19 ms·

Facebook has lost $100B in 10 days and now advertisers are pulling out

564 points by shahocean 9y ago

AdamN 9y ago
The bigger problem is recruiting. How many offers will be declined in favor of Google, startups, etc...
- adsfasdfsad111 9y ago
  lol, probably none?
- adamnemecek 9y ago
  It did more damage than you think
  - brad0 9y ago
    Could you clarify?
- brad0 9y ago
  I don't believe that recruiting is a big problem. Their immediate problem is that money isn't coming in. When you don't have money coming in you're not worried about hiring more people.
- otalp 9y ago
  It's not like Google is a privacy haven for people who care about that sort of thing.
  - Bajeezus 9y ago
    Google has a much better public profile than Facebook. In the eyes of the public, Facebook is a good deal more "evil" than Google.
    - Antifragile1 9y ago
      I guess people who dont understand Google and Facebook might think so. Anyone who is smart enough and informed, I dont think so.
  - mieseratte 9y ago
    > It's not like Google is a privacy haven for people who care about that sort of thing. Google, Facebook, and Amazon are all on my shit-list. Any company that harnesses hapless users as a product can rot in hell.
    - drewmol 9y ago
      I'm a bit worried they will soon enough go the route of AT&T, Comcast, the Telco mafia, Airlines, etc. and embrace their suck, then just lobby for survival. https://www.fastcompany.com/40520529/big-tech-lobbying-spree-heres-how-much-apple-amazon-and-others-gave-d-c-in-2017 https://www.fastcompany.com/40520529/big-tech-lobbying-spree...
- symlinkk 9y ago
  I don't think you really need the best of the best programmers to keep Facebook running. Other than the infrastructure needed to support the massive number of users Facebook has, I doubt the rest of the work done over there is really much more difficult than work done anywhere else. And I doubt they'll have to improve the infrastructure very much any more, seeing as they've much got as many users now as they ever are going to have. If anything it will get easier over time as more and more people leave the platform.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- CryoLogic 9y ago
  Facebook's offers are still higher value than Google/Startups. And Google (although not the company in question) has nearly as questionable data use as Facebook.
jlmorton 9y ago
In other words, FB has done somewhat worse than the NASDAQ, and about the same as GOOG over the same time period. Best not to take broad market movements and try to ascribe specific market expectations to individual companies.
- ineedasername 9y ago
  Except NAZDAQ rallied today, so did Google. Facebook did not. Google's decline was part of the halo effect cast over big data techs as a result of the facebook debacle, and indexes in general were down over fears of pending trade wars with China that have now eased slightly. Facebook's decline continued despite these other factors getting some relief. Its issues are all its own at the moment.
  - jlmorton 9y ago
    In point of fact, FB is also up today, although only modestly.
    - ineedasername 9y ago
      ah, I see now they rallied shortly before close. I last checked them around 3:30 when they were still down about 2-3%. Though I think it's important to note they did not rally to the extent the rest of the market did, which largely erased 90% of the losses from the prior Friday.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- tylermenezes 9y ago
  What are you talking about? The NASDAQ was down 4% since last Friday. Facebook was down almost 20% from Friday this morning...
  - jlmorton 9y ago
    Sorry, but what are you talking about? Facebook closed on Thursday at $165. It closed on Friday at $160. FB was up by half a percent today, on Monday. https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/FB?p=FB https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/FB?p=FB
f2n 9y ago
Good, I hope we see a sleeping giants-style shaming of advertisers who financially support Facebook
- TAForObvReasons 9y ago
  Ironically many of the sleeping giants that could tip the scales were already pulling out. Case in point: Proctor and Gamble (2016) https://www.wsj.com/articles/p-g-to-scale-back-targeted-facebook-ads-1470760949 https://www.wsj.com/articles/p-g-to-scale-back-targeted-face...
