18 ms·

The reason Facebook won’t ever change

222 points by kawera 9y ago

Slansitartop 9y ago
[sorry, wrong post]
- wmeredith 9y ago
  I think you responded to the wrong parent.
ponderatul 9y ago
If you're mouth and you're money are not aligned, then It's hard for me to trust you.
- ponderatul 9y ago
  Seems like people really disagree with the statement "Put your money where you're mouth is". And if it wasn't obvious, this was addressed to facebook.
jseliger 9y ago
More simply, Facebook will change when users stop using it. People vote with their time and attention. Many complain about Facebook's stance towards privacy or whatever, but they say one thing and then go back to using it (yes, I know, you, the person about to reply, you are different; that's great, but you're statistically invisible). Facebook measures how people behave, not what pundits say.
- IntronExon 9y ago
  yes, I know, you, the person about to reply, you are different; that's great, but you're statistically invisible Sort of like non-smokers in the fifties, but times change. More predictable and depressing than people who don’t use FB chiming in are the people who have endless rationalizations for why they need it. Often the reasons boil down to “network effects” which fits with the tendency of some here to cite Tragedy of The Commoms whenever a hard problem crops up.
  - ryandrake 9y ago
    I’m so tired of the “I won’t know about my friends’ parties without Facebook” excuse. If you don’t have even enough IRL contact with them, or contact through other channels, to discover all these parties, then... well... hate to break it to you but they might not really be friends. Willing to admit I’m wrong though. I just don’t think FB is as necessary as you think it is. How did you all manage to have social lives before FB existed?
    - dragonwriter 9y ago
      People had social lives before phones existed; people without phones were socially disadvantaged when the common norm became to communicate by phone. Social interaction mechanisms are pretty much the poster child for network effects, where using what other people are using matters a lot to utility.
      - IntronExon 9y ago
        I think your argument works better as s comparison between mediums, such as telephone vs. letters/meetings and telephone vs. internet. Despite what they would like, FB is not the medium.
        dragonwriter 9y ago
        Network effects aren't just between mediums as you are defining them: one might call “the internet” a medium, but it's clear that someone using the internet but not Facebook is as locked out and disadvantaged if social communication is occurring on FB as someone who isn't using the internet at all.
        IntronExon 9y ago
        It isn’t clear to me at all, given the wealth of options. Someone using an encrypted messenger for example, strikes me as being quite connected.
- johnnybones 9y ago
  This is it, in a nutshell. I wish I had a dollar for everyone I've heard or read about, complaining about Facebook, yet they continue to use it. People treat it like it's mandatory, or something. Just dump it, already.
- dade_ 9y ago
  I also really annoy my friends. Essentially Facebook has redefined a friend as someone that will still bother to contact you and invite you to things even though you aren't on Facebook. Banner adds since I switched to Android this year were interesting as I used to use my gmail account for FB. First, a week of banner ads saying "come back to Facebook"; Very Uber-creepy. Then a week of sign up for Instagram! Followed by a week of "Facebook messenger doesn't require a facebook account!" which I don't understand. At that point, I created a new Google account and deleted my old one. Now I see ads for foot fungus!
  - dieterrams 9y ago
    > "Facebook messenger doesn't require a facebook account!" which I don't understand. You can actually sign up for a Messenger account independently of a Facebook account. However, this doesn't seem to be well supported. There is no way that I can tell to delete a Messenger-only account, or to remove contacts that were automatically uploaded from your phone.
    - jimmies 9y ago
      Bad news for you: when you use Messenger without a Facebook account, Facebook still makes a Facebook account for you. It's just invisible to you and maybe they don't want you to have the impression that it is, indeed, just a Facebook account. I could trigger Messenger to log in to your shadow Facebook account. It will work mostly like a regular account with the exception you (mostly) can't interact with your friends. I reported it as a security bug last year. Somehow after I reported it, the app doesn't do it anymore. Fb security took another 6 months to discard it as a security bug. I was too disappointed by how much they cared, so I don't even bother to make a blog post about that. I trust both Facebook and Facebook security less after working with them. I don't have a Messenger only account anymore (but then, my Messenger-only account was never deleted). But do they care? Probably not. Do I care? Maybe - but what can I do about it? Here is the draft that I wrote up but didn't publish about the experience: https://docs.google.com/document/d/e/2PACX-1vSa-LjM5IzyTWJuD1rDj6H9v0gBafi_cNZ7zQZkbpwDf6qIzXXv3jutgfLcDF6jpLfk7CaJKgtLGy5H/pub https://docs.google.com/document/d/e/2PACX-1vSa-LjM5IzyTWJuD...
- fnayr 9y ago
  My problem as a mobile developer is being practically required to use it to not hinder my app's adoption rate. My personal facebook has been disabled for 9 months and I had to recently reactivate it because you can't have an app (for using their auth) without a personal account. So yeah until the network effect they have changes (the majority leave), people are "trapped" using it.
  - taytus 9y ago
    They are not, and neither are you. It may affect the adoption rate of your app if you don't include a "login with facebook" option, maybe. But that is a small price we all have to pay to influence change.
    - alexdrans 9y ago
      Haha, you first.
      - nugi 9y ago
        This is the kind of comment that really hits hard how unwilling tech workers are to stand up for ethics. "My cog in the machine is not hurting anyone, why should I care" is how things get very, very bad.
        leetcrew 9y ago
        it's more like "I am a tiny replaceable cog in a huge money-printing machine. if somebody is going to collect the paycheck anyway, why shouldn't it be me?" making the hard choice is easy when you have nothing to lose, and it's even easier when you're so rich that the losses don't matter. the folks in the middle have just enough that it would really hurt to lose it. I can't say I blame them for guarding that jealously.
      - taytus 9y ago
        I'm already doing it ;-)
      - 9y ago
- at-fates-hands 9y ago
  > More simply, Facebook will change when users stop using it. While I totally agree with this, I'm wondering where that tipping point would be with them. They have (depending on who you believe) somewhere north of 200 million users with some estimates in the 500 million range. Does losing 100 million users impact them at all or their bottom line? At what point do you think they would actually start changing? How much revenue would they have to lose before they started to make noticeable reforms?
  - v_lisivka 9y ago
    I already see that users are moving out of FaceBook. FakeBook is not delivering value it promised. Some my friends are banned by FB, some are just not using it anymore. I personally was hit by FB moderators because of comment with few first lines from well known poem («Katerina» by Shevchenko, circa 1838). Moderators deny that first, then stop responding, so they know that they are doing wrong and still doing that. Moreover, I noticed that my comments with links to laws and court decisions on government sites were silently marked as spam and hidden by FB. Moderators are helped me once to fix that, then it happens again and again, and FB refuses to fix that. I made backup accounts on G+ and local social networks just in case I will be banned again by FB for posting well known poems or links to laws. I see also that traffic is increased a bit on these sites. I also looking for way to setup my own node of a federated social network, such as Mastodon or PeerTube, but they are too heavyweight.
- BartBoch 9y ago
