Half of the top food companies in the world were formed in the 19th century. There were 614 food and drink companies acquired in 2016.

More leading pharma companies were founded prior to 1780 than after 1980 and seven of the ten biggest companies are over a hundred years old. In 2014-15 there were over 100 biotech IPOs that yielded $10B in proceeds.

Tech is going through the same consolidation process that cars, drugs, oil companies, packaged food concerns, and most other industries have. The chances of building a company worth hundreds of billions of dollars is lower. The chance of building a $10-100M business has never been higher.

The founders of tbh made more money that All-Star NBA Champion Stephen Curry did last year. Is that a sign of a weakening startup ecosystem or a strengthening one?

Everyone buys companies. This is nothing new. If the threshold for Facebook buying companies becomes too low, the startup sphere will be flooded (which to some extent has already happened) and Facebook will stop buying them all (which to a degree is true already). Eventually there will be enough that goes under their radar or enough companies to say no to their offer (e.g. Snapchat) that stuff will get through the buyout-barrier. Everything old is new again, yawn.

If Facebook easily replicating that same feature is enough to significantly hurt the smaller competitor, was it really innovation in the first place?

They can't prevent copying features. They need to compete on something Facebook isn't capable of competing. Such as being decentralized and privacy respectful. That's an instant fail for FB.

For example FB can copy features like hashtags all they want, but I won't touch it unlike Diaspora.

Okay, but do we really need a "future Facebook"? Are innovation and creativity in social media really something the world will suffer for a lack of?

In any case, the next big thing is usually not just a better version of the last big thing.

Three points on this topic:

1) There are worse ways to go than being acquired by Facebook 2) As far as I know, Facebook has been unable to copy/innovate in many areas (unable to copy craigslist, for instance). Their only solution is always to buy a competitor. 3) Monopolies are shit (I'm looking at you, Libertarians)

i find it interesting that the possibility of facebook being hacked is almost never discussed -- ive never really seen it held up in these comments. everyone discusses endlessly what might happen if a financial institution, an email service, or something else is hacked. equifax is the latest example. the result of these hacks is the disclosure of tons of personal and sensitive data. so why is it never brought up that facebook, like any other company, might be hacked? since they spy on all their users, they must in some way or another store in an unsafe manner all of the chat logs, pictures, private messages, not to mention the damning meta-data extracted from it. i havent used facebook for almost a decade so perhaps im incorrect in assuming that people say private things in private messages?

there ought to be an alternative

The whole premise of the article is flawed. Steve jobs said this before - many of the upcoming social-local-mobile apps ought to be features, not standalone companies. A "check-in" feature-as-a-company is only sellable to investors in silicon valley. It's not defensible in any way, and makes more sense as a feature in an app that people spend a lot of time inside. Foursquare should've sold to Facebook - not because Facebook is evil - because Foursquare a.k.a "check-in" feature, isn't visible or interesting as a standalone company. Enough said

As another user mentioned on a previous article on a similar topic, the main feature that raises eyebrows is Facebook's ownership of Onavo. This allows them to gain an unusual degree of information about traffic flows to competitors and early insight into potential acquisitions in a way that is inaccessible to others. (Onavo is mentioned in the story.)

undefined

The future facebook alternative will probably be FOSS, considering it is harder to buy up software that is owned by everyone.

Acquisitions should be regulated.

undefined

Facebook can only buy those who want to be bought. Facebook could've been bought out (and many said they should have - which in hindsight would've been a horrific move).

If companies really care about innovation, they can focus on that instead of flipping their companies.

A non story. Facebook is doing what Facebook ought to be doing. Monopoly is not a bad thing when no one’s rights are being violated. The next innovation will come from someplace other than social media.