  - majormajor 9y ago
    Extra-ironically, look at the opening line there: > Procter & Gamble Co. PG 0.66% , the biggest advertising spender in the world, will move away from ads on Facebook that target specific consumers, concluding that the practice has limited effectiveness. More-and-more-specialized online display advertising rarely delivers as (heh) advertised on any platform. But on the other hand, the bit you leave out includes both that they weren't cutting their FB budget, and that they'd found some areas where it works better: > Mr. Pritchard said P&G won’t cut back on Facebook spending and will employ targeted ads where it makes sense, such as pitching diapers to expectant mothers. So the real question is: were these political campaigns the useless sort of micro-targeting, or the effective kind?
    - TAForObvReasons 9y ago
      P&G actually cut their digital ad spend : http://www.adweek.com/digital/procter-gamble-cut-140-million-in-digital-ad-spending-because-of-brand-safety-concerns/ http://www.adweek.com/digital/procter-gamble-cut-140-million... > “Digital ad spending was lower versus a high base period and due to current period choices to temporarily restrict spending in digital forums where our ads were not being placed according to our standards and specifications,” the company said in its earnings I suspect that FB targeted ads are not as useful for larger companies (who are generally advertising for awareness) compared to smaller or niche companies (where the target audience may be well defined).
otalp 9y ago
I fail to see how this will seriously damage them. They already own the two biggest alternatives to facebook - Instagram for pictures and WhatsApp for communication. More people are using their services than ever before and more people are getting access to the internet in developing countries.
- chrischen 9y ago
  People in US don't really use Whatsapp. iOS users do use iMessage and Android use Hangouts.
  - phinnaeus 9y ago
    Do android users actually uses Hangouts? I have a couple of friends on it but my understanding is that Android users (like myself) just stick with standard SMS/MMS in the US. Patiently waiting for Universal RCS to take off...
    - saym 9y ago
      I know this is just anecdotal, but my friends and I do heavily use Hangouts. It doesn't have enough functionality on its own, but I've augmented our experience with a chatbot powered by https://github.com/hangoutsbot/hangoutsbot https://github.com/hangoutsbot/hangoutsbot. Obviously I don't think that this experience is typical, not everyone is a programmer or has a server on which to run it.
    - becomingknown 9y ago
      Nope. Hangout is not at all a convenient app. Main Android apps after Whatsapp are Telegram, Kik, imo and WeChat.
    - int_19h 9y ago
      Hangouts also does SMS. And, on Nexus phones at least, it does it by default.
  - antirez 9y ago
    We non-US people will never understand this, sorry. Instead of staying in a single cross-platform system US people prolonged for other ~5 years the use of SMS that was non existing here for a long time, also paying the highest costs in the world per SMS more or less (AFAIK you used to pay even for receiving), and now are picking OS-specific platforms.
stevemk14ebr 9y ago
Is it crazy to consider investing in their stocks soon-ish. I totally hate the company but if this is global-minimum i can make some cash pretty easy. I'm relying on the premise that most users will continue to user the site and that this is a short term media frenzy similar to youtube advertiser fiasco.
- pedalpete 9y ago
  If you hate the company, don't invest. If you're non-fussed but think it will return to it's glory days invest. If you love the company, invest. You aren't the only one who doesn't like the company, it "can" be taken as a negative signal and suggest the company will continue to lose. How many people LOVE facebook? I don't think they really exist anymore. Apple has it's haters, but it also has it's fans. Google has more haters than fans. Of course, we're talking about more mature companies here, so the upside is not as great, the downside could have a real impact. Of course, you have to consider FB as more than FB. If you loved Occulus, I'd say maybe invest. Big fan of Whatsapp, maybe invest. There should be other opportunities to invest in things you do like that you would be proud to own.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
- symlinkk 9y ago
  Not sure why you're being downvoted. Clearly a lot of investors agree with you, as the stock recovered at the end of today to be exactly where it was at the start of the day. If you truly believe what you wrote, then you should invest in it. I disagree with you, but I could be wrong.