  I think this might have a snowball effect. The new disruptor will appear that will initiate a huge shift in users. Facebook will have no time to react quickly enough, which will cost them some chunk of core users. The new platform, since it will be "new" and will initially fix all the Facebook problems will become a cool thing, magnet. Since some core users will be already using it, they will take users with them. Snap had a chance of becoming that but lost. Let us wait for a new disruptor. This is a very dangerous game, with a lot to lose. It was the same with any other, now dead, giant on the web. Only because people are still using Facebook now, does not mean, that as soon as a worthy competitor will appear, people will move et masse. Facebook is a necessity now, but it might be not, for example, tomorrow.
  - naravara 9y ago
    >The new disruptor will appear that will initiate a huge shift in users. Kind of. But it shouldn't be a mental model where something like Facebook, but better, comes along. Rather, you should expect something that fulfills the same emotional, practical need or occupies time that makes people use Facebook less, but fulfills a need that better clicks with what people want. As an analogy, consider how Apple and Microsoft flipped places. It's not that Mac OS was like Windows but better and supplanted them. Rather, smartphones changed the game in such a way that Microsoft's core strengths didn't seem so strong anymore. Apple was able to innovate in such a way because of their DNA as a design focused product company, but those strengths didn't get to shine until the paradigm shifted to favor cohesive product experiences rather than versatile software platforms. So the thing that supplants Facebook won't look like Facebook, it'll be some better way to keep in touch with people from previous walks of life, get in arguments with your distant family members, and share photos. And it won't happen all at once either. It'll probably sit as some obscure niche for a while as it slowly refines itself and evolves.
    - RestlessMind 9y ago
      It actually happened in the form of whatsapp and Snapchat. Facebook tried to acquire both, succeeded with former and somewhat successful copied the later.
    - 9y ago
- c0mments 9y ago
  >> Facebook measures how people behave, not what pundits say. Not that I am disagreeing, but I once read an essay by a famous economist who pointed out that criminals are not as stupid as people think they are because their behavior makes a lot of economic sense if they can lower their risk of getting caught. Combine that with the "1% of turnover" fine that FB copped from the EU, and you can see how they can get away with this kind of stuff. When you think about it, FB is doing a sort of "micro-doxing" of its user base on a regular basis. But since it happens invisibly, and over a long time frame, they are generally getting away scot free. One day it will catch up to them, and you will start to see folks who worked at FB trying to hide that fact from their resume.
- stepvhen 9y ago
  i deleted my facebook last year and i tell everyone i can at every opportunity to do so as well. statistically invisible isnt actually invisible. whats frustrating is blogs and comments that carry an air that facebook can change in the user's favor, much less that it ever will. i have read quite a few complaints myself that backtrack once it gets to presenting a positive, constructive solution to the problem (i.e. deleting your facebook) and suggest that facebook can be used by users for their benefit if users change their behavior. this puts an insurmountable burden on users to change a product that they are not in any way shape or form in control of. truly the only thing users have in their control regarding facebook is whether or not they have and/or use an account. deleting facebook is exhibiting control, and i believe everyone should do so.
- aplorbust 9y ago
  It appears that the "statistically invisible" commenter is at the forefront of your thoughts, to an extent where you feel the need to address her/him specifically. "Many people vote with their time and attention." . Of course. We could argue that you have voted with your comment. The "statistically invisible" commenter got your time and attention (=vote). "Facebook measures how people behave, not what pundits say." There is a saying that goes something like, "What you measure you can control." It follows that what the "pundits" posit outside of Facebook is not something Facebook can control. Its simple. Users and non-users will stop publishing comments about Facebook when Facebook loses popularity.
johnnybones 9y ago
"I left Facebook on September 23, 2017, and not a single day has gone by when I don’t get at least a couple of emails or some SMS messages trying to get me back with notes about what friends have posted recently, or birthdays or other milestones." Uh, sounds like you didn't actually leave Facebook, dude. To leave, try DELETING your account, instead of just deactivating it.
- drusepth 9y ago
  For what it's worth, I still receive these emails occasionally on accounts that I've fully "deleted" (about once every month or two). I don't get SMS from them, though.
coldtea 9y ago
>The collective outrage over Facebook and its actions might result in a lot of talk, but it won’t really change Facebook, its ethos, and its ethics. Let me explain! It's a glorified ad company. It will do anything and everything to collect people's data and sell more ads.
canvasduck 9y ago
You become what you measure. Core metrics at the exec/board level that defined success from inception haven't changed.
TPPOW0020 9y ago
The reason Om cites as why Facebook won't change is similar to the reasons companies don't change in response to disruptive innovation, as described in Christensen's "The Innovators Dilemma." Big companies are too invested in a successful business model for them to easily switch to a new one overnight. Even if Zuckerberg grasps the threat to FB's brand posed by fake news and smartphone addiction, his company is streamlined to operate the way it always has been. The best he can achieve is short term fixes and lip service. Solving these problems would require Facebook to value something other than people's attention. But doing that would cannibalize their advertising business.
thugdoubt 9y ago
didn't click the link, is it just a picture of a money?
thugdoubt 9y ago
didn't click the link, is it just a sack with a dollar sign on it?
aplorbust 9y ago
"Large companies are somewhat like me - once they get used to a certain behavior, they develop a certain culture and a set of procedures, processes and a work environment that defines them and their future. These define their corporate DNA. It is hard to change. You can't buy new DNA, and companies can't acquire their way into new corporate cultures. Furthermore, companies that lack that self-awareness of their DNA and behaviors, in the end, find themselves extinct. The Corporate DNA DNA contains the genetic instructions used to build out the cells that make up an organism. I have often argued that companies are very much like living organisms, comprised of the people who work there. What companies make, how they sell and how they invent are merely an outcome of the people who work there. They define the company." source: https://om.co/2011/02/11/change-is-good-but-its-also-really-hard/ https://om.co/2011/02/11/change-is-good-but-its-also-really-... "You can't buy new DNA and companies can't acquire their way into new corporate cultures." - Om Malik Is there any other way a company could acquire "new DNA"? 151 "virus" wn "WordNet (r) 3.0 (2006)" virus n 1: (virology) ultramicroscopic infectious agent that replicates itself only within cells of living hosts; many are pathogenic; a piece of nucleic acid (DNA or RNA) wrapped in a thin coat of protein diff -q googledna.2018 googledna.1998 || cat googledna.1998 "Appendix A: Advertising and Mixed Motives Currently, the predominant business model for commercial search engines is advertising. The goals of the advertising business model do not always correspond to providing quality search to users. * * * For this type of reason and historical experience with other media [Bagdikian 83], we expect that advertising funded search engines will be inherently biased towards the advertisers and away from the needs of the consumers. Since it is very difficult even for experts to evaluate search engines, search engine bias is particularly insidious. * * * For example, a search engine could add a small factor to search results from "friendly" companies [e.g., the search engine company itself, its subsidiaries, companies that use AMP, etc.], and subtract a factor from results from competitors. * * * This type of bias is very difficult to detect but could still have a significant effect on the market. Furthermore, advertising income often provides an incentive to provide poor quality search results. * * * In general, it could be argued from the consumer point of view that the better the search engine is, the fewer advertisements will be needed for the consumer to find what they want. This of course erodes the advertising supported business model of the existing search engines. However, there will always be money from advertisers who want a customer to switch products, or have something that is genuinely new. But we believe the issue of advertising causes enough mixed incentives that it is crucial to have a competitive search engine that is transparent and in the academic realm." source: https://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=297827 https://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=297827 Authors: Sergey Brin, Lawrence Page Published in: WWW7 Proceedings of the seventh international conference on World Wide Web Computer Networks and ISDN Systems Volume 30 Issue 1-7, April 1, 1998 Pages 107-117 Elsevier Science Publishers B. V. Amsterdam, The Netherlands doi 10.1016/S0169-7552(98)00110-X The anatomy of a large-scale hypertextual Web search engine 1998 Citation Count: 3,024
