy side of things than natural monopoly problem - after all, there is a number of slightly different social media coexisting, and smaller competitors starting up due to their failures...
With the latter's main problem being deplatforming and PR attacks mostly by separate, non-competing companies linked with the big competition by political and cultural connections between said other companies and their competitors, rather than direct competition.

 

[Bear Ribs]

First, social media companies are very similar. The serve the same rough purpose, that of communicating with large amounts of others, and are exploited to deal with others. The means by which this happen are immaterial.

Stuff and nonsense. A 15 second Tiktok video is hardly the same as a 144 character tweet or a Facebook timeline.

Second, yes, freight trains and container ships are competitors. A monopoly would occur if, for example, someone owned all railroads between two cities where there wasn't a port or river connection, but having a monopoly on railroads between New Orleans and Chicago isn't worth much because of the Mississippi.

Other examples of competitors that do similar things in different ways: Amazon Fresh and grocery stores. Both provide food, but differ in how they do it. Also competitors: Record Stores and the Itunes Store, as well as music radio stations and Spotify. Both sets provide access to music, just in different ways.

But Tiktok, Facebook, and Twitter don't provide access to the same thing. One provides snappy short messages, one videos, one lengthy posts about one's lifestyle and major events. Amazon Fresh and Kroger provide the same product, Twitter and Tiktok do not.

And I notice you're muddying the waters and avoiding the real question by talking about the Mississippi where you can actually claim they compete, but that's hardly the norm, nor where you'd find most ships or trains, now is it?

What makes a competitor a competitor is not how the particular good or service needing to exactly match, but whether the good or service of one serves as a sufficient substitute for the other good or service. In fact, figuring out a different spin on a good/service is frequently how competitors are outcompeted and innovation happens.

So your argument is that 15 second Tiktok videos, Facebook timelines, and tweets are all sufficiently similar that one could simply substitute between them? I don't find that compelling at all given how vastly different they are.

TBH the worst stuff we are seeing is some kind of trust or serendipitous conspiracy side of things than natural monopoly problem - after all, there is a number of slightly different social media coexisting, and smaller competitors starting up due to their failures...
With the latter's main problem being deplatforming and PR attacks mostly by separate, non-competing companies linked with the big competition by political and cultural connections between said other companies and their competitors, rather than direct competition.

I agree and was working towards that point by mentioning the suspicious collusion between Amazon and Twitter.

To clarify, I don't really think it's about it being a competitor. The big social media companies don't move against existing smaller competitors like that, SnapChat didn't get straggled in the crib even though it competes pretty directly with Facebook's Instagram. I also don't really think Twitter was genuinely threatened by Parler or Gab any more than SB is threatened by us. It is purely an ideological thing, it's not about the money. I think on some level a lot of right-wingers, particularly conservatives, want to believe that corporations are woke only for cynical reasons, that it's just to get money. And maybe it was at one point, but the Kool-Aid is in their drinking water now, so to speak.

Ideological competition is still competition.

Internet sites and particularly social media aren't the same as other media. I can go on Twitter and can start saying whatever I want to whatever audience chooses to listen to me. I can't do that with Simon & Schuster, or Fox News. Do you want Twitter to be like that?

Like, it's pretty ridiculous what you guys want in the end. Either Twitter turns into a space where every post you make has to be pre-approved by mods. Or it turns into 4chan. I'm fairly confident that most people do not want an Internet environment where every giant social message board looks like 4chan.

Those are hardly the only outcomes and I've presented several alternatives already.

We could have a return to walled gardens and professionally moderated forums, f'rex. We could have politics turned into a protected class, such that sites like Twitter can't ban people for their political opinions anymore than they could ban somebody for having the wrong skin color. We could see Twitter turn into 4Chan but also have extremely good user controls for ignoring the trolls, where users decide what they want censored for themselves personally, not influential CEOs deciding who we're allowed to listen to. We could see any number of other options I haven't foreseen as well.

When a person tells you there's only two options, either they get what they want or bad thing happens to you, you can pretty much assume they're selling you a load of hogwash and trying to force you to give them what they want. Reality is vastly more complex and rarely forces complex choices to be so limited.

Remember, when the Joker gives Batman a sadistic choice Batman always finds a third option.

Well, Parler sued Amazon basically using the argument you're making, and we saw how that turned out for it. And I have no idea what your argument even is with the app stores. Are we now arguing that stores are required to carry apps on their stores?