  - ams6110 9y ago
    It will be very volatile for a while, with people looking to get out, and others looking to make a quick profit.
nugi 9y ago
This is the beginning of the Big Churn. Less top talent will want to be associated with facebook. Already even a few more privacy clueless friends family members are deleting their accounts. Adverts were always so low yeild, and fb pages 'because we need one'. Now that is all changing due to perception. The FTC, stocks falling, are further indicatuons of falling trust. And all business is built on trust.
- amelius 9y ago
  > Less top talent will want to be associated with facebook. I don't necessarily consider myself top-talent, but I'm personally avoiding facebook's open source projects (e.g. React) because I don't approve of their company values.
  - manmal 9y ago
    FB‘s open source projects are one of the few things they are doing right, so why avoid them? AFAIK the licenses are ok, so they are interchangeable in the end as maintainers.
    - TAForObvReasons 9y ago
      React may have changed to MIT but React-Native and other projects still use the BSD+Patents license. EDIT: this apparently was fixed last month.
      - focuser 9y ago
        React Native has been updated to MIT too: https://github.com/facebook/react-native/blob/master/LICENSE https://github.com/facebook/react-native/blob/master/LICENSE
      - mecha9 9y ago
        Actually now React Native uses the MIT license, this was changed in February: https://github.com/facebook/react-native/commit/26684cf3adf4094eb6c405d345a75bf8c7c0bf88 https://github.com/facebook/react-native/commit/26684cf3adf4...
reaperducer 9y ago
Perhaps some good will come out of all this. Maybe in the future, when some PHB asks development to add a questionable data gathering function to a platform they can say, "Remember Facebook?"
- jlmorton 9y ago
  Facebook runs a messaging service with ~1.2 billion monthly active users. One of the core features of the product is to integrate with other contacts on your phone, and you have to explicitly enable this feature, agreeing to "ongoing upload" of your "text and call history". Apple runs a messaging service called iMessage. It logs all of your call metadata, SMS history, etc. There is no opt-in, it's just default behavior. Apple also runs iCloud. All of your data is sent there, too, including complete conversations. Can someone for the life of me explain to me what makes Facebook the villain here? Apple does exactly the same thing. Facebook has never sold this data. There is no evidence they've even used the data for anything except its explicitly-stated purpose.
  - tzahola 9y ago
    Apple doesn’t use your data for asdvertisements.
  - symlinkk 9y ago
    > you have to explicitly enable this feature, agreeing to "ongoing upload" of your "text and call history" I don't remember this being explicitly asked of me in any obvious way. And even if it was, I would have assumed they only needed that permission to get a list of contacts on my phone, and that the rest of it would be unused. > Apple runs a messaging service called iMessage Yes, and it's all encrypted and none of it is sent to third-party advertisers or creepy voter manipulation firms. > Facebook has never sold this data. There is no evidence they've even used the data for anything except its explicitly-stated purpose. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/19/technology/facebook-cambridge-analytica-explained.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/19/technology/facebook-cambr...
    - 9y ago
nickpsecurity 9y ago
Facebook didnt loose $100B in 10 days: it's market value dropped in response to bad news. Stocks go up and down all the time on companies that remain around a long time. It's still making piles of money. Its users have a huge, switching cost to block a transition, too.
matt_s 9y ago
Could this spark a small tech bubble burst? Will non-tech people be fed up with their data being abused by tech/ad companies? If this trend goes viral (ironic, eh?) it could mean less ad money. Advertising has had it really good compared to older days of TV and radio with targeted online communities and data about them. Maybe this just sparks less VC investment towards freemium products?
AdamN 9y ago
What's interesting for me is that I finally deleted my account. I never used it anyway but now I feel empowered to say "I don't have an FB account" and that's ok. I think this is a sea change - there will never again be this dominant of a social network imho. From now on the space will be fractured into niches (AngelList, LinkedIn, NextDoor, etc...).