jimmy1 9y ago
Oh it will change. It will change when regulations are shortly imposed and an anti-trust suit is filed.
- cobookman 9y ago
  I'll believe it when I see it
- matte_black 9y ago
  Anti-trust for what?
  - craigsmansion 9y ago
    Just anti-trust, as in the opposite of trust--something committed or entrusted to one's care for use or safekeeping. "I really don't trust FB with my data anymore. I actually anti-trust them."
- hinkley 9y ago
  Anti trust lawsuits don’t succeed until public opinion turns against the company. They will keep getting off with a wrist slap until that happens. The government only punishes once there’s blood in the water.
wokawoka 9y ago
you people still use Facebook? LOSERS
- sctb 9y ago
  Please stop commenting like this or we'll ban the account. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
1_800_UNICORN 9y ago
> Google’s core DNA is search and engineering, though some would say engineering that is driven by the economics of search, which makes it hard for the company to see the world through any other lens. I would nitpick slightly. Google core DNA is advertising. Search is a huge component to driving their advertising business, but let's not pretend that they are driven by anything other than ad revenue.
- eterm 9y ago
  Google didn't start advertising until a couple of years after it was released. Advertising is very much its core now but it wasn't always that way.
  - ams6110 9y ago
    It was always in the long term plan though. Maybe not at the very beginning when Google ran their index out of a dorm room, but ads as monitization must have been the plan very early on, even if it took some time to work out the implementation.
    - kuschku 9y ago
      In the beginning, Google’s founders said > The goals of the advertising business model do not always correspond to providing quality search to users > For this type of reason and historical experience with other media [Bagdikian 83], we expect that advertising funded search engines will be inherently biased towards the advertisers and away from the needs of the consumers. > Furthermore, advertising income often provides an incentive to provide poor quality search results. And most importantly > But we believe the issue of advertising causes enough mixed incentives that it is crucial to have a competitive search engine that is transparent and in the academic realm. I think especially the last statement shows very well that they were ideologically opposed to advertisement-funded search engines. Source: The Anatomy of a Large-Scale Hypertextual Web Search Engine, Sergey Brin and Lawrence Page. http://infolab.stanford.edu/~backrub/google.html http://infolab.stanford.edu/~backrub/google.html
TuringTest 9y ago
The Viable System Model[1] for sustainable organizations describes that phenomenon of a "corporate DNA" that defines the unchanging essence of the organization. The VSM is an theory elaborated from classic cybernetics, the science of feedback-based control, which aims to predict how and if a particular system will be able to adapt to a changing environment. VSM is a fractal system with five types of blocks organized in three layers (a core defining long-term strategy, a bureaucracy evaluating compliance of defined plans and its adequacy to respond to external threats, and operative units to carry specific parts of the plan). In this model, the strategic core defines which should be the unchanging essence of the organization, while the rest of the system may change more drastically in order to adapt and survive against external threats. (The fractal part is because each component block is in turn divided into the same three layers). [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viable_system_model https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viable_system_model
sixtypoundhound 9y ago
The irony here is that Facebook - as an advertising platform - has a lot of opportunity to earn more per visitor. They have traffic but it is relatively disengaged, in terms of commercial intent. Sure, you can target - but there's a long path between looking at your friend's party pictures and actually pulling out your credit card. Now... if they looked at their content and communities and made a real effort to warm up commercial intent before running the ad... perhaps moved into the content business (for real)... that audience would be worth a lot more. Without creepy tracking moves. Just by making it easy for someone to follow their interests.
- seabrookmx 9y ago
  Your comment is quite insightful. They _are_ moving into the content business. Just one example: I work in the music industry. YouTube has a fingerprinting service is used to pay out royalties on music. The tech is similar to Shazam.. whereby if the girl next door uses "Island In The Sun" by Weezer in her vlog, YouTube detects that song and pays Weezer a small royalty. The alternative option for Weezer is to block this content (meaning her video would be taken down) but obviously it's in their best interest to monetize. This is just one way YouTube gets in bed with content producers like record labels. This same thing is now being implemented in Facebook videos, so clearly that's something they're going to push.. having their users host longer-form video than what is normally seen on facebook. And I'm sure there's other parallel efforts on Facebook's side to get more premium video and gaming content onto their platform.
  - sstorie 9y ago
    Where does that royalty payment come from out of curiosity? Like does it come out of the money that might go to the person who created and posted the video that used it?
    - seabrookmx 9y ago
      Yes. In the case of the "girl next door" example, she's probably not over the threshold she needs to be to make money from youtube. So the ad revenue is split between youtube and the content owner of the music. I don't have a ton of insight but I'm sure it gets more complicated when you have creators that get a cut of the money, as well as potentially multiple advertisers in the case of longer videos. But it all comes out of that ad revenue.
desireco42 9y ago
Off topic, how do you get a two letter domain?! How do you get these more unique domains?
- sgs1370 9y ago
  Unless someone is actively trying to sell the domain on sedo.com (or similar site) the best bet is to use whois to find the owner and email them, we get a few inquiries for our domains a year and we just send back a friendly "no we're not interested in selling" if that's the case. When we've asked to buy other domains, some say they're not selling and some have been willing to it to us... as with all business negotiation is next! With other countries, sometimes nobody owns the one in question and they will have various willingness to sell it or not, with various levels of paperwork.
  - desireco42 9y ago
    Thank you for detailed answer.
bambax 9y ago
> and that’s why all of our angst and headlines are not going to change a damn thing Of course they won't. But we shouldn't want FB to "change" (meaning, "improve", whatever that means). We should wish it stay exactly as it is, and die. There has never been a TV in my home. As time passes, I notice my kids tend to make friends with other kids coming from non-tv homes (probably because they have more to share with them, and nothing to say about what was on TV last night. Those who care enough can raise a generation of social-networks-free people.
- wgoodall01 9y ago
