Is Facebook a Monopoly? Of Course, But That Doesn’t Mean It Has to Admit It: A Contrarian View on the Zuckerberg Testimony

“How do you sustain a business model in which users don’t pay for your service?”

“Senator, we run ads.”

Such exchanges epitomized the Congressional testimony of Mark Zuckerberg a week ago. Two grueling days of old Congressmen attempting to batter a genius billionaire on a platform they know nothing about.

Of course, there were instances where Zuckerberg was uncomfortable in answering, but the far majority of the questions were softball questions. It’s as if the Congressman walked into the room, completely unprepared.

Of course, the questions are all scripted, but that’s the image they are presenting for the government. In an age of playing catch-up with technology, it’s as if they had completely given up with the ludicrosity of the questions. Of course, they have assistants too. Why couldn’t they have spent maybe thirty minutes doing simple research on how Facebook and social media marketing works?

Naturally, I was surprised that even one Senator knew what Facebook Pixel was and questioned Zuckerberg on the morality of employing such a tool. Yet, it’s futile when you note that no one else in the room other than Zuckerberg knows what she was talking about.

Since the event, the news have published articles, as if the Congressmen really grilled Zuckerberg hard. That couldn’t be further from the truth. Now Zuckerberg is at heart, an introvert, although he composed himself really well throughout the course of the event. He spoke eloquently, although perhaps that was because of the confidence boost from the nature of the questions.

The event was focused too much of the nature of how Facebook operates, when simple research could have answered that question, rather than the overarching issue of unwarranted breach of privacy.

In the 8 laborious hours of watching the event (in actuality, it was more like 4, because I watched the replay at 2x the speed of YouTube while performing other tasks. A substitute for my daily podcast!), I’ve come to a few conclusions.

Privilege vs Privacy

When I perused through the comment section, I wanted to bang my head on a wall.

I distinctly remember one comment, which I believe had a dozen likes at the time. It stated that Zuckerberg should be in jail. That his actions were akin to stealing our cars, using it, and selling it right back to us.

The only reason why this needs to be addressed and systematically deconstructed is because this is a pervasive train of thought.

First of all, it is not akin to stealing your car. In fact, if anything, it’s quite the contrary. Using Facebook platform is a privilege. You’re using it for free, and you expect it to be free forever. It’s like you borrowing a car. Except forever.

Second, they’re not selling it right back to you. No, Facebook sells to advertisers. That’s a crucial difference. And even if it does sell it right back to you, there is nothing wrong with that business model. You’re using the platform of someone else. You’re extracting the value of happiness and love from connecting with loved ones from all around the world. Facebook has the right to sell itself as a service.

But alas, it is free for all to use. I can’t stress this hard enough. It’s free to use, and we’re complaining about it. It’s like complaining that Costco has free samples. Of course, they’re actually trying to push for the sell of their own products, but we’re not mad at Costco.

In fact, if you despise the repercussions of using the platform so much, don’t use it. If you don’t like the side effects of being slightly full after consuming free Costco samples, you don’t consume it in the first place.

It’s all the same idea.

But people have this incredible notion that they should be the ones controlling the whereabouts and operations of Facebook. You just don’t see nor can expect the random straggler managing the whole of Costco.

Again, it’s all the same idea.

Expectancy vs Privacy

I’ve never recognized the severity and consequences that age may pose to understanding technology, but the testimony epitomized this.

With that age comes certain experiences that precedes an expectancy far different than that of the status quo.

In fact, we see that the older generations are always reminiscent of the good ol’ days, when things were simpler, when younger generations understood respect, and that millennials are lazy.

This is a dangerous belief to uphold, because millenials are the future, before Generation Z.

I’m in no way attempting to antagonize the older generations however. We’re collectively so wrapped up in the negatives that we forgo the positives.

It’s also ingrained in our minds that because there is a privacy breach, that the ulterior motive is automatically bad. We expect that Facebook sells our user data because that’s our only conception of how the business model would work. If anything, it’s the opposite. Ads are created to cater to your interests, and if the algorithms are incorrect, you can opt out of them.

It’s arguments like this that make me think that those opposed to Facebook are so hypocritical. In a way, I think all the negativity is derived from insecurity.

We’re insecure and as the social creatures we are, seek to be loved. That’s where Facebook comes in; it’s a medium where we could connect with our loved ones at any time through the Internet, regardless of our actual physical location. It’s brought the entire world together. But we take that for granted.

Instead, we’re focused on the other end of the spectrum, that we’re exposing ourselves through everything that we are posting online. That’s where the defense mechanism kicks in; we fear that perhaps some of the information may be used against us. It’s our nature to always expect the worse.

This is our conflicting nature; we want to be loved, but we fear the unforeseen; we can’t stand ostracism, but we feel vulnerable when the whole world is open to our lives; we want to interact on social media, but we want privacy at the same time.

