7 ms·

I was telling people last year (before the tide shifted against FB) that there will one day (decades away) be Big Tobacco style litigation by governments agains

I was telling people last year (before the tide shifted against FB) that there will one day (decades away) be Big Tobacco style litigation by governments against Facebook for intentionally making their service addictive when they knew the harmful effects (e.g., depression). I did not expect the sentiment to change so dramatically but I guess people are looking to blame anyone for the election.

nojvek 10y ago
I'm willing to bet in my lifetime Facebook will not become the world's largest company. Google may have a chance of beating Apple at #1 but Facebook has quite a margin. Essentially both Facebook and Google are ads businesses. Facebook seems to be optimizing for short term growth at the expense of their brand. I know many people who joined Facebook around 2008 and absolutely were big fans of it. After 10 years none of them even use it, the novelty wore off.
- mbesto 10y ago
  > I'm willing to bet in my lifetime Facebook will not become the world's largest company. PS - There's an easy way to bet on this, just buy some stock :) EDIT - Well, technically, you want to short the stock.
  - code_duck 10y ago
    It's inverse, so the way to bet is to not buy some stock. Done!
    - bbctol 10y ago
      Or rather, to short their stock, if you want to make some money off it.
      - zardo 10y ago
        Does Facebook's valuation assume growth that will make them the largest company on the planet?
    - jacquesm 10y ago
      No, it is to short the stock. The question is if you can hold out long enough and if the change you predict will happen fast enough. That can get expensive quickly, so it's not quite the inverse of holding stock where the only downside is how far the stock can drop, not how far it can go up.
      - jamiek88 10y ago
        The market can stay irrational longer than you can stay solvent. Timing as ever is the key.
        jacquesm 10y ago
        Timing the market is a fools game.
  - megablast 10y ago
    Saying it will not become the largest company is not the same as saying the stock will go down.
- chatmasta 10y ago
  Facebook will remain an "ads" company for as long as it's profitable. Marketing dollars will always need go somewhere, so I'm not convinced the advertising market will just wither and die in the face of adblockers. As long as Facebook commands an army of eyeballs, its advertising business will be profitable. Facebook has shown a willingness to diversify its social properties via synergetic integration. See: whatsapp, instagram. Facebook will likely continue to diversify its business. For example, it could easily repurpose its excess hardware to enter the cloud computing market and compete with AWS/GoogleCloud. I would be surprised if this is not on the roadmap.
  - Pokepokalypse 10y ago
    Yes. As we've seen, the only way to stop such things, is for the next disruptive company to come along and fuck their shit up. Something will likely come along. My guess is that it will be spam-related, which will make the FB user-experience too difficult to use to get a quality experience. FB will try to appeal to government for protectionist legislation, but it won't happen fast enough.
DSingularity 10y ago
Man I agree with you 100%. I have been trying to get this message across whenever these topics come up in discussions with people. We are risking the minds of people. Take this example. So many mobile games which essentially leverage the thrill of gambling to make their games addictive. Of course, this only increases micropayment revenues. How many people get hooked and waste hundreds of hours? How many kids!? To me this is the same as cigarettes. Why do we regulate it? Because the average person is unlikely to know its harmful effects. What about these applications? Which are profitable by tapping into our desires and impulsive tendencies. Its time we discuss this.
- pascalxus 10y ago
  okay, then let's regulate donuts, let's regulate hacker news because I just can't stop myself from checking it everyday. let's regulate cereals and candy, etc. Oh and coffee too. oh and toothpaste as well, i can't help but brush my teeth two or even 3 times a day! my sister has an addicition to shopping for clothes, so that's going to need regulation, as well as my friend's action to watching tv, etc.
  - jamiek88 10y ago
    They used to make radium toothpaste, heroin coffee. Legislated away.
  - noobermin 10y ago
    Of course, the laws and regulations that have cropped up sometimes are in response to the addictiveness of particular vices. That's why we don't regulate shopping for example. It is kind of disingenuous to put "shopping for clothes" and nicotine addiction on the same footing.
    - TeMPOraL 10y ago
      > It is kind of disingenuous to put "shopping for clothes" and nicotine addiction on the same footing. But putting Facebook and shopping for clothes on the same footing isn't. And the "Facebook causes depression" arguments are utterly unconvincing.
ams6110 10y ago
Except it's not physically addictive. It's at most psychologically addictive and the withdrawal is not terribly painful. Just stop using it. Distract yourself with a good novel for a couple of days and it's done.
- thatmiddleway 10y ago
  "Oh, I finished my book! I should probably take a picture of the cover and post it on Facebook!..."
  - saimiam 10y ago
    That was not my experience. I had a goal of reading 52 books last year, one for each week of the year. I reached 40 but never felt the need to post any cover photos on FB. Your relationship with it changes quite fast once you start finding other things to do rather than hang out on Facebook
  - TeMPOraL 10y ago
    For me, it always end up in binge-reading the rest of the books in the series, or picking up a similar one. I guess I have poor impulse control.

