In this time of stakeholder elections and covid-19 clamp downs here is a bit of food for though for the DNS community, taken from the New York Times “On Tech” feature. It is one more effort to capture market share, both at the expense of others and possibly at the expense of the DNS system. Facebook wants you to never leave (https://messaging-custom-newsletters.nytimes.com/template/oakv2?campaign_id=...) By Shira Ovide Facebook is trying to be a little bit eBay. The company introduced a new feature Tuesday [May 19] called Shops, which will let businesses promote and sell products on their Facebook and Instagram accounts. Sounds like a website, right? Yup, for a long time, Facebook has been trying to recreate the internet entirely within its walls. I have no idea if businesses will use the Shops feature in large numbers. But there is a sensible idea at the root: Why should a local toy store maintain a website when it can repurpose a Facebook or Instagram account it probably already has? My colleague Mike Isaac, who writes about Facebook, called Shops “a website in a box.” Shops has similarities to WeChat, the do-everything app in China that is often the only digital presence for businesses in that country. Many small business owners consider it essential to have a presence on Facebook. Customers expect to find their favorite shops and restaurants on Facebook (and Google), but most American businesses will not ditch a website. That means drumming up attention and sales on Facebook can be one more draining, expensive, and maddening task. Mike said Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s co-founder, and chief executive, called the shots on Shops himself. It is another sign of Zuckerberg taking control of decisions that he once considered below his pay grade. posted by Sam Lanfranco, NPOC