TL;DR - agreed, I expect the government will eventually force Facebook to open up and support a common federated social networking standard.
As spullara explains below, Facebook's monopoly has come because Facebook Connect is an all-round better product. Publishers get access to easy syndication ("oh, you just joined XYZ? Here are some badges; want to share them on Facebook and let your friends know about us?") as well as higher-quality users overall (Facebook accounts tend to be real). Users get a single login from a service they (mostly) trust and easy integration with their social network ("oh, John's using turntable.fm too? Sweet!").
The brilliance of Facebook Connect is the tie-in of syndication with identity. Logging in with Facebook is a better experience than just registering, for all parties involved. This is why Facebook Connect works and why MSN Passport failed a decade ago.
The monopoly side of things is going to become a problem in the coming years; I for one expect federal intervention in the form of mandating a common federated social networking platform (a la, but not necessarily, via the protocols developed by diaspora). Federation and decentralization is what happened with phones and with email; if Facebook/social networking-style communication is the next generation, it seems like a reasonable next step.
Most users will never tell the difference, at first - Facebook will remain their default client both for login and for reading friends' profiles and news feed. With time, however, competitors will begin to emerge and offer alternate interfaces for either news feed filtration or for identity, opening up space for innovation in a place once dominated by one or more entrenched players (Firefox vs IE, Gmail vs Hotmail/Yahoo/AOL). Early adopters will be using social networking tools but will be able to seamlessly interoperate with people still on Facebook.
Perhaps I'm naively optimistic, but I'd be excited for a future like that. For now, though, I'll stick to Facebook Connect - the bigger it gets, the more likely regulation will occur.
I expect the government will eventually force Facebook to open up and support a common federated social networking standard
Seriously? This will never, ever happen.
Ever, ever, ever.
That's just not how life works. Or businesses. Or how the US government works. It's the total antithesis to the American ideals. It wouldn't even have a chance of happening in social democracies in Europe, let alone America.
I fail to see how things like that never ever happen. It doesn't happen in quite the same way, but the fact is, anti-trust isn't antithesis to the American ideals. Allowing one company a position where it can toss abuses both upstream and downstream of its supply chains doesn't mesh at all with a market interested system.
I don't see an Internet wide login and identity service as related to the entertainment industry any more it is to many others. Furthermore, I'm fairly certain that facebook's business, while it facilitates entertainers, is not actually engaged in entertainment. To argue that its different from Ma-Bell in its basic feature, connecting people, I feel is a complete misunderstanding of the service.
Of course, my sister uses her telephone connection for entertainment as well..
I think your taking my "entertainment" to mean the industry and not a category. Facebook is not an essential service of the internet. It is not the only way to communicate like Ma Bell was. It is not a dictating force in the economy like Standard Oils was.
I'm going to take issue with both of those comparisons. Standard Oil was only a dictating force in the economy for a short while, after it took over every other oil distribution company. Oil is a dictating force, the company was simply an outgrowth of scarcity rent.
Ma-Bell was in fact, not the only way to communicate. That's like saying Phones were the only way people got in touch. Its simply and patently wrong. as far as industries that did Ma-Bell's job, you've the post, television, and radio.
The post cannot be used to get the police or anyone else in a timely manner. Television and radio are broadcast media and only really go one way. Ma-Bell was it.
Cars didn't run on something Standard Oil did not sell.
As spullara explains below, Facebook's monopoly has come because Facebook Connect is an all-round better product. Publishers get access to easy syndication ("oh, you just joined XYZ? Here are some badges; want to share them on Facebook and let your friends know about us?") as well as higher-quality users overall (Facebook accounts tend to be real). Users get a single login from a service they (mostly) trust and easy integration with their social network ("oh, John's using turntable.fm too? Sweet!").
The brilliance of Facebook Connect is the tie-in of syndication with identity. Logging in with Facebook is a better experience than just registering, for all parties involved. This is why Facebook Connect works and why MSN Passport failed a decade ago.
The monopoly side of things is going to become a problem in the coming years; I for one expect federal intervention in the form of mandating a common federated social networking platform (a la, but not necessarily, via the protocols developed by diaspora). Federation and decentralization is what happened with phones and with email; if Facebook/social networking-style communication is the next generation, it seems like a reasonable next step.
Most users will never tell the difference, at first - Facebook will remain their default client both for login and for reading friends' profiles and news feed. With time, however, competitors will begin to emerge and offer alternate interfaces for either news feed filtration or for identity, opening up space for innovation in a place once dominated by one or more entrenched players (Firefox vs IE, Gmail vs Hotmail/Yahoo/AOL). Early adopters will be using social networking tools but will be able to seamlessly interoperate with people still on Facebook.
Perhaps I'm naively optimistic, but I'd be excited for a future like that. For now, though, I'll stick to Facebook Connect - the bigger it gets, the more likely regulation will occur.