Justin Sullivan/Getty Images Facebook held its F8 conference this week, which was relatively muted compared to years past, coming as it did in the wake of the Cambridge Analytica scandal. Instead of talking up its sci-fi brain computer projects, or its ambitions to use self-piloting drones to connect the world, Zuckerberg and other execs focused on the here-and-now. It was, in some ways, refreshing — Facebook didn't tiptoe around its security, privacy and trust issues. It was also a little distressing: Underscoring just how big a grip Facebook has on how we communicate online. Every single competitor to Facebook that has sprung up over the years has failed to slow it down in any kind of meaningful way. Instagram, Ello, WhatsApp, Snapchat, Vero — Facebook either ignores the upstarts, clones them where appropriate, or shells out billions to buy them.