  Although raising kids without access to TV/social media may seem like a great way to avoid their downsides, like ad targeting, it ultimately only serves to cut them off from their peers. TV and social media serve as vital cultural references that kids have a social need to be 'in on.' It is one of the most awkward things when you're the only one in a room who has no clue what everyone else is talking about because you didn't see that post, or watch that show. So while social networks may be bad, it's just as bad to cut kids off from the culture their peers are regularly immersed in.
  - bambax 9y ago
    Well, we beg to differ ;-) It's okay to be awkward with everyone, as long as you have strong friends, even just one. Why would blending in be a goal.
jbwyme 9y ago
It's funny to me how many people are outraged at Facebook's focus on data collection and privacy "invasion" for the sake of monetization. Every company is using whatever data they can access to make as much money as possible without alienating their user base. Facebook might be more aggressive (or perhaps just more transparent) about it. However, to think, as a rule, any company (particularly a public company) is making decisions based on ethics or your best interest is naive. It's all about revenue.
- rubatuga 9y ago
  I think there's an outrage because this time Facebook is infiltrating our social lives and interactions to a level never seen before. When was the last time that one company had such overarching power and knowledge into human interactions? It's scary to me, because I can think of ways the general public can be deceived, manipulated, and exploited for commercial gain. Facebook is also quite the monopoly in social media, and as mentioned in the comments, it has already acquired its competitors Whatsapp and Instagram. Facebook has the potential to become very anticompetitive, and it's current practices might be harmful to the general public in the near future.
lambdasquirrel 9y ago
> I left Facebook on September 23, 2017, and not a single day has gone by when I don’t get at least a couple of emails or some SMS messages trying to get me back Deleting your account outright seems keep it away forever. There won’t be any going back but I don’t see any way around it. Otherwise they’ll always have something to nab you by.
HenryBemis 9y ago
In short: "Facebook Revenue per Monthly Active User (USD)" As long as Facebook keeps and increased the eyeballs (aka €$£¥), nothing will change. If tomorrow 200 milion users stop using FB due to privacy concerns, then the very next day I promise you FB will change. But not a moment before that!
AlphaWeaver 9y ago
With the "Share on Facebook" link on the bottom of the article.
- rubatuga 9y ago
  Perfect, we'll destroy Facebook from within!
bogomipz 9y ago
The author states: >"Overseas users of Facebook are using the social platform on phones that are usually pre-paid phones and don’t have as much personalized information available from third party sources to create profiles." Could someone say why "pre-paid phone don’t have as much personalized information available from third party sources"? Also what are these "third party sources", who would these be in the EU/US? The carriers?
- rosser 9y ago
  Because the service providers for post-paid phone accounts are also in the business of re-selling your PII to marketers, probably. You can get a pre-paid with cash in many if not most places. Your identity can probably be deduced from call/text graph analysis, but that's not the same as having the people whom you're paying regularly for the account selling your identity to anyone with a buck to spare.
xasos 9y ago
Facebook won't change until it does. Any other story is narrative fallacy - so hard to predict these things.
feenix566 9y ago
Facebook uses all this data to show you ads for things you might want to buy. Wouldn't you rather see that than ads for things you don't want to buy? I occasionally watch the evening news and I am sick and tired of ads for drugs for old people. I'm not old and I don't need drugs. But the television stations can't target their ads at specific viewers (yet) so they target them at demographics. And old people tend to watch the evening news more than other demographics so that's what they show. People act like Facebook (and every other company) is gathering data about people for some sort of nefarious plan for world domination. But all they're doing is improving the quality of connections between people making things (advertisers) and people who might want those things (consumers). Is that really so terrible?
- devinhelton 9y ago
  > Facebook uses all this data to show you ads for things you might want to buy. Wouldn't you rather see that than ads for things you don't want to buy? No, I prefer poorly targeted ads. Seeing ads for stuff I might want to buy is more distracting, more tempting, and forces me to expend my limited supply of willpower to resist the temptation.
  - Zelphyr 9y ago
    Targeted ads to me also means that company knows way more about me than I would prefer. Why is that a problem? It might not be. I'm not doing anything wrong. But I have curtains on my bathroom window for a reason. I'm not doing anything wrong in there but I also don't feel like anyone else needs to see it.
- kenning 9y ago
  Your stated problem is that you're not being targeted closely enough for ads. This is the problem of someone with lots of excess income. People who are tricked into getting new cars, phones, credit cards or even houses, despite being unable to deal with the accompanying debt, are the victims here.
grantph 9y ago
> And to keep making money in these markets — already a ridiculous $27 in ARPU for the last three months of 2017 — they need us to give more time and attention to them. And that there is the Achilles' heel of both Google and Facebook: disrupting the attention market. I've been having a debate with someone on this subject, and it prompted me to run a consumer survey asking people: "Thinking about free services (e.g., print, radio, TV, websites), do you like it when they sell your attention to advertisers?" Yes, No, Undecided. Of 511 responses, only 6% liked having their attention sold. 68% dislike it, and 26% were on the fence. Personally, I think there is a huge opportunity to re-invent the attention market. Until then, companies like Google and Facebook will keep stealing our attention and selling it to the highest bidder.
cosydney 9y ago
In your opinion is Amazon one of those company that deviates from their core DNA ? Or is their DNA one that strive for novelty and adaptability to constant change (Novelty in business models and constantly challenging themself to find new ways of making money) ?
- loorinm 9y ago
  The writer of the article strikes me as not very intelligent. Successful, yes. But not smart. He can pretty much say the “DNA” is anything he wants, since it’s after the fact. Also people who use “sciency-sounding” words this brazenly make me want to puke. “It’s hard-wired in the neural net!”
roadbeats 9y ago
There is already good tools to stay connected to friends and family, why do people stay in this toxic website ? Does Facebook deserve our time ? I deleted my account while ago, also explained my family members how Facebook pays habit experts to steal people's time, runs research on how to manipulate emotions for "science". My mom and dad also happily deleted their accounts, too. Make a favor to yourself, delete your account. Also help your family delete their accounts, too. You can actually delete your Facebook permanently through their help pages: https://www.facebook.com/help/delete_account https://www.facebook.com/help/delete_account --- P.S: Upvote this submission so we can help more people delete their FB accounts; https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16443354 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16443354
- varrock 9y ago
  Look, I'm not a huge Facebook user myself, but why don't you list those tools to connect to your family? Also, if you use Facebook delightedly, it can be a great tool. The trick is to spread awareness of its danger and tell people to use it at caution. At one point or another I think people are going to have to accept that it is a primary form of communication this day and age. Simply telling people to delete the application without better alternatives and citing it's worst flaws are not going to get you very far.
  - granitosaurus 9y ago
    * Phone messangers (e.g. Signal, Viber etc.) * Discord, Slack - irc-like messangers * Mastodon, Diaspora, Minds - free and federated social networks. Honestly, facebook has nothing special about it other than "people are on it". > people are going to have to accept that it is a primary form of communication this day and age What a ridiculous statement.

