Recent meetings between Trump and Elon:
Trump and Jeff Yass (Major investor in TicTok):
Rumble CEO offers to buy TicTok as part of a Consortium:
Thoughts?
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A merger sounds terrible. When all of the independent social media apps are separated it's harder to contain them all, but if they all merge into one conglomerate it makes it easier for the deep state to kill it all in one felt swoop.
They should all remain their own separate entities.
How many social media brands are under the META umbrella? How about Google? How many are controlled indirectly by AWS? Rumble is already working jointly with Truth Social. It's not a level playing field and the small guys go belly up, get drivel into obscurity, or get bought out by the big tech companies. I don't like it, but that's the reality What happened to MySpace? How about Parlor? Getter? Voat? I'd rather have a big-tech working for the MAGA agenda then censoring it.
which brings in the competition. When the field is level the free market paves the way. Or something like that....that's what it used to be. Once upon a time.
Yes but again, once it becomes a conglomerate, it can more easily be taken down or even infiltrated.
When Truth Social, X, Rumble, TikTok, etc are all separate, what's the worst that could happen if say X becomes tainted? At least we have all of the other options to go to.
But if they're all one conglomerate? Then the entire thing becomes tainted and you're left with no alternatives.
Think of it this way, back when Facebook was buying up Instagram, What'sApp, Oculus, etc nobody batted an eye. Now in hindsight, we all realize how every single one of these apps/companies are tainted now because Meta as a whole is tainted.
See where I'm getting at?
Those companies where bought up because they could not compete against META so they faced the option to sell-out or be driven out. Think of what happens to all the small locally owned shops when the first Walmart in the area opens up. They can't compete with Walmart prices and they especially can't compete with the variety of items in stock. Now think about it from the income side of things, Social media companies derive most of their revenue via advertisements and selling user data. Which social media companies get the lions share of advertisement and why? Why do companies choose to advertise there? The more users a social media platform has, the more data they are able to collect and the more useful that data is because it's not isolated to one subset of the population.
I get what you're saying but those companies that Facebook bought out weren't even competitors of Facebook. Instagram was a photo editing app, Oculus was a startup VR technology company, WhatsApp was just a private messenger.
It wasn't a situation of "They couldn't compete so they were forced to sell-out" because they weren't even competing to begin with, they were doing fine on their own. Facebook took them, bought them and tainted them.
Now if X, TikTok, Rumble, and whatever else decide to "merge" into one conglomerate, what happens when that 1 centralized entity becomes tainted by one bad CEO or gets bought out by a company like Meta? Then it's game over.
Whereas the alternative.. If they all stayed separated, what's the worst that happens if TikTok gets tainted? Well, you still have Truth Social, X, Rumble, etc to go to as a worst case scenario. AND, keeping all of the players "small" allows more room for competition as well for even more free-speech apps. Because if a free-speech app came out tomorrow and they were competing with some TikTok/DWAC/X/Etc conglomerate, they'd be obliterated.
I disagree. If merged, they scales of economy become maximized. It becomes a free speech powerhouse. Google and Meta will eventually crash. At least portions of their business units will.
It is my experience ... When competition is eliminated society descends into mediocrity. Creativity and innovation is stifled. Competition separates the industrious folk from the dull lazy folk. As a young man traveling cross country, it was exciting to listen to radio stations in different parts of the US. The playlists were different from town to town. When a song did make it across the nation it was likely a payola song. When radio became consolidated, We were bombarded with ugly crappy music. Monopolies serve the 1% and leave the rest scrambling for crumbs.
Yes, but in uncharted territory - free speech platforms - it becomes a first to market situation. Fast mover advantage. I get your point of view, but I'm an entrepreneur and I'm about 1+1+1= 10. I think that's what were looking at.
Monopolies wreck entrepreneurs. Monopolies are about central control of resources limiting introduction of new products and ideas. Not good for entrepreneurs. Media Monopolies restrict freedom of expression and opportunity. Media should not be run by a handful of companies. I am not a big fan of