- toasterlovin 9y ago
  We shall see. Media lends itself to being highly concentrated. Social media, because of network effects, even more so.
  - username223 9y ago
    Only up to a point. In the real world, people move in multiple social spheres, and usually like to keep them separate. I think the same is true online. For example, some kids see Facebook as "the place their parents are," a place to act polite and keep things to themselves. After all, why are we "toasterlovin" and "username223" here?
    - toasterlovin 9y ago
      Good points. I think there's a good chance that there will be a changing of the guard at some point. But social media within a given sphere is a winner take all game. Then the winner in the biggest sphere will try and buy all adjacent social media companies (see Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp). The only hope I see is either 1) somebody has a large enough ego to think they can take on the dominant player (Snapchat/Evan Spiegel), or 2) the government gets some sense and decides that it's not a good idea to let the dominant player buy adjacent companies. So maybe Snapchat wins eventually as their demographic grows older. But then we're in the same position we're in now, just with a different company on top. At least, that's how things seem like they will play out to me.
      - username223 9y ago
        Agreed. Our weak antitrust rules are causing problems in all sorts of areas, and this is just one of them. The world would have been a better place if Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp had remained separate, each pursuing its own version of a "social network." WhatsApp even had a subscription model that people accepted.
bb88 9y ago
So while it seems like $100B dollars is a large sum, it's really about 12% ish of the market valuation. Yes it hurts, but no, it's not the end of the company. Think of it this way. How much money will FB have to spend to rebrand itself and fix the privacy issues. $1 Billion, maybe $2 Billion? You can do a lot with $2B dollars.
- megablast 9y ago
  It will be back up within a few weeks. That is the way it works.
- shady-lady 9y ago
  it's 18% percent. current market cap is 465 billion [yahoo data] market cap 10 days ago was 565 billion (465 + 100) drop is 100B/565B = ~18% over the last ten days. share price now back to july '17 price, wiping out 9 months of gains. i'd also posit that there will be more to come to light. loose data practices costs points!
l33tbro 9y ago
Facebook isn't going anywhere for a long time. They'll retain the privacy-clueless fossils with FB. They'll keep the aspirational set with IG. Anything even remotely competitive or alternative they'll just throw cash at and snap up.
- ardit33 9y ago
  Unless it becomes so uncool that you are lame if you still actively use it... eg. like having a myspace, or a .hotmail, or a @aol email account Social networks have to be both useful and trendy in order to fully succeed.... messenger and whatsup are both very useful, FB itself is less, and it needs to be somewhat trendy in order to survive Personally I find fb very useful to keep up with family and friends, but that might be not be the same for other people, especially very young folks
  - deltaprotocol 9y ago
    Sorry to say it but its been a few years since I started to consider FB "useds" lame (just to use your word, but I would describe them with harsher terms). It seems my side of the fence is growing in numbers pretty fast lately.
  - ams6110 9y ago
    Myspace actually did keep a niche going with musicians for quite some time after its general popularity had waned. No idea why that was or if there's even any of that left.
- panarky 9y ago
  No, Facebook isn't going to die tomorrow. It'll still be around 5 years from now. After all, even AOL is still clinging to life. But their valuation depends on extrapolating today's growth and cash flow into the future. So even a slight slowdown in their growth rate or small reduction in margins can have a magnified effect on the company's valuation. Since expectations of higher future valuation drives high compensation for strong performers, any hint of this unraveling will result in brain drain. It's almost certainly already begun. Yes, my mom will still be on Facebook in 5 years. But I won't be there, my kids won't be there, and my friends won't be there. Since the network effect works in reverse, the users who remain will spend fewer minutes per day on Facebook and Instagram than they do today. And ARPU is dismal for the fossils who think Facebook is the internet.
kin 9y ago
I genuinely believe that advertisers are only pulling out because it's the PR thing to do. There are many other companies that would love to take advantage of a less competitive bid for Facebook ad space and I have no doubt they will be taking advantage of it and will continue to spend boats of money on Facebook.