222 points by kawera 9y ago

Slansitartop 9y ago

[sorry, wrong post]

wmeredith 9y ago
I think you responded to the wrong parent.

ponderatul 9y ago

If you're mouth and you're money are not aligned, then It's hard for me to trust you.

ponderatul 9y ago
Seems like people really disagree with the statement "Put your money where you're mouth is". And if it wasn't obvious, this was addressed to facebook.

jseliger 9y ago

More simply, Facebook will change when users stop using it. People vote with their time and attention. Many complain about Facebook's stance towards privacy or whatever, but they say one thing and then go back to using it (yes, I know, you, the person about to reply, you are different; that's great, but you're statistically invisible). Facebook measures how people behave, not what pundits say.

IntronExon 9y ago
yes, I know, you, the person about to reply, you are different; that's great, but you're statistically invisible Sort of like non-smokers in the fifties, but times change. More predictable and depressing than people who don’t use FB chiming in are the people who have endless rationalizations for why they need it. Often the reasons boil down to “network effects” which fits with the tendency of some here to cite Tragedy of The Commoms whenever a hard problem crops up.
- ryandrake 9y ago
  I’m so tired of the “I won’t know about my friends’ parties without Facebook” excuse. If you don’t have even enough IRL contact with them, or contact through other channels, to discover all these parties, then... well... hate to break it to you but they might not really be friends. Willing to admit I’m wrong though. I just don’t think FB is as necessary as you think it is. How did you all manage to have social lives before FB existed?
  - dragonwriter 9y ago
    People had social lives before phones existed; people without phones were socially disadvantaged when the common norm became to communicate by phone. Social interaction mechanisms are pretty much the poster child for network effects, where using what other people are using matters a lot to utility.
    - IntronExon 9y ago
      I think your argument works better as s comparison between mediums, such as telephone vs. letters/meetings and telephone vs. internet. Despite what they would like, FB is not the medium.
      - dragonwriter 9y ago
        Network effects aren't just between mediums as you are defining them: one might call “the internet” a medium, but it's clear that someone using the internet but not Facebook is as locked out and disadvantaged if social communication is occurring on FB as someone who isn't using the internet at all.
        IntronExon 9y ago
        It isn’t clear to me at all, given the wealth of options. Someone using an encrypted messenger for example, strikes me as being quite connected.
johnnybones 9y ago
This is it, in a nutshell. I wish I had a dollar for everyone I've heard or read about, complaining about Facebook, yet they continue to use it. People treat it like it's mandatory, or something. Just dump it, already.
dade_ 9y ago
I also really annoy my friends. Essentially Facebook has redefined a friend as someone that will still bother to contact you and invite you to things even though you aren't on Facebook. Banner adds since I switched to Android this year were interesting as I used to use my gmail account for FB. First, a week of banner ads saying "come back to Facebook"; Very Uber-creepy. Then a week of sign up for Instagram! Followed by a week of "Facebook messenger doesn't require a facebook account!" which I don't understand. At that point, I created a new Google account and deleted my old one. Now I see ads for foot fungus!
- dieterrams 9y ago
  > "Facebook messenger doesn't require a facebook account!" which I don't understand. You can actually sign up for a Messenger account independently of a Facebook account. However, this doesn't seem to be well supported. There is no way that I can tell to delete a Messenger-only account, or to remove contacts that were automatically uploaded from your phone.
  - jimmies 9y ago
    Bad news for you: when you use Messenger without a Facebook account, Facebook still makes a Facebook account for you. It's just invisible to you and maybe they don't want you to have the impression that it is, indeed, just a Facebook account. I could trigger Messenger to log in to your shadow Facebook account. It will work mostly like a regular account with the exception you (mostly) can't interact with your friends. I reported it as a security bug last year. Somehow after I reported it, the app doesn't do it anymore. Fb security took another 6 months to discard it as a security bug. I was too disappointed by how much they cared, so I don't even bother to make a blog post about that. I trust both Facebook and Facebook security less after working with them. I don't have a Messenger only account anymore (but then, my Messenger-only account was never deleted). But do they care? Probably not. Do I care? Maybe - but what can I do about it? Here is the draft that I wrote up but didn't publish about the experience: https://docs.google.com/document/d/e/2PACX-1vSa-LjM5IzyTWJuD1rDj6H9v0gBafi_cNZ7zQZkbpwDf6qIzXXv3jutgfLcDF6jpLfk7CaJKgtLGy5H/pub https://docs.google.com/document/d/e/2PACX-1vSa-LjM5IzyTWJuD...
fnayr 9y ago
My problem as a mobile developer is being practically required to use it to not hinder my app's adoption rate. My personal facebook has been disabled for 9 months and I had to recently reactivate it because you can't have an app (for using their auth) without a personal account. So yeah until the network effect they have changes (the majority leave), people are "trapped" using it.
- taytus 9y ago
  They are not, and neither are you. It may affect the adoption rate of your app if you don't include a "login with facebook" option, maybe. But that is a small price we all have to pay to influence change.
  - alexdrans 9y ago
    Haha, you first.
    - nugi 9y ago
      This is the kind of comment that really hits hard how unwilling tech workers are to stand up for ethics. "My cog in the machine is not hurting anyone, why should I care" is how things get very, very bad.
      - leetcrew 9y ago
        it's more like "I am a tiny replaceable cog in a huge money-printing machine. if somebody is going to collect the paycheck anyway, why shouldn't it be me?" making the hard choice is easy when you have nothing to lose, and it's even easier when you're so rich that the losses don't matter. the folks in the middle have just enough that it would really hurt to lose it. I can't say I blame them for guarding that jealously.
    - taytus 9y ago
      I'm already doing it ;-)
    - 9y ago
at-fates-hands 9y ago
> More simply, Facebook will change when users stop using it. While I totally agree with this, I'm wondering where that tipping point would be with them. They have (depending on who you believe) somewhere north of 200 million users with some estimates in the 500 million range. Does losing 100 million users impact them at all or their bottom line? At what point do you think they would actually start changing? How much revenue would they have to lose before they started to make noticeable reforms?
- v_lisivka 9y ago
  I already see that users are moving out of FaceBook. FakeBook is not delivering value it promised. Some my friends are banned by FB, some are just not using it anymore. I personally was hit by FB moderators because of comment with few first lines from well known poem («Katerina» by Shevchenko, circa 1838). Moderators deny that first, then stop responding, so they know that they are doing wrong and still doing that. Moreover, I noticed that my comments with links to laws and court decisions on government sites were silently marked as spam and hidden by FB. Moderators are helped me once to fix that, then it happens again and again, and FB refuses to fix that. I made backup accounts on G+ and local social networks just in case I will be banned again by FB for posting well known poems or links to laws. I see also that traffic is increased a bit on these sites. I also looking for way to setup my own node of a federated social network, such as Mastodon or PeerTube, but they are too heavyweight.
BartBoch 9y ago
I think this might have a snowball effect. The new disruptor will appear that will initiate a huge shift in users. Facebook will have no time to react quickly enough, which will cost them some chunk of core users. The new platform, since it will be "new" and will initially fix all the Facebook problems will become a cool thing, magnet. Since some core users will be already using it, they will take users with them. Snap had a chance of becoming that but lost. Let us wait for a new disruptor. This is a very dangerous game, with a lot to lose. It was the same with any other, now dead, giant on the web. Only because people are still using Facebook now, does not mean, that as soon as a worthy competitor will appear, people will move et masse. Facebook is a necessity now, but it might be not, for example, tomorrow.
- naravara 9y ago
  >The new disruptor will appear that will initiate a huge shift in users. Kind of. But it shouldn't be a mental model where something like Facebook, but better, comes along. Rather, you should expect something that fulfills the same emotional, practical need or occupies time that makes people use Facebook less, but fulfills a need that better clicks with what people want. As an analogy, consider how Apple and Microsoft flipped places. It's not that Mac OS was like Windows but better and supplanted them. Rather, smartphones changed the game in such a way that Microsoft's core strengths didn't seem so strong anymore. Apple was able to innovate in such a way because of their DNA as a design focused product company, but those strengths didn't get to shine until the paradigm shifted to favor cohesive product experiences rather than versatile software platforms. So the thing that supplants Facebook won't look like Facebook, it'll be some better way to keep in touch with people from previous walks of life, get in arguments with your distant family members, and share photos. And it won't happen all at once either. It'll probably sit as some obscure niche for a while as it slowly refines itself and evolves.
  - RestlessMind 9y ago
    It actually happened in the form of whatsapp and Snapchat. Facebook tried to acquire both, succeeded with former and somewhat successful copied the later.
  - 9y ago
c0mments 9y ago
>> Facebook measures how people behave, not what pundits say. Not that I am disagreeing, but I once read an essay by a famous economist who pointed out that criminals are not as stupid as people think they are because their behavior makes a lot of economic sense if they can lower their risk of getting caught. Combine that with the "1% of turnover" fine that FB copped from the EU, and you can see how they can get away with this kind of stuff. When you think about it, FB is doing a sort of "micro-doxing" of its user base on a regular basis. But since it happens invisibly, and over a long time frame, they are generally getting away scot free. One day it will catch up to them, and you will start to see folks who worked at FB trying to hide that fact from their resume.
stepvhen 9y ago
i deleted my facebook last year and i tell everyone i can at every opportunity to do so as well. statistically invisible isnt actually invisible. whats frustrating is blogs and comments that carry an air that facebook can change in the user's favor, much less that it ever will. i have read quite a few complaints myself that backtrack once it gets to presenting a positive, constructive solution to the problem (i.e. deleting your facebook) and suggest that facebook can be used by users for their benefit if users change their behavior. this puts an insurmountable burden on users to change a product that they are not in any way shape or form in control of. truly the only thing users have in their control regarding facebook is whether or not they have and/or use an account. deleting facebook is exhibiting control, and i believe everyone should do so.
aplorbust 9y ago
It appears that the "statistically invisible" commenter is at the forefront of your thoughts, to an extent where you feel the need to address her/him specifically. "Many people vote with their time and attention." . Of course. We could argue that you have voted with your comment. The "statistically invisible" commenter got your time and attention (=vote). "Facebook measures how people behave, not what pundits say." There is a saying that goes something like, "What you measure you can control." It follows that what the "pundits" posit outside of Facebook is not something Facebook can control. Its simple. Users and non-users will stop publishing comments about Facebook when Facebook loses popularity.

