Google+ vs Facebook: Competition is a Good Thing

I think I would urge people to keep their Facebook account.  Lately, I’m seeing a lot of people say that they’d like to just delete their Facebook accounts and stick with nothing but Google+.  What they’re forgetting, is that competition is a good thing. I’ve even seen at least one person say they were doing away with their blog due to the posting capabilities of Google Plus.

Anybody notice that Facebook didn’t even have video chat until after Google+ came out and had “hangouts”? Yeah, then they were rushing to get it done because hey, there’s a new kid on the block with over 20 million members already and they do video conferencing and it’s really cool and we need to step up our game if we’re going to compete with that.

Do you think Youtube would be half as good as it is today if they were the only video hosting game in town? Same goes for anything, really. Google’s search engine still has Yahoo! and Bing to compete with. Mozilla Firefox would be the worst web browser in the world today if it didn’t have Internet Explorer, Apple Safari, and Opera competing with it for market share. As it stands, they’ve got plenty of competition, so they keep making improvements to their web browser almost on a daily basis. They’ve even revamped their updating process to compete in a more fast paced environment.

Why did Netflix screw everybody and raise their prices? Because they like to think they’re the only game in town. What did AT&T do back in the day when they actually were the only game in town? They charged their customers whatever the hell they wanted to. Why? Because there was nothing to stop them. Absolutely no competition in the game and they decided to screw their customers just as hard as they wanted to. Not because they wouldn’t have made any money otherwise. But because they could. So they did. Do you know how many animated GIFs I’ve seen people post on Google Plus with people who have Facebook or G+ logos on their heads? Want to know what that GIF would look like if it were just G+ and no Facebook? I don’t know. Probably like the wicked witch of the West riding her bicycle running over a bunch of community members with no one to stop her. Which is basically what Comcast does when they know they’re the only ISP in a certain designated area. They charge whatever they want and run their business however they like because customers don’t really have a choice.

I guess the conclusion that I’m coming to with this is that companies like to make the consumer think that they actually care about your needs and that they actually give a damn about what you want. In reality, the only thing big businesses care about is their bottom line. You can scream and cry all you like, but once they’ve got you locked in and the competition locked out, they’ll do whatever they want with absolutely no regard for the needs or wants of the user. So, I say keep your Facebook account, you Twitter account, and your Google Plus account and keep actively posting to all of them. Why ditch one for the other when the end result is just going to be less competition, which means less innovation?