I think that this article is a bit short-sighted. Facebook has a massive, massive network. I should know - I briefly interned on their TechOps team (and switched teams partway through). Their slice of the internet is truly massive, and worldwide. The amount of bandwidth consumed by the Photos product alone, much less the rest of Facebook's properties, is gargantuan.
Now take a look back and notice just how deeply the telephone companies influence politics. Do I even need to provide examples? Think about Net Neutrality. Facebook doesn't just want it, it depends on it to keep its costs down and its site fast.
Explain to me, how can they battle this without having the ear of Washington? It's a good strategic move, and I expect that far more of their clout will be focused on maintaining the status quo than federally mandating Facebook use. As an organization with a great deal of hackers (as in hacker news 'hacker'), I think that enforcing a global ID would face major resistance even within the company. Far more plausible is that they're looking for influence to keep the internet open, as that is in their best interests.
> Think about Net Neutrality. Facebook doesn't just want it, it depends on it to keep its costs down and its site fast.
When they are really profitable, they can afford to pay some extra cost to make sure that facebook is well reachable everywhere, while the rest of the Internet is slow. (Exaggerated, yes).
So maybe they have some motivation to enforce net neutrality now, but will they stall have it in five years?
Exactly. In fact, I'd say as an entrenched incumbent, they have every reason now to oppose net neutrality. They can afford to make deals with the telcos and pay more for the bandwidth in order to keep the upstart competition out of the race.
Not seeing it. They're so entrenched that slower access only penalizes the user experience. ISPs peer with Facebook because there's so much bandwidth both up and down that it's in their best interest, too. Giving ISPs more leverage to charge only makes it easier for a worse product to succeed on a basis other than merit.
Now take a look back and notice just how deeply the telephone companies influence politics. Do I even need to provide examples? Think about Net Neutrality. Facebook doesn't just want it, it depends on it to keep its costs down and its site fast.
Explain to me, how can they battle this without having the ear of Washington? It's a good strategic move, and I expect that far more of their clout will be focused on maintaining the status quo than federally mandating Facebook use. As an organization with a great deal of hackers (as in hacker news 'hacker'), I think that enforcing a global ID would face major resistance even within the company. Far more plausible is that they're looking for influence to keep the internet open, as that is in their best interests.