(1/10) Stop behaving like a monopolist – you’ve got enough money, after all

There’s really never been a monopoly like yours – the scale of what you’ve built is astonishing:

• Every month, there are two billion users around the world; more than a third of the adult members of the species. With India just ahead of the USA².
• In the US alone there are 240 million.
• More than 40% of Americans are reported to get “news” from Facebook³.
• Facebook and Google together now account for one-fifth of global advertising⁴, and online ads have now overtaken television.

For an example of monopolistic behaviour, see Brian Feldman, New York Magazine: “Is Facebook a Monopoly? Just Ask Snapchat.”⁵

Of course, as leader of a company it’s not your job to police competition policy – whether in Washington or in Brussels or in any other key market. But the rise and rise of the tech monopolies is worrying a lot of people on left and right alike. Bill Kristol, lightning-rod of Washington’s neo-conservatives, has just launched a new effort in partnership with well-known Democrat Bill Galston. And the first item on their joint agenda? You guessed. Taking down the tech monopolies. Eleanor Clift of the Daily Beast⁶, talking to Galston, found that the numbers didn’t so much talk for themselves, but shouted:

“Just look at the figures, says Galston. “John D. Rockefeller would have died for a market share like that.” Rockefeller’s Standard Oil company epitomised the excesses of last century’s robber barons.  Today, one out of every two dollars spent online goes through Amazon. Facebook and Google got 99 per cent of the revenue growth from digital advertising last year. Facebook owns 77 per cent of mobile social traffic.”

While the American Left, epitomised by Senator Warren, has been more willing than the US Right to take on monopolies in recent years, the tech giants have been the exception. “Silicon Valley is part of the Democratic base,” notes Clift, “providing mega-donations and votes.” Some estimates suggest 80% of “tech cash” goes generally to the Democrats⁷ but went to Hillary Clinton rather than Donald Trump by 60-to-1 ⁸.

So what can you do?

Here are some suggestions.

You really need to come out in favour of market capitalism – and against monopolies. As President you will need to police a market-place full of powerful crony-capitalists, every one of which is a rent-seeker or monopolist or wannabe. And, Zuck, running one yourself isn’t a great start. But there are commitments you can make that would make quite a difference:

• First, make it absolutely clear that you are an undying fan of the market capitalism that enabled Facebook to succeed in the first place. (Bye-bye, Myspace!)

• Then give us an assurance that you don’t plan to take over any more potential rivals (as you did with WhatsApp and Instagram) – because you really will welcome their healthy competition – or do another ‘Sherlock’ on the likes of SnapChat⁹.
• And I’m hardly the first person to suggest that you open up Facebook’s APIs – the keys to enable other programmes to connect with Facebook, so the powerful network effects that the internet makes possible don’t lock us all in to a single, monopoly platform¹⁰.
• Then assure us that you will soon roll out a Facebook-for-a-fee alternative to the fuzzy barter arrangement we all use at the moment. So for $x a month, users have an option to use the service while keeping all their data private (and getting no ads or merely generic, untargeted ones). This would also make all of us much more aware of how Facebook actually makes its money – and that it’s really an enormous and highly-profitable corporation.
• It may seem too much to ask, but I’ll ask it anyway: you could then assure us that your lobbyists in Washington and Brussels and other capitals will hold back from lobbying against efforts to use competition policy against your company (or any others). What, by the way, was the objective of the $2.38 million you spent on Washington lobbying¹¹ in the second quarter of this year?

I know, the monopoly issue is hardly a simple one. A hundred years ago enormous public concern and some brilliant campaigning journalism¹² led the United States to take down destructive monopolies (the “trusts”), a tradition that continued right up to the break-up of the AT&T telecommunications monopoly into the Baby Bells in 1982¹³.

Since then we have been kinder to monopolies, at the very time that technology has enabled new kinds of monopolies to flourish. But the pendulum will swing back as political interest on left and right builds to hold to account those who – like you – have amassed vast fortunes with your creative use of what was, let’s face it, originally publicly-funded US government technology¹⁴.

One reason we have not so far seen much backlash against Facebook (and Google) is of course that unlike traditional companies (the trusts of the early 20^th century, and AT&T more recently) most users don’t think of themselves as customers. The service looks as if it’s “free,” and Facebook (like Google) some sort of charity. Of course, we pay with data, or you would not be making any money. And you are making a lot.

So we need you to come out as a crusading fan of innovation and market capitalism, not a contented beneficiary of monopoly power. Because people from Senator Elizabeth Warren, scourge of financial and corporate abuses, on the left, and Bill Kristol, godfather of the anti-Trump right, are calling for it and will call for it until the monopolies are reined in.

Will this cause you discomfort? I expect so. But hey, you’re not going to end up a pauper. And you’re the one who looks like he wants to be George Washington’s successor.

There’s no clearer way to redefine yourself as committed to public service rather than private business.

PART 2: Pay your fair share of taxes

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Nigel Cameron writes about technology, society, and the future. In 2007 he founded the Washington think tank The Center for Policy on Emerging Technologies. His most recent book is Will Robots Take Your Job?

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