Well the suit's still ongoing at this point, and it appears

Are stores required to carry apps? Well no, but there's only one store allowed per phone and it's owned by the same people that own the phone's operating system and a load of other programs on the net. These are forming trusts with a lot of collusion that distorts the free market and lets them have an unfair advantage. I'd be totally in favor of either forcing a situation with more stores and more competition, or forcing companies to break up and the app stores not being allowed to have an fiduciary interest in any app or internet-based company, in order to prevent a gross conflict of interest and collusion.

Like, here's the thing if we want to speak on a more fundamental problem: I have zero problems with societal censorship. Every society practices societal censorship in that there are things which you are and are not supposed to say in decent company. That is part of enforcing the common values and ethics which every society must have to survive. Those ethics vary from nation to nation and from age to age, but what those ethics are frankly is less important than that the community has agreed to be bound by those ethics.

I object to society using the government to enforce those ethics, because the government as an agency of violence can do things to those outside the ethic which society cannot, and those outside the ethic should not have to face those consequences. But that does not mean those outside the ethic should not face any consequences at all.

If there is no societal censorship, the result will be chaos, a weakening of the societal ethic, and a collapse of the nation and nihilism. If societal censorship has failed, the response is nog some idealistic freedom. The response will be that the people, bereft of morals, will turn to a government to enforce censorship and morals for them, generally in the form of a singular individual.

Societal censorship is a thing and I agree it's a good thing. However what's happening isn't society vs. government, we're looking at big tech megacorporations censoring society, often in collusion with the government via politicians they make big campaign contributions to.

 

[Abhorsen]

Stuff and nonsense. A 15 second Tiktok video is hardly the same as a 144 character tweet or a Facebook timeline.

That's because you don't understand the product. The product they give in exchange is the ability to communicate with thousands of people at once. The method is different, sure, but it's basically the same.

But Tiktok, Facebook, and Twitter don't provide access to the same thing. One provides snappy short messages, one videos, one lengthy posts about one's lifestyle and major events. Amazon Fresh and Kroger provide the same product, Twitter and Tiktok do not.

They do, though. The branding is different, but it's part of the same market, in the same way that mass effect 1 is the same product as minecraft.

What you don't get is that time spent on tiktok is time not spent on twitter, and the same for other such things. This hurts the companies advertisement revenue, which makes them competitors.

Differentiating product so that they don't seem so similar is an attempt to grab part of the market with a competitive advantage. But the competition still exists.

 

[Bear Ribs]

That's because you don't understand the product. The product they give in exchange is the ability to communicate with thousands of people at once. The method is different, sure, but it's basically the same.

They do, though. The branding is different, but it's part of the same market, in the same way that mass effect 1 is the same product as minecraft.

What you don't get is that time spent on tiktok is time not spent on twitter, and the same for other such things. This hurts the companies advertisement revenue, which makes them competitors.

I'd like to see some proof of your assumptions here. Show me some evidence of how much overlap there is between Mass Effect and Minecraft users.

As for the on-topic social media, you would have a point, if said companies competed for the same demographics. They don't. In the attached page you'll find that, f'rex, Snapchat and Instagram are hugely popular with the younger crowd, pulling in mid-70s numbers but they are highly unpopular with older users (3 and 8% respectively), who overwhelmingly prefer Facebook and Youtube. Tiktok had far more users in India than the US, right up until India banned it due to issues with Chinese Apps. You might also notice that different countries use different apps

There is some overlap, but overall the "competition" is much like the competition between Game of Thrones and Sesame Street. Yeah, they're both on TV but they don't compete for the same eyeballs.

 

[lordmcdeath]

Due to the Network Effect, social media are natural monopolies.

As @LindyAF has pointed out, they also behave in a trust-like fashion and if any competitor starts getting traction, somehow said competitor loses access to the physical infrastructure in the form of server space as well.

Server Space can be either setup or located in any of thousand different places. You could have it setup in any of a hundred countries, for reasonable costs, and only requiring a fair business internet connection. Amazon has a huge installation base with relatively low cost, but they are far from the only cloud solution. They just have more brand awareness than most of the others and they tend to be friendly to startups.

Setting up hosting isn't hard either, the amount of money needed to create one would easily vanish any of dozens of think tanks or PACs. And you could put it in any of a dozen countries or territories.

Of course it is, of course it is. There's absolutely no collusion going on whatsoever, just pure coincidence. It would be absolutely crazy for somebody to note how Amazon uses Twitter as a major lead generator, Twitter was threatened by the growth of Parler as an alternative, and then suddenly Amazon yanked the servers out from under Parler.

And what's your excuse for the app stores, all two of them, they aren't a monopolies (they serve different bases and can't be swapped between, hence not a duopoly) because?