These very ideals are contradictory.

Once we realize this, perhaps we can give Facebook and Zuckerberg some slack after all. It’s not that I don’t think Facebook is at no fault. There’s plenty of shady practices, one of which was specifically buying data from aggregators and employing that. Zuckerberg claimed in his testimony that Facebook doesn’t do it any more, and that that was an industry standard. Perhaps there are some other rather off-the-chart practices that will only be exposed with further investigation.

In either case, we should expect that in this data-driven world that there just isn’t complete privacy anymore. It’s a misconstrued expectation. In fact, we’re told and we tell others that everything you post online stays out there forever. The problem is, we don’t take that principle to heart.

Our expectations don’t match reality. That’s because no matter how grandiose Facebook’s mission is of connecting the world, it’s still a private company.

Private Interest vs Privacy

Businesses need money to run. If you argue that the sources of revenue are unethical, the business can’t run. There’d be no Facebook. No social media with a mission to connect the world.

A Senator claimed that because Facebook is grounded on the strategy of generating income through its users’ data, the users should monetize their own data. We’re forgetting that Facebook, once again, is a privilege. It’s not a medium that popped out of thin air. It’s created jobs, a new market, and an entire industry.

In fact, it’s excelled so much in dominating its own sector that it could arguably be classified as a monopoly. Of course, when a Senator brought it up, Zuckerberg didn’t admit that.

The answer’s expected. He’s acting in the best interest of Facebook. In terms of monetizing data, there’s not a competitor that comes close to Facebook. However, the strategy is to move broader and claim competition in a sector much larger than they are actually playing at. As billionaire entrepreneur and venture capitalist Peter Thiel stated in his book, Zero to One, that such corporations would claim to be in a technology sector, where there are other monopolies at play, including Google, Amazon, Apple, etc.

Each dominate their niche, but to protect themselves, they still claim to be in competition. To admit otherwise would necessitate intense governmental regulation.

Those who aren’t claim to hold a monopoly; those who are claim otherwise.

In terms of the lean startup model, it is in the best interest to stay as small as possible. However, that’s simply impossible for companies like Facebook to play small anymore. They’ve become such gigantic corporations that other businesses’ success are contingent upon the continued success and growth of companies like Facebook.

An Unresolved Conflict

Is privacy a issue that can be resolved? Should it be resolved?

I’ve perused through projections of technologies in the far future, where advances such as uploading memories to an overarching archive is possible.

The problems are only going to become more and more drastic.

We’re in an era where it’s impossible to participate in social media without our information out there. If you want complete privacy, the solution is to stay off Facebook.

In fact, there are always surveillance cameras about, ensuring the security of the collective good. We don’t authorize for their existence either.

To be completely private, perhaps the best solution then is to move in the middle of the woods. But then we’ll long for human interaction, again highlighting the conflicting nature of human nature.

An agreement that the Congressmen and Zuckerberg have both come to terms with is to redraft a contractual statement that would be more clear for its users. Although it’d be interesting to see how this pans out, we have to recognize that inexorably long contracts are designed that way on purpose.

It should be recognized that perhaps such companies don’t want you scrolling through all the miniscule details. That, in itself, was very much a larger reason of why everyone should read them.

But in the end, we know we’re not going to anyway, regardless of how short the revised statement is going to be.

Now under public pressure, Facebook might unveil a more polished and short user agreement, but is that a precedent? Is that what’s going to be expected of every company now?

Perhaps we should also include an instruction manual as well on how to use every single feature of a product, service, or platform. Oh wait, I forgot that takes too long to read too, and people don’t like reading. Better condense it to laughable simplicity again.

The reading we don’t like reading is because it takes too much time and effort. And time has become a commodity. If we border on ethics again, is it ethical to capitalize on the human nature of wanting more time for themselves? These are all pressing morality questions, but they shouldn’t be.

We’re on a one-way ride to transparency. The future is here, and we should embrace it, for it could only leave us in the dust.

Again, I don’t believe Facebook is not at fault. Cambridge Analytica certainly brought some damage, and although it never expected such a day to come, Facebook now has an obligation to oversee companies in which it cooperates with. And I admire Zuckerberg for admitting that.

In the meantime though, the media will continue portraying the extremes, antagonizing a certain side, and thereby influencing public opinion. I’m frustrated by the lack of exposure of the other side.

So it’s up to the rest of us to analyze the legitimacy of the claims, and perhaps offer a contrarian perspective.

I’ve taken an unorthodox stance on the Facebook privacy issue. Maybe I’ll receive some backlash. In fact, I encourage all dissenters to rear your own arguments. Knowledge is power. And a thorough understanding of both sides will precede a better future for us all.