johnnybones 9y ago

"I left Facebook on September 23, 2017, and not a single day has gone by when I don’t get at least a couple of emails or some SMS messages trying to get me back with notes about what friends have posted recently, or birthdays or other milestones." Uh, sounds like you didn't actually leave Facebook, dude. To leave, try DELETING your account, instead of just deactivating it.

drusepth 9y ago
For what it's worth, I still receive these emails occasionally on accounts that I've fully "deleted" (about once every month or two). I don't get SMS from them, though.

coldtea 9y ago

>The collective outrage over Facebook and its actions might result in a lot of talk, but it won’t really change Facebook, its ethos, and its ethics. Let me explain! It's a glorified ad company. It will do anything and everything to collect people's data and sell more ads.

canvasduck 9y ago

You become what you measure. Core metrics at the exec/board level that defined success from inception haven't changed.

TPPOW0020 9y ago

The reason Om cites as why Facebook won't change is similar to the reasons companies don't change in response to disruptive innovation, as described in Christensen's "The Innovators Dilemma." Big companies are too invested in a successful business model for them to easily switch to a new one overnight. Even if Zuckerberg grasps the threat to FB's brand posed by fake news and smartphone addiction, his company is streamlined to operate the way it always has been. The best he can achieve is short term fixes and lip service. Solving these problems would require Facebook to value something other than people's attention. But doing that would cannibalize their advertising business.

thugdoubt 9y ago

didn't click the link, is it just a picture of a money?

thugdoubt 9y ago

didn't click the link, is it just a sack with a dollar sign on it?

aplorbust 9y ago

"Large companies are somewhat like me - once they get used to a certain behavior, they develop a certain culture and a set of procedures, processes and a work environment that defines them and their future. These define their corporate DNA. It is hard to change. You can't buy new DNA, and companies can't acquire their way into new corporate cultures. Furthermore, companies that lack that self-awareness of their DNA and behaviors, in the end, find themselves extinct. The Corporate DNA DNA contains the genetic instructions used to build out the cells that make up an organism. I have often argued that companies are very much like living organisms, comprised of the people who work there. What companies make, how they sell and how they invent are merely an outcome of the people who work there. They define the company." source: https://om.co/2011/02/11/change-is-good-but-its-also-really-hard/ https://om.co/2011/02/11/change-is-good-but-its-also-really-... "You can't buy new DNA and companies can't acquire their way into new corporate cultures." - Om Malik Is there any other way a company could acquire "new DNA"? 151 "virus" wn "WordNet (r) 3.0 (2006)" virus n 1: (virology) ultramicroscopic infectious agent that replicates itself only within cells of living hosts; many are pathogenic; a piece of nucleic acid (DNA or RNA) wrapped in a thin coat of protein diff -q googledna.2018 googledna.1998 || cat googledna.1998 "Appendix A: Advertising and Mixed Motives Currently, the predominant business model for commercial search engines is advertising. The goals of the advertising business model do not always correspond to providing quality search to users. * * * For this type of reason and historical experience with other media [Bagdikian 83], we expect that advertising funded search engines will be inherently biased towards the advertisers and away from the needs of the consumers. Since it is very difficult even for experts to evaluate search engines, search engine bias is particularly insidious. * * * For example, a search engine could add a small factor to search results from "friendly" companies [e.g., the search engine company itself, its subsidiaries, companies that use AMP, etc.], and subtract a factor from results from competitors. * * * This type of bias is very difficult to detect but could still have a significant effect on the market. Furthermore, advertising income often provides an incentive to provide poor quality search results. * * * In general, it could be argued from the consumer point of view that the better the search engine is, the fewer advertisements will be needed for the consumer to find what they want. This of course erodes the advertising supported business model of the existing search engines. However, there will always be money from advertisers who want a customer to switch products, or have something that is genuinely new. But we believe the issue of advertising causes enough mixed incentives that it is crucial to have a competitive search engine that is transparent and in the academic realm." source: https://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=297827 https://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=297827 Authors: Sergey Brin, Lawrence Page Published in: WWW7 Proceedings of the seventh international conference on World Wide Web Computer Networks and ISDN Systems Volume 30 Issue 1-7, April 1, 1998 Pages 107-117 Elsevier Science Publishers B. V. Amsterdam, The Netherlands doi 10.1016/S0169-7552(98)00110-X The anatomy of a large-scale hypertextual Web search engine 1998 Citation Count: 3,024