You can install third party apps, and even third party app stores. Amazon used to have one before they made a deal with apple and google. China has dozens of these, as do many of other countries. Setting up your own App or Appstore isn't hard either. There is open source code to do all of this.

As for the on-topic social media, you would have a point, if said companies competed for the same demographics. They don't. In the attached page you'll find that, f'rex, Snapchat and Instagram are hugely popular with the younger crowd, pulling in mid-70s numbers but they are highly unpopular with older users (3 and 8% respectively), who overwhelmingly prefer Facebook and Youtube. Tiktok had far more users in India than the US, right up until India banned it due to issues with Chinese Apps. You might also notice that different countries use different apps

You are confusing Market Segments with Markets. BMW competes with Ford after all, despite have them very different customer bases. Fox News competes with CNN, in much the same way.

 

[Abhorsen]

As for the on-topic social media, you would have a point, if said companies competed for the same demographics. They don't. In the attached page you'll find that, f'rex, Snapchat and Instagram are hugely popular with the younger crowd, pulling in mid-70s numbers but they are highly unpopular with older users (3 and 8% respectively), who overwhelmingly prefer Facebook and Youtube. Tiktok had far more users in India than the US, right up until India banned it due to issues with Chinese Apps. You might also notice that different countries use different apps

First, I don't think you understand. Overlapping demographics isn't necessary to be competitors. The fact that the demographic is split at all shows that there is competition. In a no competition world, there would only be minecraft xor mass effect, not both. Your graph? It proves there is competition. Splitting demographics and trying to isolate towards one demographic instead of another is a response to feeling competition and carving out a niche to survive in. You don't know what you are talking about, which is fine, as economics is a complicated subject.

 

[Bear Ribs]

Server Space can be either setup or located in any of thousand different places. You could have it setup in any of a hundred countries, for reasonable costs, and only requiring a fair business internet connection. Amazon has a huge installation base with relatively low cost, but they are far from the only cloud solution. They just have more brand awareness than most of the others and they tend to be friendly to startups.

Setting up hosting isn't hard either, the amount of money needed to create one would easily vanish any of dozens of think tanks or PACs. And you could put it in any of a dozen countries or territories.

You can install third party apps, and even third party app stores. Amazon used to have one before they made a deal with apple and google. China has dozens of these, as do many of other countries. Setting up your own App or Appstore isn't hard either. There is open source code to do all of this.

If it is so easy to do... why isn't Parler back online with their own servers? Why did Epic launch a major and costly lawsuit against Apple instead of just starting up their own store with blackjack and hookers or having people third-party install Fortnite? Why did Hatreon make a good showing as a competitor for Patreon and then suddenly crash and burn when they were deplatformed? If this "one easy trick" would let these multi-million dollar operations survive why do they keep dying instead?

First, I don't think you understand. Overlapping demographics isn't necessary to be competitors. The fact that the demographic is split at all shows that there is competition. In a no competition world, there would only be minecraft xor mass effect, not both. Your graph? It proves there is competition. Splitting demographics and trying to isolate towards one demographic instead of another is a response to feeling competition and carving out a niche to survive in. You don't know what you are talking about, which is fine, as economics is a complicated subject.

Ah, it's Merry-Go-Round debating tactics then?

You: The compete with each other.
Me: Their products are different.
You: But they're competing for the same viewers.
Me: Well no, the viewers are also different.
You: Let me condescend to you while not actually proving anything and just going 'round to the start and claiming they compete with each other again.

Different demographics is still competition... if the products are the same or close enough to substitute. But you never did get around to showing that there's any real substitution between Tiktok videos, tweets, and Facebook's timelines. These are extremely different products just as ships and trains are different.

Granny posting baby pictures on her Facebook is not competition with 15 year olds twerking on Tiktok. You tried to redirect into claiming they compete for the same people instead of proving your claims on competition, but that's disproven so what's left? Different product, different customers; not competition.

 

[LindyAF]

What you don't get is that time spent on tiktok is time not spent on twitter, and the same for other such things. This hurts the companies advertisement revenue, which makes them competitors.

This is way to expansive a definition of competition, at least for purposes of monopolistic practices. I agree social media companies are somewhat similar and are in at least some competition, and that many of them are at least similar enough that they aren't a monopoly. But the arguments you're making would extend to arguing that say, Standard Oil wasn't a monopoly as coal was also an energy source, or because horse and buggies existed. Or that even if the internet was all controlled by one company it wouldn't be a monopoly, because it's still competing for people's time with tv or books. Trains, planes, and other means of transportation are all somewhat in competition but if there was only one airline in the US it would still be a monopoly. Or take the Mass Effect vs Minecraft example- if there was one video game publisher that made children's games, and it found some way to shut every other one out of the market, it would still be anti-competitive.

