1) Gab has not taken off for multiple reasons. Personally, I didn't make the switch to Gab because I didn't like the UI of the site itself. It was too busy, there was too much going on, and I didn't have any way of stripping it down to the bare essentials: Post, like, search.
2) But one of the key reasons Gab didn't take off, especially as a mobile app? They were shut out of the market entirely by a very blatant Trust.
3) Both Google and Apple, who control the app markets for the VAST majority of smart phones, denied Gab the ability to spread their app through their platforms, which effectively prevents an app from spreading on both Google and Apple's phone OS.
4) Nominally, this wouldn't be an issue. Both companies have every right to not want to do business with an individual company. However, what companies are NOT allowed to do is cooperate with the explicit intent of suppressing competition. How do we know this is what's occuring?
5) Gab set itself up specifically as a competitor to Twitter. Google has a strategic partnership with Twitter. searchengineland.com/everything-nee…
6) As does Apple. macrumors.com/2012/08/01/app…
7) These partnerships have been going on for YEARS. So of course if a company comes along that threatens the hegemony over micro-blogging that Twitter has, if Twitter's massive userbase is threatening to split to go to a new platform and take the valuable user data with them
8) That is an existential threat to Twitter. And an existential threat to Twitter threatens the long term investments of both Google and Apple. And so they actively suppressed the competition that Gab represented.
9) Is it possible that Gab would have died on its own? Yes. Like I said, it is really not a good platform. But it wasn't given the opportunity to do so of its own accord. Instead it was forced to wither on the vine isolated away.
10) If Trump's DoJ pushes antitrust regulations on Google and company, expect the resulting screeches from the left to be MAGNIFICENT. The party trying to stand against the 1% will suddenly be defending the Robber Barons of the 21st century.
/end