jimmy1 9y ago

Oh it will change. It will change when regulations are shortly imposed and an anti-trust suit is filed.

cobookman 9y ago
I'll believe it when I see it
matte_black 9y ago
Anti-trust for what?
- craigsmansion 9y ago
  Just anti-trust, as in the opposite of trust--something committed or entrusted to one's care for use or safekeeping. "I really don't trust FB with my data anymore. I actually anti-trust them."
hinkley 9y ago
Anti trust lawsuits don’t succeed until public opinion turns against the company. They will keep getting off with a wrist slap until that happens. The government only punishes once there’s blood in the water.

wokawoka 9y ago

you people still use Facebook? LOSERS

sctb 9y ago
Please stop commenting like this or we'll ban the account. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

1_800_UNICORN 9y ago

> Google’s core DNA is search and engineering, though some would say engineering that is driven by the economics of search, which makes it hard for the company to see the world through any other lens. I would nitpick slightly. Google core DNA is advertising. Search is a huge component to driving their advertising business, but let's not pretend that they are driven by anything other than ad revenue.

eterm 9y ago
Google didn't start advertising until a couple of years after it was released. Advertising is very much its core now but it wasn't always that way.
- ams6110 9y ago
  It was always in the long term plan though. Maybe not at the very beginning when Google ran their index out of a dorm room, but ads as monitization must have been the plan very early on, even if it took some time to work out the implementation.
  - kuschku 9y ago
    In the beginning, Google’s founders said > The goals of the advertising business model do not always correspond to providing quality search to users > For this type of reason and historical experience with other media [Bagdikian 83], we expect that advertising funded search engines will be inherently biased towards the advertisers and away from the needs of the consumers. > Furthermore, advertising income often provides an incentive to provide poor quality search results. And most importantly > But we believe the issue of advertising causes enough mixed incentives that it is crucial to have a competitive search engine that is transparent and in the academic realm. I think especially the last statement shows very well that they were ideologically opposed to advertisement-funded search engines. Source: The Anatomy of a Large-Scale Hypertextual Web Search Engine, Sergey Brin and Lawrence Page. http://infolab.stanford.edu/~backrub/google.html http://infolab.stanford.edu/~backrub/google.html

TuringTest 9y ago

The Viable System Model[1] for sustainable organizations describes that phenomenon of a "corporate DNA" that defines the unchanging essence of the organization. The VSM is an theory elaborated from classic cybernetics, the science of feedback-based control, which aims to predict how and if a particular system will be able to adapt to a changing environment. VSM is a fractal system with five types of blocks organized in three layers (a core defining long-term strategy, a bureaucracy evaluating compliance of defined plans and its adequacy to respond to external threats, and operative units to carry specific parts of the plan). In this model, the strategic core defines which should be the unchanging essence of the organization, while the rest of the system may change more drastically in order to adapt and survive against external threats. (The fractal part is because each component block is in turn divided into the same three layers). [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viable_system_model https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viable_system_model

sixtypoundhound 9y ago

The irony here is that Facebook - as an advertising platform - has a lot of opportunity to earn more per visitor. They have traffic but it is relatively disengaged, in terms of commercial intent. Sure, you can target - but there's a long path between looking at your friend's party pictures and actually pulling out your credit card. Now... if they looked at their content and communities and made a real effort to warm up commercial intent before running the ad... perhaps moved into the content business (for real)... that audience would be worth a lot more. Without creepy tracking moves. Just by making it easy for someone to follow their interests.

seabrookmx 9y ago
Your comment is quite insightful. They _are_ moving into the content business. Just one example: I work in the music industry. YouTube has a fingerprinting service is used to pay out royalties on music. The tech is similar to Shazam.. whereby if the girl next door uses "Island In The Sun" by Weezer in her vlog, YouTube detects that song and pays Weezer a small royalty. The alternative option for Weezer is to block this content (meaning her video would be taken down) but obviously it's in their best interest to monetize. This is just one way YouTube gets in bed with content producers like record labels. This same thing is now being implemented in Facebook videos, so clearly that's something they're going to push.. having their users host longer-form video than what is normally seen on facebook. And I'm sure there's other parallel efforts on Facebook's side to get more premium video and gaming content onto their platform.
- sstorie 9y ago
  Where does that royalty payment come from out of curiosity? Like does it come out of the money that might go to the person who created and posted the video that used it?
  - seabrookmx 9y ago
    Yes. In the case of the "girl next door" example, she's probably not over the threshold she needs to be to make money from youtube. So the ad revenue is split between youtube and the content owner of the music. I don't have a ton of insight but I'm sure it gets more complicated when you have creators that get a cut of the money, as well as potentially multiple advertisers in the case of longer videos. But it all comes out of that ad revenue.

desireco42 9y ago

Off topic, how do you get a two letter domain?! How do you get these more unique domains?

sgs1370 9y ago
Unless someone is actively trying to sell the domain on sedo.com (or similar site) the best bet is to use whois to find the owner and email them, we get a few inquiries for our domains a year and we just send back a friendly "no we're not interested in selling" if that's the case. When we've asked to buy other domains, some say they're not selling and some have been willing to it to us... as with all business negotiation is next! With other countries, sometimes nobody owns the one in question and they will have various willingness to sell it or not, with various levels of paperwork.
- desireco42 9y ago
  Thank you for detailed answer.

bambax 9y ago

> and that’s why all of our angst and headlines are not going to change a damn thing Of course they won't. But we shouldn't want FB to "change" (meaning, "improve", whatever that means). We should wish it stay exactly as it is, and die. There has never been a TV in my home. As time passes, I notice my kids tend to make friends with other kids coming from non-tv homes (probably because they have more to share with them, and nothing to say about what was on TV last night. Those who care enough can raise a generation of social-networks-free people.

