I've been listening. His attempted answer was reasonable. Facebook doesn't have a single competitor because they don't have just a single product. Name the "biggest" competitors for Siemens or SAP or Google or Microsoft or Honeywell. They're companies of companies and each unit may have a single biggest competitor but asking for just one feels intentionally misleading.
Disclaimer: I hate Facebook and twitter and Pinterest and Snapchat and whatever the hell else and have no personal investment in this whatsoever. I'm listing purely for the entertainment value of watching zuck squirm.
I fail to see what's misleading about asking for a competitor to Facebook.
Microsoft's competitors are Apple on the hardware and software front, Google on the search engine front, Atlassian on productivity tools front, GitHub on the repository/code storage front, AWS on the cloud storage front, etc. I assume Microsoft's core solutions are their OS, their productivity tools and cloud.
Google's competitors are Yahoo, Bing and Duckduckgo on the search front. Garmin, TomTom and others on the map front, etc. And perhaps everyone on the email front. Here I assume Google's core tools are search, email, and maps.
Facebook's competitors are... Instag- oh right. Uh, Snapchat, I guess?
Lot's of companies compete in lots of sectors. If you buy a Ford van you're not going to go to chevy. But that doesn't change the fact that Ford's primary business is normal cars and chevy competes in that industry. If I ask who MS's biggest competitor is it's Apple. If I ask whose Google's biggest competitor it's probably MS Bing.
Facebook is overwhelmingly known for its social network and it's biggest competitor is probably twitter who problem has ~10% of it's customers.
The point is that none of facebook's competitors come even close to facebook's size no matter which portion of Facebook's core functionality you're talking about. Plus, facebook is not diversified in the way that SAP or Honeywell is.
The intent of the question should be along the lines of "if a user is pissed off at Facebook as a result of the latest revelations, and wants to move to a competitor, what would they move to?" or a more accurate "Whom are you worried about users moving off of Facebook to?"
Facebook is defined by a single product, more so than even Google or Microsoft.
> Facebook doesn't have a single competitor because they don't have just a single product.
Isn't their single product the Facebook website/app? Sure they sell ads but so does Yankee Stadium. From the consumer's perspective the stadium's competitors include Citi Field, not Google Adsense.
I agree with this. Senator Graham went into this with the totally wrong mentality. Graham tried to determine the answer before the question was even asked. Non-tech conglomerates like PepsiCo, Anheuser-Busch, and Johnson & Johnson offer a huge range of different products in different sectors for different purposes.
I bet also that Zuckerberg might have "forgotten" that, in mainstream common sense, Facebook is viewed as "a website and mobile app". As CEO, he is trained to view Facebook as a giant company with a diverse selection of products, not just as a website. So his perspective on proper competition might be quite different from Senator Graham's.
he asked for clarification. were they asking about tech companies, messaging companies, or something else (advertising companies and publishers? they never got to the other categories)
BUT had they been able to ask a clear question, they could have gotten to the point that he doesnt have many messaging competitors (wechat/snapchat/google/skype.) more importantly they could have gone a more standard protocol/decentralization approach and asked him about going back towards intra-messenger inoperability. should facebook messenger be able to talk to skype and hangouts? ALL email providers talk to each other (within reason) and if i leave gmail i can go somewhere else and CHOOSE not to email other people with gmail.
this question should have been about anticompetitive acquisitions and closed/open platforms.
This article has 0 insight. This was the most strategic answer.
- A: facebook does a lot of things and it's true it competes across many categories
- B: Admitting competition is bad for wall street, legitimizes them, and turns the narrative into whether that is true or not (you don't want that to happen either)
- C: The senator was obviously trying to bait Mark into saying that they have no competition... why? Easy anti-trust/regulation. He avoided that as well.
Mark took the most strategic path. Sure - it could have been delivered better.
This reminds me of a point well made in Peter Thiel's 'Zero to One'. Monopolies make it seem like they have a lot of competitors to avoid anti-trust and companies that are in a dog fight like to make it seem like they are monopolies in a niche area.
Facebook has effectively a monopoly on social networking. Even further: Facebook can be seen as an essential service for maintaining your social life. Not using it puts you at a severe disadvantage.
I don't think monopolies are necessarily a problem that needs fixing, but call it what it is. Facebook makes decisions based on their understanding of dominance.
If you don't like Ford, you can buy a car that you can't drive on most public roads and even fewer gas stations offer you the type of gas you need.
Only a group of politicians could make Zuckerberg look like the human one. These senators are a disgrace. Their questions and statements are ignorant, intellectual dishonest, and bullying. They're mostly shitty people.
We do not need these ignoramuses making decisions about social networking technology. They're as clueless as it gets. We just need users to become aware of the value of data privacy and then demand it. Technology will deliver.
I'm not worried because I think users will support the right things in the end.
