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The following is a 'stream of consciousness' (micro *log style).
A nice reply from @alexey.shpakovsky. He raises another good point here. It is not just about the politicians.
[…] also journalists and other loud folks _who don't know how business works_. I don't know a proper word for people who are not very smart but are very loud, but they look like a right target audience for this Facebook message. "Now go to your EU senate representative and ask them to stop pushing Facebook (out of Europe)" - is it the message that Facebook wants them to hear?!
He continues with,
Anyway, I want you to imagine an alternative reality where Facebook was indeed kicked out of Europe. Of course someone else will promptly take its place - and I bet it will be "Russian Facebook" vkontakte.ru, from east (Actually, that's a good idea for Vkontakte in our reality, too: push EU to suppress their competitor, eh?).
Now I do not know a lot about Vkontakte if I am totally honest but I have a hunch that we don't want Vkontakte here any more than Facebook does. 😆
On Fexit (Facebook exiting Europe)
Riсhard Clоse on Facebook (Twitter)
Good analysis, exactly right. I'd add that by leaving Europe, Facebook would not only leave revenue on the table, but create space for a rival. FB's userbase is its greatest asset.
I 100% agree and should have commented on that! 😉
Eventually such a rival (with a strong[er] privacy message) would clearly threaten the profitable US/World business.
So perhaps we can take this further and say, even if it made no significant profits, it is probably worth retaining a presence in Europe just to prevent rivals appearing.
So Facebook claims it is going to have to leave Europe. Before we all celebrate, let's just be clear that is an outright lie.
The population of the EU (which is what we are talking about here, rather than 'Europe' which would include the 'Brexited' UK) is estimated at 447 million people. As a capitalist business, you don't just drop a potential 447m users because you will make less money, when there is still some good money to be made.
Likely they would either go with less/un-targeted ads or a paid service that few (but some) would sign up for as a way to retain some profits for this vast pool of users. Now granted outcomes like those would still be a big win but my point is that one way or another Facebook is not going to just shut down all European operations.
Look at the situation with the Apple and iOS privacy changes that cost them $10b, which they claim to have predicted. They didn't leave Apple when the privacy changes were announced because the money they made (even with such a giant drop) was better than no money from Apple users. It is the same situation here.
So why are they claiming this? They just want to scare EU regulators and politicians in the hope of getting a special deal where they can still fuck over as many as possible. I hope that those with the power to enforce these rules stick their ground.
Data transfer issues could see Instagram, Facebook vanish from Europe
Demographics of the European Union (wikipedia)
Not dead yet…in case anyone wondered. 😉 Just otherwise occupied with sickness (not Covid) and work.
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