I am not sure, but sometimes I think splitting the companies is not even what we need. Instead, companies with > $1 billion annual revenue should be bound by law to built federated platforms and provide the software to participate in such a network.
I mean, you could split up Google into Search, Youtube, and Mail. But in the end, Youtube would still use Analytics and provide Search with all the data they need for their Ad business and Mail would use the Ad tech from Search. With Facebook, it is mostly the same story.
Federated Systems, on the other hand, let you build a distributed network of providers where no provider has all the data in one place, and you can choose which provider you want to trust (or if you want to be provider yourself).
Instead, companies with > $1 billion annual revenue...
That would just turn the issue in to an accounting problem. Facebook would license their logo from Facebook Logo Inc, the like button from Thumbs Up Ltd, their servers from Facebook Servers PLC, and so on. Every one of the companies would make, at most, $999,999,999 in revenue.
A much simpler and easier legal solution would be to tax companies based on the number of users (based on an independent audit). For example, the first ten million are free (yay startups!) and then the company has to start paying $1 per user for the next 100 million, $5 each for the next 500 million, and $10 each user for the rest. Companies would be encouraged to actively limit the size of their platform by ejecting users and bots who don't make them any money, or to charge users for access.
> That would just turn the issue in to an accounting problem.
...A type of problem which government agencies the world around have extremely powerful tools to manage and prevent abuse in. Sure, abuse still exists (some of it significant--see "too big to fail" etc.), but such oversight is massively better than nothing, especially where direct to consumer social media/marketing platforms are concerned.
> A much simpler and easier legal solution would be to tax companies based on the number of users (based on an independent audit)
That's just another metric upon which you have to trust an oversight agency. Users might be a better metric than revenue, but it's still going to result in highly imperfect (but, again, better than nothing) regulation.
Would you say that bread should be free because it's not fair that only rich people should have bread? How about Ferraris? Houses? Why should social media be different? Note that I did suggest some smaller social media services should be free of this tax, so they could still operate free for user if they chose to. Social tools are useful. It just doesn't have to be a huge network run by a single company.
Besides, there's nothing stopping social media companies charging right now other than the fact they make more money by not charging, arguably to the detriment of everyone in society. Who do you think should be paying to solve that problem? No one?
I think you are on the right track, but we can used more advanced distributed systems rather than just federation. For example build off of things like IPFS or Ethereum etc. or custom protocol networks. Then that becomes the platform and network that companies provide physical infrastructure for and build off of. Using more advanced decentralized technolpgies means we would not need to trust all of our data to one entity and also allows for better collaboration on the platform level.
Your suggestion that large companies ought to be "bound by law" implies regulations by the government. Whether or not that is your intention is still up in the air. However, if the government owns the regulation then they get to set the standards of what a big company is on a per criteria basis.
If the government is being attacked by a specific 'group', the government will then have the power to impose specific, targeted regulations on that group's web presence. Without the legislation, this is a matter of freedom of speech and is quickly resolved by the first amendment. It would be incredibly difficult to fight that off.
However, with legislation in place that affords the government the power to impose such regulations, they can quickly and most importantly (read terrifyingly) silence people on the web.
Platforms are not people. Regulating the way that companies offer their services, tax them, and how they are allowed to be structured is not a limitation of free speech.
We already do it with every other industry, social media only enjoys a lassaiz-faire regulation environment because of how new it is, the law hasn't caught up.
That doesn't imply that I 'trust the government'. I mean, trust is not binary. I trust politicians as far as I think that what they do fits their agenda. So I don't have any trust in 'the government' without context.
The reason why I think a law would be the appropriate solution is
- that the companies have no interest in changing anything towards an (e.g., privacy friendlier system) as it would endanger their market position and therefore their profits
- in the current situation, the majority of people has few alternatives, so they can't 'buy their facebook somewhere else'
- for new competitors, it is quite hard to compete even with a single product not to mention a whole set of them
So it doesn't look like the market will find a solution anytime soon. I am not a fan of too much regulation either. Many laws have problems addressing the real issue and take too long until their are changed appropriately, but most laws cause costs anyway (not just financially).
I mean, you could split up Google into Search, Youtube, and Mail. But in the end, Youtube would still use Analytics and provide Search with all the data they need for their Ad business and Mail would use the Ad tech from Search. With Facebook, it is mostly the same story.
Federated Systems, on the other hand, let you build a distributed network of providers where no provider has all the data in one place, and you can choose which provider you want to trust (or if you want to be provider yourself).