Is Facebook A Guardian Or Gatekeeper?

[Commentary] As if to prove that Facebook’s F8 announcements were truly seismic we are still feeling the aftershocks now. Interestingly, though, it is Spotify that is feeling most of the effect of Facebook’s moves towards becoming a 21st Century Portal. When Spotify was positioned center stage at F8 (literally in the case of Daniel Ek) it wasn't immediately apparent whether this was just Spotify as the first among equals of the dozen-plus digital music services included at launch.

Now the dust is settling it is becoming apparent (to misquote Orwell) that:

“All digital music services are equal, but some digital music services are more equal than others.”

There are many quite logical strategic and financial reasons why Spotify’s bond with Facebook is so close (shared investors, scale, momentum of brands, closeness of Zuckerberg and Ek, etc.) But in my opinion it is more interesting to look at what the long-term effect of the fallout may be.