Someone still on Myspace in 2009 had a real choice the next year: move to Facebook. That's the thing about utilities. Nobody picks a different water company on a Tuesday, because the pipes only run one way. Social media doesn't work like that. My opponent calls it essential infrastructure, and I'll grant the reach is huge. But huge isn't the same as unswitchable. Users migrate, platforms rise and die, and new ones launch without anyone laying new cable. Regulate a moving market like a fixed monopoly, and you freeze today's winners in place.

Imagine someone fed up with a platform's new rules. A weekend later they're on Bluesky, and their handle works fine. Switching costs are clicks, not pipes. My opponent's worry about kids faking birthdates and drowning in harmful content is fair, honestly. But that's a case for age verification and content rules, not utility status. Utility regulation handles rates and access to lines nobody else can dig. Apply it to feeds, and you hand today's giants a moat while the next platform can't launch without permission. Fix the harm directly instead.

What the other side gets wrong is treating harm as proof of utility status. Danger to fragile users is real, but it's a content and safety problem, not a natural monopoly. Utilities regulate pipes nobody else can dig and rates customers can't avoid. Social media has no such bottleneck. The moment you declare it a utility, you freeze today's giants in place and make the next Bluesky need permission to launch. That protects incumbents, not users. Pass age checks and clear content rules if you want, but utility status is the wrong tool.