It's Time To Break Up Facebook

The Verge has multiple pieces running at the moment around the idea that certain tech companies - Facebook, Apple, Google, Uber - may be facing antitrust regulation. Or, at the very least, maybe we should consider it. The more compelling of the pieces for me is this Nilay Patel piece on It's Time to Break Up Facebook, which covers much of the same ground conceptually but draws from conversations with Tim Wu.

Wu is the author of a book called The Master Switch (and coined the term "Net Neutrality"), all about "The Rise and Fall of Information Empires." I've talked about it many years ago but the book really stuck with me. It is, by and large, a testament to the fact that media companies continuously cycle through a routine of innovation, massive growth, stifling themselves for fear of competition and then being broken up. AT&T is the most obvious example that comes to mind but there's been others.

His argument in the article - and accompanying podcast - is that if Facebook were broken up, the competition that would emerge would actually stoke the flames of innovation.

I'm not sure where I fall in this argument but it's an article well worth reading and giving plenty of consideration to. So, do that.