Saying Facebook and YouTube are direct completion seems like a huge stretch. Google made G+ specifically because as Far as Google was concerned it lacked a direct Facebook competitor.
In what way can consumers substitute normal use like sharing photos with family members on Facebook with YouTube?
They are absolutely in competition, Facebook video content is massive and there is a ton of video content accessible only via Facebook. If there is any doubt, jump on Facebook and start scrolling through their video section.
But if I understand correctly, determining whether two companies are competitors is more about their markets, rather than their feature sets.
From the ruling text:
> Although the precise definition of a “Personal Social Networking Service” is disputed (as that is the market in which Facebook has its alleged monopoly), it can be summarized here as one that enables users to virtually connect with others in their network and to digitally share their views and experiences by posting about them in a shared, virtual social space.
Then propose a different definition. If we define it as "people uses it to organize family gatherings", then instead of YouTube you have iMessage, Discord, heck even SMS and email.
The challenge here is there isn't a single market definition that would fit. It's up to the plaintiff (FTC) to allege a coherent definition, and it sounds like in this case they just neglected to do so.
It's not my opinion, it's what the court said in plaintext. YouTube undeniably: "enables users to virtually connect with others in their network and to digitally share their views and experiences by posting about them in a shared, virtual social space."
Competing on features != competing in a different market. Feature sets and markets are two very different things.
What definition would you use to define Facebook's market?
Spray paint manufacturers aren’t in pen market even if you can “recorded text and images in a durable fashion with them.” Lighting a couch on fire sure produces a lot of lights but couch manufactures are not part of the home lighting market.
EDIT: But let’s ignore that. Sure, YouTube has roughly the share of social networking market as the number of people posting vacation photos on it. That might just add up to 0.0001% market share.
I would suggest the overlap between Facebook and G+ is a reasonable definition for broad real life social network for communicating with real world fiends, family, and social activities. LinkedIn, Patron, Reddit etc have related features but are designed for different kinds of relationships and types of communication.
Arguably Instagram in April, 2012 was a reasonable pens vs pencil division where the courts could have included or excluded them quite reasonably. Though allowing Facebook to buy them suggest a vary narrow definition at the time.
A definition seems hard to come by. I've been informed here in the past that Hacker News is a social network too. It's not implausible to me, since it's a site where you can comment about stuff, just like Facebook.
You're implying that Google wouldn't bring out two or more products in the same space? The same Google that releases a new messaging app on Android every quarter?
In what way can consumers substitute normal use like sharing photos with family members on Facebook with YouTube?