Their goal is pretty standard affair.
- Claim to be simply making yourself part of the group for the benefit of everyone. We’re all gonna be friends, this is good for you, you’ll see.
- Use your position and resources to make yourself the defacto way to use the tech. Bonus points of you can make the average person see you and said tech as being one in the same.
- Once you have gathered a high enough percentage of the users, simply make changes or take other actions that will cut yourself off from everywhere else, effectively cutting off those users from anywhere that is not you. Since most of them are already “your” users, barely any of them will even notice anything change, let alone care.
- Repeat previous steps for any new competing service that covers along to threaten you.
What disadvantages? Losing fake internet points? I deleted every post and comment I had ever made, as well as my account, several years ago. It has negatively impacted my life in exactly zero ways. Look man, no offense, but you’re not erasing the works of Shakespeare over here. The world will keep on turning just fine if you delete your collection of memes and shit posts.