wgoodall01 9y ago
Although raising kids without access to TV/social media may seem like a great way to avoid their downsides, like ad targeting, it ultimately only serves to cut them off from their peers. TV and social media serve as vital cultural references that kids have a social need to be 'in on.' It is one of the most awkward things when you're the only one in a room who has no clue what everyone else is talking about because you didn't see that post, or watch that show. So while social networks may be bad, it's just as bad to cut kids off from the culture their peers are regularly immersed in.
- bambax 9y ago
  Well, we beg to differ ;-) It's okay to be awkward with everyone, as long as you have strong friends, even just one. Why would blending in be a goal.

jbwyme 9y ago

It's funny to me how many people are outraged at Facebook's focus on data collection and privacy "invasion" for the sake of monetization. Every company is using whatever data they can access to make as much money as possible without alienating their user base. Facebook might be more aggressive (or perhaps just more transparent) about it. However, to think, as a rule, any company (particularly a public company) is making decisions based on ethics or your best interest is naive. It's all about revenue.

rubatuga 9y ago
I think there's an outrage because this time Facebook is infiltrating our social lives and interactions to a level never seen before. When was the last time that one company had such overarching power and knowledge into human interactions? It's scary to me, because I can think of ways the general public can be deceived, manipulated, and exploited for commercial gain. Facebook is also quite the monopoly in social media, and as mentioned in the comments, it has already acquired its competitors Whatsapp and Instagram. Facebook has the potential to become very anticompetitive, and it's current practices might be harmful to the general public in the near future.

lambdasquirrel 9y ago

> I left Facebook on September 23, 2017, and not a single day has gone by when I don’t get at least a couple of emails or some SMS messages trying to get me back Deleting your account outright seems keep it away forever. There won’t be any going back but I don’t see any way around it. Otherwise they’ll always have something to nab you by.

HenryBemis 9y ago

In short: "Facebook Revenue per Monthly Active User (USD)" As long as Facebook keeps and increased the eyeballs (aka €$£¥), nothing will change. If tomorrow 200 milion users stop using FB due to privacy concerns, then the very next day I promise you FB will change. But not a moment before that!

AlphaWeaver 9y ago

With the "Share on Facebook" link on the bottom of the article.

rubatuga 9y ago
Perfect, we'll destroy Facebook from within!

bogomipz 9y ago

The author states: >"Overseas users of Facebook are using the social platform on phones that are usually pre-paid phones and don’t have as much personalized information available from third party sources to create profiles." Could someone say why "pre-paid phone don’t have as much personalized information available from third party sources"? Also what are these "third party sources", who would these be in the EU/US? The carriers?

rosser 9y ago
Because the service providers for post-paid phone accounts are also in the business of re-selling your PII to marketers, probably. You can get a pre-paid with cash in many if not most places. Your identity can probably be deduced from call/text graph analysis, but that's not the same as having the people whom you're paying regularly for the account selling your identity to anyone with a buck to spare.

xasos 9y ago

Facebook won't change until it does. Any other story is narrative fallacy - so hard to predict these things.

feenix566 9y ago

Facebook uses all this data to show you ads for things you might want to buy. Wouldn't you rather see that than ads for things you don't want to buy? I occasionally watch the evening news and I am sick and tired of ads for drugs for old people. I'm not old and I don't need drugs. But the television stations can't target their ads at specific viewers (yet) so they target them at demographics. And old people tend to watch the evening news more than other demographics so that's what they show. People act like Facebook (and every other company) is gathering data about people for some sort of nefarious plan for world domination. But all they're doing is improving the quality of connections between people making things (advertisers) and people who might want those things (consumers). Is that really so terrible?

devinhelton 9y ago
> Facebook uses all this data to show you ads for things you might want to buy. Wouldn't you rather see that than ads for things you don't want to buy? No, I prefer poorly targeted ads. Seeing ads for stuff I might want to buy is more distracting, more tempting, and forces me to expend my limited supply of willpower to resist the temptation.
- Zelphyr 9y ago
  Targeted ads to me also means that company knows way more about me than I would prefer. Why is that a problem? It might not be. I'm not doing anything wrong. But I have curtains on my bathroom window for a reason. I'm not doing anything wrong in there but I also don't feel like anyone else needs to see it.
kenning 9y ago
Your stated problem is that you're not being targeted closely enough for ads. This is the problem of someone with lots of excess income. People who are tricked into getting new cars, phones, credit cards or even houses, despite being unable to deal with the accompanying debt, are the victims here.

grantph 9y ago

> And to keep making money in these markets — already a ridiculous $27 in ARPU for the last three months of 2017 — they need us to give more time and attention to them. And that there is the Achilles' heel of both Google and Facebook: disrupting the attention market. I've been having a debate with someone on this subject, and it prompted me to run a consumer survey asking people: "Thinking about free services (e.g., print, radio, TV, websites), do you like it when they sell your attention to advertisers?" Yes, No, Undecided. Of 511 responses, only 6% liked having their attention sold. 68% dislike it, and 26% were on the fence. Personally, I think there is a huge opportunity to re-invent the attention market. Until then, companies like Google and Facebook will keep stealing our attention and selling it to the highest bidder.

cosydney 9y ago

In your opinion is Amazon one of those company that deviates from their core DNA ? Or is their DNA one that strive for novelty and adaptability to constant change (Novelty in business models and constantly challenging themself to find new ways of making money) ?

loorinm 9y ago
The writer of the article strikes me as not very intelligent. Successful, yes. But not smart. He can pretty much say the “DNA” is anything he wants, since it’s after the fact. Also people who use “sciency-sounding” words this brazenly make me want to puke. “It’s hard-wired in the neural net!”

roadbeats 9y ago

There is already good tools to stay connected to friends and family, why do people stay in this toxic website ? Does Facebook deserve our time ? I deleted my account while ago, also explained my family members how Facebook pays habit experts to steal people's time, runs research on how to manipulate emotions for "science". My mom and dad also happily deleted their accounts, too. Make a favor to yourself, delete your account. Also help your family delete their accounts, too. You can actually delete your Facebook permanently through their help pages: https://www.facebook.com/help/delete_account https://www.facebook.com/help/delete_account --- P.S: Upvote this submission so we can help more people delete their FB accounts; https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16443354 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16443354

varrock 9y ago
Look, I'm not a huge Facebook user myself, but why don't you list those tools to connect to your family? Also, if you use Facebook delightedly, it can be a great tool. The trick is to spread awareness of its danger and tell people to use it at caution. At one point or another I think people are going to have to accept that it is a primary form of communication this day and age. Simply telling people to delete the application without better alternatives and citing it's worst flaws are not going to get you very far.
- granitosaurus 9y ago
  * Phone messangers (e.g. Signal, Viber etc.) * Discord, Slack - irc-like messangers * Mastodon, Diaspora, Minds - free and federated social networks. Honestly, facebook has nothing special about it other than "people are on it". > people are going to have to accept that it is a primary form of communication this day and age What a ridiculous statement.