You don’t need to be a Chinese smartphone manufacturer cut off from the Google Play services version of Android to start developing an alternative operating system. You can also be a large global social-media company headquartered in the U.S. that seeks to control all personal data and aspires to world domination. The former, of course, is Huawei whose placement on the U.S. Commerce Departments entity list prevents it from accessing the U.S. based supply chain that it spent $11 billion on last year.

Facebook can afford to spend money on its whims and that makes it dangerous

Facebook is also concerned that if it has any issues with Google, it could lead to product delays and other issues. Facebook is said to be is extremely concerned about the augmented reality glasses that it is developing. And by using its own hardware and software in a range of products, Facebook could make it difficult for the government to force it to spinoff some of its acquisitions. For example, if Facebook decides to use the Instagram name on its AR glasses as rumored, it could be harder to request that Instagram be spun off as an independent outfit if it is using Facebook’s parts in such a device.

Facebook hasn’t proven yet that it can produce a smash hit tech device. Besides the Portal smart display, sales of its Oculus VR headsets are not exactly soaring. Still, the company is taking its self-sufficiency seriously as seen by discussions it reportedly held to acquire Cirrus Logic. The latter makes digital signal audio chips (DSP) for Apple and has a market cap close to $4.7 billion. And that is the problem with Facebook. The firm has billions of dollars available for it to spend on its most devious plans. Consider that the company has a brain-scanning system that uses optical scanning to figure out what words someone is thinking of and turn it into text. And Facebook has been shrinking the size of this down to that of a handheld device and hopes to eventually include it on smartphones.

But hasn’t that been Facebook’s goal all along? The social media company wants to know exactly what you’re thinking at all times and profit from this knowledge.