NEW YORK ¨C Occam¡¯s razor is a principle that says when something happens that can be explained in multiple ways, the simplest explanation is usually the right one. The same is true of solutions: The simplest, most straightforward solution is usually the best way to solve a problem.
In the United States, social media giant Facebook Inc. has become a problem. It makes its money ¡ª $23.3 billion in 2017 adjusted earnings ¡ª by running roughshod over privacy concerns, selling users¡¯ data to advertisers. Along with Amazon, Apple and Google, it has ¡°aggregated more economic value and influence than nearly any other commercial entity in history,¡± as the marketing professor Scott Galloway wrote in Esquire earlier this year.
It¡¯s a monopoly, having either bought or crushed most potential competitors. It stifles innovation; as my Bloomberg Opinion colleague Noah Smith noted recently, potential startups can¡¯t get capital if venture capitalists think they might wind up as Facebook road kill. (Such companies are said to be in Facebook¡¯s ¡°kill zone.¡°)
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