Monopolies

OK, I visited this a couple years ago, but with Twitter banning certain accounts, I think its a good time to revisit the concept.

Now I know a monopoly means its one company with 100% of the market. BUT, Apple and Android control 99% of the worlds IOS for smartphones etc.

www.statista.com...#:~:text=Android%20maintained%20its%20posit ion%20as,of%20the%20global%20market%20share.


For social media, Facebook and Twitter make up almost 79% of the market.

gs.statcounter.com...


And of course, in the all important search market segment....Google owns 91% of marketshare.

Now here is the scenario. A. gets banned from Twitter and FB. A. goes to alternate site and all of a sudden alternate site gets threatened with removal from both IOS's if it doesnt conform. Meaning alternate site gets locked out of 99% of available users.

www.androidpolice.com...

In the meantime, search engine A. adjusts its algorithm to push alternate site to page 50,000.


So see how easy it is to get made irrelevant? Be it an individual or a company.

Its insane and should be frightening what with one party in control for the next four years. Think of the consolidation of power that will take place the next four years and how these same companies will be able to manipulate info further.



Dont believe me, just ask Ebay who got punished by Google to the tune of $200 million.

blog.teknicks.com...


So, is this a monopoly? Or just a conspiracy?

a reply to: lakenheath24

Hopefully, companies will realise that only advertising to a limited group of borg will not repay them, limited appeal =limited profit.

The money will migrate to the widest possible audience.
Not the audience who continually limits itself.

I'd speak on the issue if I wasn't on an android device...

Thank you for dropping some context here. This helps color in the picture and is a concisely well-written, and very pertinent OP

originally posted by: Tulpa
a reply to: lakenheath24

Hopefully, companies will realise that only advertising to a limited group of borg will not repay them, limited appeal =limited profit.

The money will migrate to the widest possible audience.
Not the audience who continually limits itself.

Yeah but complete control and utter manipulation over those that use your site is so much more cooler and ephemeral than actual $$

a reply to: slatesteam
True. The cash probably becomes a side issue after a certain point.
From a business point of view, I imagined that growing a consumer base would work out better than continually trimming down the numbers.
Again, hopefully, more people may migrate to a more agreeable platform once they cotton on to the control element.
Even people without strong political views prefer a wider choice than one that is restricted.

What you point out isn't even a conspiracy; it's cold, hard fact.

Honestly, in my opinion, monopolies WRT to social media are much less of a concern than the phone platforms. This idea of that Google and Apple can conspire to ban an application like Parler (of which I'm not a member BTW) is very dangerous.

There /are/ alternatives to Android and IOS, as there are open source phone platforms out there, but they are not very user friendly for those not technically-inclined, and they don't have the breadth of applications available that are in the Play Store or App Store. Even worse, the big telecos (Verizon, AT&T) are linked at the hip with the two main phone platforms, so there pretty much IS no alternative for customers to steer clear of Google or Apple phone platforms unless one is into DIY.

IDK, I am taking a hard look at divesting myself of Google altogether, which would of seemed preposterous a few years ago.

The reality is I already have my own SMTP and email infrastructure up, and I simply forward those accounts to my GMail, which I could stop doing that in a matter of minutes and be off of GMail.

I already have all my documents, photos, music accessible securely from my home via SSH/SFTP. I am my own "cloud" so I don't need Drive or Docs or Photos, although that inhibits my ability to share and have content shared with me. It can be done, with some work.

There is DuckDuckGo as a search alternative.

Decoupling from Android and the Play Store is the biggest headache. Doable, but not easily.

I have always been a big fan of Googles from their early most days as innovators, but can't and won't in good faith continue to patronize companies that condone censorship and deliberately align themselves, politically speaking.