- People leave Facebook for Twitter, & vice versa.
I'm not sure why he didn't just say "Twitter". In some very abstract way, Facebook overlaps with Apple. But that wasn't the question. The spirit of Lindsey Graham's question was to determine if consumers have a choice, and the answer is yes, they do: Twitter.
The spirit of Lindsey Graham's question was to determine if consumers have a choice
While this may or may not be true, part of Graham's job here is to make sure that the meaning of his questions can be ascertained by the actual wording of the question with no interpretation required, unless he's intentionally trying to confuse Zuck or get him to misspeak.
If Graham wants to determine if consumers have a choice, he should ask consumers if they have a choice. I'm sure the fine folks of South Carolina would be glad to help him out with that one. That would get him a more accurate answer than asking Zuck's opinion on the matter.
It's a weird question. If you're posting photos on FB, then Flikr/Yahoo is a competitor. If you're messaging people, then Google is a competitor (in 9 different partially overlapping ways :p). But saying "Google is Facebook's biggest competitor" is weird, cause FB doesn't have a search engine.
I get where the senator is going with his questions but there are plenty of alternatives out there, just no one wants to use them.
To quote the senator - "If I buy a Ford, and it doesn’t work well, and I don’t like it, I can buy a Chevy." but to put that into perspective here - "If I buy a Ford, and it doesn’t work well, and I don’t like it, I can buy a skateboard with two wheels."
> LG: Are there any other social platforms that reasonably compete with Facebook?
> MZ: Don't really want to say no because that's clearly a monopoly, but don't really want to cop to our core business being a data farm and not a social network, so... here is some convoluted non-answer.
You define a business based on customers and costs:
1. Facebook's customers are advertisers.
2. Facebook's costs are for IT systems development, infrastructure and operations.
As such it competes with other advertisers: e.g. Google, TV broadcasters, et.c.
The fact that it does this using a "social network" has nothing to do with the question!
Anti-monopoly has a different set of criteria to determine the relevant market, where a company with market power might be able to abuse that power. The three points listed at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relevant_market are 1) demand-side substitution, 2) supply-side substitution, and 3) potential competition.
If FB were to change its fees or policies, can 5%-10% of the advertisers who are currently using FB switch to Google, TV broadcasters, etc. to get a roughly equivalent service?
If not, that would suggest FB is also in a more specific market than 'advertising', and has market power in that market.
[+] [-] tdewitt|8 years ago|reply
Disclaimer: I hate Facebook and twitter and Pinterest and Snapchat and whatever the hell else and have no personal investment in this whatsoever. I'm listing purely for the entertainment value of watching zuck squirm.
[+] [-] _m8fo|8 years ago|reply
Microsoft's competitors are Apple on the hardware and software front, Google on the search engine front, Atlassian on productivity tools front, GitHub on the repository/code storage front, AWS on the cloud storage front, etc. I assume Microsoft's core solutions are their OS, their productivity tools and cloud.
Google's competitors are Yahoo, Bing and Duckduckgo on the search front. Garmin, TomTom and others on the map front, etc. And perhaps everyone on the email front. Here I assume Google's core tools are search, email, and maps.
Facebook's competitors are... Instag- oh right. Uh, Snapchat, I guess?
[+] [-] slivym|8 years ago|reply
Facebook is overwhelmingly known for its social network and it's biggest competitor is probably twitter who problem has ~10% of it's customers.
The point is that none of facebook's competitors come even close to facebook's size no matter which portion of Facebook's core functionality you're talking about. Plus, facebook is not diversified in the way that SAP or Honeywell is.
[+] [-] jcranmer|8 years ago|reply
Facebook is defined by a single product, more so than even Google or Microsoft.
[+] [-] droidist2|8 years ago|reply
Isn't their single product the Facebook website/app? Sure they sell ads but so does Yankee Stadium. From the consumer's perspective the stadium's competitors include Citi Field, not Google Adsense.
[+] [-] jdtang13|8 years ago|reply
I bet also that Zuckerberg might have "forgotten" that, in mainstream common sense, Facebook is viewed as "a website and mobile app". As CEO, he is trained to view Facebook as a giant company with a diverse selection of products, not just as a website. So his perspective on proper competition might be quite different from Senator Graham's.
[+] [-] qume|8 years ago|reply
The only take away for me is that these senators are not even close to being capable of engaging MZ properly in debate.
[+] [-] piracy1|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] eesmith|8 years ago|reply
This question, in this context, means something like "in the market where you have the most market power, who are your competitors"?
Competition law has defined what 'market' means for cases like this; see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relevant_market .
[+] [-] wvenable|8 years ago|reply
Facebook competitors are literally every other company that is trying to sell advertising.