 

[Marduk]

If it is so easy to do... why isn't Parler back online with their own servers?

They have to look for another host, make a deal, set it up. That takes time, especially for a fairly major site with a a political mess following them, which is why they were especially pissed at Amazon for not giving them the 30 day warning.
If they were to set up their own hosting it would take even longer.

Why did Epic launch a major and costly lawsuit against Apple instead of just starting up their own store with blackjack and hookers or having people third-party install Fortnite?

Because Apple has a true walled garden and essentially doesn't allow anyone to sell stuff there without going through them and giving them a cut. Third party installs are absolutely a thing on Android, anyone with meaningful computer skills can do it, but on Apple its either very finicky or impossible overall, that is a major difference between these two.

Why did Hatreon make a good showing as a competitor for Patreon and then suddenly crash and burn when they were deplatformed? If this "one easy trick" would let these multi-million dollar operations survive why do they keep dying instead?

That one was pure politics, with the few major internet financial services companies playing activism.

 

[Abhorsen]

Ah, it's Merry-Go-Round debating tactics then?

You: The compete with each other.
Me: Their products are different.
You: But they're competing for the same viewers.
Me: Well no, the viewers are also different.
You: Let me condescend to you while not actually proving anything and just going 'round to the start and claiming they compete with each other again.

First, I never said they had to be competing for the same viewers. That was you. Here was my quote:

That's because you don't understand the product. The product they give in exchange is the ability to communicate with thousands of people at once. The method is different, sure, but it's basically the same.

They do, though. The branding is different, but it's part of the same market, in the same way that mass effect 1 is the same product as minecraft.

What you don't get is that time spent on tiktok is time not spent on twitter, and the same for other such things. This hurts the companies advertisement revenue, which makes them competitors.

Differentiating product so that they don't seem so similar is an attempt to grab part of the market with a competitive advantage. But the competition still exists.

Note that it never mentions viewers. Maybe you could get that from "time spent on tiktok is time not spent on twitter", but that's true even if they are aiming at different audiences. In fact, I specifically stated that this is the same product, just with a companies attempts at differentiating it.

I only mentioned different demographics after you mentioned them. Here's you bringing it up for the first time:

As for the on-topic social media, you would have a point, if said companies competed for the same demographics. They don't.

So really, an accurate statement of events would be:
Me: They are competitors as they make the same product
You: Their products are different
Me: Their products are the same, but slightly differentiated, which is a strategy competitors use.
You: They target different demographics
Me: Exactly, that's a strategy competitors use called product differentiation

Different demographics is still competition... if the products are the same or close enough to substitute. But you never did get around to showing that there's any real substitution between Tiktok videos, tweets, and Facebook's timelines. These are extremely different products just as ships and trains are different.

Granny posting baby pictures on her Facebook is not competition with 15 year olds twerking on Tiktok. You tried to redirect into claiming they compete for the same people instead of proving your claims on competition, but that's disproven so what's left? Different product, different customers; not competition.

Facebook used to be popular among kids though. Then it was... outcompeted by competitors, and now it isn't, so the fact that its missing some demographics is evidence of competition, and successful competition.

In a hypothetical world where there was no alternative to facebook, with no twitter, no TikTok, etc, teens do end up using Facebook. Facebook would love to have that demographic, but doesn't, because other social media companies came and used demographic niches to compete against it.

This is way to expansive a definition of competition, at least for purposes of monopolistic practices. I agree social media companies are somewhat similar and are in at least some competition, and that many of them are at least similar enough that they aren't a monopoly. But the arguments you're making would extend to arguing that say, Standard Oil wasn't a monopoly as coal was also an energy source, or because horse and buggies existed. Or that even if the internet was all controlled by one company it wouldn't be a monopoly, because it's still competing for people's time with tv or books. Trains, planes, and other means of transportation are all somewhat in competition but if there was only one airline in the US it would still be a monopoly. Or take the Mass Effect vs Minecraft example- if there was one video game publisher that made children's games, and it found some way to shut every other one out of the market, it would still be anti-competitive.

Oil and coal aren't switchable though. First, oil has many other uses than just causing things to go, and second, once a company chooses to use either oil or coal, it isn't really switchable. In contrast, it's not nearly as hard for a content creator to go from one medium to another online.