nojvek 10y ago

I'm willing to bet in my lifetime Facebook will not become the world's largest company. Google may have a chance of beating Apple at #1 but Facebook has quite a margin. Essentially both Facebook and Google are ads businesses. Facebook seems to be optimizing for short term growth at the expense of their brand. I know many people who joined Facebook around 2008 and absolutely were big fans of it. After 10 years none of them even use it, the novelty wore off.

mbesto 10y ago
> I'm willing to bet in my lifetime Facebook will not become the world's largest company. PS - There's an easy way to bet on this, just buy some stock :) EDIT - Well, technically, you want to short the stock.
- code_duck 10y ago
  It's inverse, so the way to bet is to not buy some stock. Done!
  - bbctol 10y ago
    Or rather, to short their stock, if you want to make some money off it.
    - zardo 10y ago
      Does Facebook's valuation assume growth that will make them the largest company on the planet?
  - jacquesm 10y ago
    No, it is to short the stock. The question is if you can hold out long enough and if the change you predict will happen fast enough. That can get expensive quickly, so it's not quite the inverse of holding stock where the only downside is how far the stock can drop, not how far it can go up.
    - jamiek88 10y ago
      The market can stay irrational longer than you can stay solvent. Timing as ever is the key.
      - jacquesm 10y ago
        Timing the market is a fools game.
- megablast 10y ago
  Saying it will not become the largest company is not the same as saying the stock will go down.
chatmasta 10y ago
Facebook will remain an "ads" company for as long as it's profitable. Marketing dollars will always need go somewhere, so I'm not convinced the advertising market will just wither and die in the face of adblockers. As long as Facebook commands an army of eyeballs, its advertising business will be profitable. Facebook has shown a willingness to diversify its social properties via synergetic integration. See: whatsapp, instagram. Facebook will likely continue to diversify its business. For example, it could easily repurpose its excess hardware to enter the cloud computing market and compete with AWS/GoogleCloud. I would be surprised if this is not on the roadmap.
- Pokepokalypse 10y ago
  Yes. As we've seen, the only way to stop such things, is for the next disruptive company to come along and fuck their shit up. Something will likely come along. My guess is that it will be spam-related, which will make the FB user-experience too difficult to use to get a quality experience. FB will try to appeal to government for protectionist legislation, but it won't happen fast enough.

DSingularity 10y ago

Man I agree with you 100%. I have been trying to get this message across whenever these topics come up in discussions with people. We are risking the minds of people. Take this example. So many mobile games which essentially leverage the thrill of gambling to make their games addictive. Of course, this only increases micropayment revenues. How many people get hooked and waste hundreds of hours? How many kids!? To me this is the same as cigarettes. Why do we regulate it? Because the average person is unlikely to know its harmful effects. What about these applications? Which are profitable by tapping into our desires and impulsive tendencies. Its time we discuss this.

pascalxus 10y ago
okay, then let's regulate donuts, let's regulate hacker news because I just can't stop myself from checking it everyday. let's regulate cereals and candy, etc. Oh and coffee too. oh and toothpaste as well, i can't help but brush my teeth two or even 3 times a day! my sister has an addicition to shopping for clothes, so that's going to need regulation, as well as my friend's action to watching tv, etc.
- jamiek88 10y ago
  They used to make radium toothpaste, heroin coffee. Legislated away.
- noobermin 10y ago
  Of course, the laws and regulations that have cropped up sometimes are in response to the addictiveness of particular vices. That's why we don't regulate shopping for example. It is kind of disingenuous to put "shopping for clothes" and nicotine addiction on the same footing.
  - TeMPOraL 10y ago
    > It is kind of disingenuous to put "shopping for clothes" and nicotine addiction on the same footing. But putting Facebook and shopping for clothes on the same footing isn't. And the "Facebook causes depression" arguments are utterly unconvincing.

ams6110 10y ago

Except it's not physically addictive. It's at most psychologically addictive and the withdrawal is not terribly painful. Just stop using it. Distract yourself with a good novel for a couple of days and it's done.

thatmiddleway 10y ago
"Oh, I finished my book! I should probably take a picture of the cover and post it on Facebook!..."
- saimiam 10y ago
  That was not my experience. I had a goal of reading 52 books last year, one for each week of the year. I reached 40 but never felt the need to post any cover photos on FB. Your relationship with it changes quite fast once you start finding other things to do rather than hang out on Facebook
- TeMPOraL 10y ago
  For me, it always end up in binge-reading the rest of the books in the series, or picking up a similar one. I guess I have poor impulse control.