[+] [-] unknown|8 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] basch|8 years ago|reply
he asked for clarification. were they asking about tech companies, messaging companies, or something else (advertising companies and publishers? they never got to the other categories)
BUT had they been able to ask a clear question, they could have gotten to the point that he doesnt have many messaging competitors (wechat/snapchat/google/skype.) more importantly they could have gone a more standard protocol/decentralization approach and asked him about going back towards intra-messenger inoperability. should facebook messenger be able to talk to skype and hangouts? ALL email providers talk to each other (within reason) and if i leave gmail i can go somewhere else and CHOOSE not to email other people with gmail.
this question should have been about anticompetitive acquisitions and closed/open platforms.
[+] [-] sjg007|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|8 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] Turbots|8 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] jeffchuber|8 years ago|reply
- B: Admitting competition is bad for wall street, legitimizes them, and turns the narrative into whether that is true or not (you don't want that to happen either)
- C: The senator was obviously trying to bait Mark into saying that they have no competition... why? Easy anti-trust/regulation. He avoided that as well.
Mark took the most strategic path. Sure - it could have been delivered better.
[+] [-] 40acres|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] birthcert|8 years ago|reply
I don't think monopolies are necessarily a problem that needs fixing, but call it what it is. Facebook makes decisions based on their understanding of dominance.
If you don't like Ford, you can buy a car that you can't drive on most public roads and even fewer gas stations offer you the type of gas you need.
[+] [-] qume|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] c-smile|8 years ago|reply
And to amplify the impression to mention "Putin" somewhere.
That might stop all further questions to Mark.
Or even start procedure of canonization [1] of fb.com in general and Mark in particular by Congress.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canonization
[+] [-] newsbinator|8 years ago|reply
Although the music integration is better.
[+] [-] spullara|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] spullara|8 years ago|reply
Senator: "But that is just for advertising. What about competitors for your customers that use the social networking product?"
Zuckerberg: "Oh them. They aren't our customers, they are the product."
[+] [-] battalgazi|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] newsbinator|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] staunch|8 years ago|reply
We do not need these ignoramuses making decisions about social networking technology. They're as clueless as it gets. We just need users to become aware of the value of data privacy and then demand it. Technology will deliver.
I'm not worried because I think users will support the right things in the end.
[+] [-] notfromhere|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] thejerz|8 years ago|reply
- Social media platform (you are the content).
- Advertisers pay for eyeballs.
- Hashtags and groups collect similar users.
- Privacy settings control who sees your content.
- Text, pictures, videos, & polls.
- People leave Facebook for Twitter, & vice versa.
I'm not sure why he didn't just say "Twitter". In some very abstract way, Facebook overlaps with Apple. But that wasn't the question. The spirit of Lindsey Graham's question was to determine if consumers have a choice, and the answer is yes, they do: Twitter.
[+] [-] dfxm12|8 years ago|reply
While this may or may not be true, part of Graham's job here is to make sure that the meaning of his questions can be ascertained by the actual wording of the question with no interpretation required, unless he's intentionally trying to confuse Zuck or get him to misspeak.
If Graham wants to determine if consumers have a choice, he should ask consumers if they have a choice. I'm sure the fine folks of South Carolina would be glad to help him out with that one. That would get him a more accurate answer than asking Zuck's opinion on the matter.
[+] [-] oconnor663|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sjg007|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] havetocharge|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] csours|8 years ago|reply
If you don't want to use roadways, what is the alternative? Flying? Railroads? Boats? Other roadways?
[+] [-] ElCapitanMarkla|8 years ago|reply
I get where the senator is going with his questions but there are plenty of alternatives out there, just no one wants to use them.
To quote the senator - "If I buy a Ford, and it doesn’t work well, and I don’t like it, I can buy a Chevy." but to put that into perspective here - "If I buy a Ford, and it doesn’t work well, and I don’t like it, I can buy a skateboard with two wheels."
[+] [-] neo4sure|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] camgunz|8 years ago|reply
> LG: Are there any other social platforms that reasonably compete with Facebook?
> MZ: Don't really want to say no because that's clearly a monopoly, but don't really want to cop to our core business being a data farm and not a social network, so... here is some convoluted non-answer.
> LG: Didn't expect that to be a stumper....
[+] [-] sjg007|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] fuzzieozzie|8 years ago|reply
As such it competes with other advertisers: e.g. Google, TV broadcasters, et.c.
The fact that it does this using a "social network" has nothing to do with the question!
[+] [-] eesmith|8 years ago|reply
If FB were to change its fees or policies, can 5%-10% of the advertisers who are currently using FB switch to Google, TV broadcasters, etc. to get a roughly equivalent service?
If not, that would suggest FB is also in a more specific market than 'advertising', and has market power in that market.
[+] [-] tannranger|8 years ago|reply
duh
[+] [-] ninkendo|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] DimitarIbra9|8 years ago|reply