 

[lordmcdeath]

If it is so easy to do... why isn't Parler back online with their own servers? Why did Epic launch a major and costly lawsuit against Apple instead of just starting up their own store with blackjack and hookers or having people third-party install Fortnite? Why did Hatreon make a good showing as a competitor for Patreon and then suddenly crash and burn when they were deplatformed? If this "one easy trick" would let these multi-million dollar operations survive why do they keep dying instead?

It is simple, not necessarily easy. It is not free or immediate at their size. In many ways their size makes the matter more complicated, as the contract negotiation for existing hosts grows more complex the larger you are and the number of people who can provide you what you want is fewer.

I hadn't realized that Apple was still such a pain about third party apps and app stores. I know that China has some still, but I could see them being much more complex than Android. Apple has always been less friendly to third party developers, which is why I keep to android. I like to be able to examine my own kernel and handle my own optmization.

As for Hatreon, that was payment processor. That is a market that is non-competitive, Visa, Mastercard, and to a less extent Discover have largely crowded out any major competitor. Frankly there are a lot of markets that have 3 or 4 major players, who operate in a Trust like manner, its just that social media is a foolish hill to die on. If you wanted to build a competitor to any of them with the characteristics you want, it wouldn't be hard. It wouldn't be cheap, but frankly, Parlor didn't secure their own infrastructure and likewise. It wouldn't have been an issue if they had included their own server and such as part of their business case and budgeted for it.

Give me six months, and I could write a better Twitter my own self. And I wouldn't ask for personal identification that frankly Parlor had no need for and kept me from using the platform.

 

[Bear Ribs]

First, I never said they had to be competing for the same viewers. That was you. Here was my quote:

Note that it never mentions viewers. Maybe you could get that from "time spent on tiktok is time not spent on twitter", but that's true even if they are aiming at different audiences. In fact, I specifically stated that this is the same product, just with a companies attempts at differentiating it.

Ah, they compete for time but not viewers you say. And if not viewers exactly who's time are they competing for? I have little interest in such semantics games. And you've yet to actually establish how videos and tweets are remotely a similar or substitutable product. I mean the definition you've given is this:

First, social media companies are very similar. The serve the same rough purpose, that of communicating with large amounts of others, and are exploited to deal with others. The means by which this happen are immaterial.

With a brush that broad TV is social media, as are books, speeches, newspapers, billboards, radio, movies, power point, mail, email, music, paintings, murals, and smoke signals. You've begged the question by starting with the assumption that social media is so incredibly broad and interchangeable that it can't help but be competitive because so many things count as "social media" and what kind of media they are or what their actual function is is "immaterial." And I could get behind that as a thought experiment but it's rather pointless when we're trying to discuss economics and how big tech companies can use their excessive market share to censor competing viewpoints.

Oil and coal aren't switchable though. First, oil has many other uses than just causing things to go, and second, once a company chooses to use either oil or coal, it isn't really switchable. In contrast, it's not nearly as hard for a content creator to go from one medium to another online.

But 144 character texts and videos are totally switchable. Sure.

As for Hatreon, that was payment processor. That is a market that is non-competitive, Visa, Mastercard, and to a less extent Discover have largely crowded out any major competitor. Frankly there are a lot of markets that have 3 or 4 major players, who operate in a Trust like manner, its just that social media is a foolish hill to die on. If you wanted to build a competitor to any of them with the characteristics you want, it wouldn't be hard. It wouldn't be cheap, but frankly, Parlor didn't secure their own infrastructure and likewise. It wouldn't have been an issue if they had included their own server and such as part of their business case and budgeted for it.

Agreed. The thing is that the payment processor moving so quickly to wipe out a competitor for one of their major clients rather reeks of collusion. It's not provable with the information we have here, but deeply suspicious and all the more so as we keep seeing competing companies have some sort of infrastructure, be it server space, payment processing, access to app stores, or what have you. Once could be coincidence but over and over again is a pattern. This is a problem that you personally can beat yet somehow major companies have died over and over to it, which is fairly counter-intuitive. I'll grant, a huge company has a disadvantage in moving compared to a small one, that's a valid point you have. However due to the network effect, small companies are not viable on the internet and constantly push it towards oligopoly if not outright monopoly so smaller operations generally can't compete anyway. That kind of Catch-22 is a problem.

You are correct about other industries also being oligopolies. I don't like those either and would prefer more free-market competition (in most fields, some natural monopolies are unavoidable), but this discussion is about specifically big tech and I'm kinda bad about derails already so I won't get into them.