- mingabunga 9y ago
  Agree, it's a great platform for advertisers and they know it's great for targeting and conversions. Most of the outrage and awareness seems to be in the tech sphere (the vocal minority?) while the rest of the world just gets on with it.
- anaptdemise 9y ago
  Two of the largest advertisers don’t think Facebook ads are effective. The latest, P&G, specifically call out how narrow targeting is ineffective. > After cutting back on certain digital ads, “we didn’t see a reduction in the growth rate,” said Mr. Moeller during the call. “What that tells me is that the spending we cut was largely ineffective.” https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052702304192704577406394017764460 https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052702304192704577406... https://www.wsj.com/articles/p-g-to-scale-back-targeted-facebook-ads-1470760949 https://www.wsj.com/articles/p-g-to-scale-back-targeted-face...
  - MarkMc 9y ago
    I wonder why Facebook doesn't make deals with supermarkets to collect data on every single purchase. There's no doubt that Facebook advertising would be far more effective if it knew when John Smith last purchased toothpaste.
  - kin 9y ago
    Yeah I'm not surprised. It's really hard to track how any online advertising leads to B&M purchases. On the flip side, I have no doubt online retailers thrive with Faceboook ads.
CryoLogic 9y ago
I wouldn't particularly mind if it lost another 100-200b in market cap. It's gotta be enough to have a long term affect, and to teach the other social media giants a lesson so they don't replicate the same behavior. Unfortunately the might just get better at hiding it.
bigtones 9y ago
Shares in Facebook did not fall on Monday - they were up 0.45% at market close.
- dennisgorelik 9y ago
  FB +0.45% S&P +2.72% That means FB is still falling relative to the overall market trend.
  - unreal37 9y ago
    Falling upwards? Words having meanings! Let's just use words that mean what they mean. Facebook did not "LOSE" $100B, and the stock is not "falling".
stanislavb 9y ago
Let it burn
jarjoura 9y ago
It's too easy for some of you to get excited about one giant corporation taking a rather public beating. The anti-facebook tribe is strong in the Hacker News community. Plus, what SV company wasn't a free-for-all of user data in 2012-2013? I don't know if any of you remember the Path app's lawsuit that triggered Apple's lockdown of API permissions. Apple, who suddenly got religion about privacy, but they too learned from their mistakes. Anyway, I'm not here to argue in favor of FB, but the stock going down is pretty self perpetuated right now. It's algorithmically triggered in response to bad news in the press, that then generates more bad press like this and so on. I'm not sure where the bottom will be here, but I'm pretty sure it'll reverse course soon enough.
- domevent 9y ago
  Anyway, I'm not here to argue in favor of FB You’re just doing a really great impression of someone who is? My initial reaction was an unrealistic belief that you and others singing a similar tune work for FB, but I doubt that. I think it’s a very rational fear that FB is the first domino to fall, possibly along with Uber. Fear and self-interest, and the simple desire not to see your industry facing a prolonged public backlash ending in regulation makes more sense as a motive. Is that about right?
  - pdpi 9y ago
    > You’re just doing a really great impression of someone who is? I read that less as "arguing in favour of FB", and more as a reminder that overindulging in the blood frenzy makes you lose perspective.
  - jarjoura 9y ago
    As it's impossible for me to convince anyone in this thread of anything on this topic, I'm just freely making some points. People have already picked a side to stand on and the line has been drawn. Case in point, you've already gotten your pitchfork out.
    - domevent 9y ago
      You didn’t really respond to anything I said, just complained that people aren’t agreeing with you and some ad hom that those people are mob-like.
nstj 9y ago
@dang: “Facebook stock has dropped $100B in in 10 days...”
tinyhouse 9y ago
I have no idea where the FB stock is going. I don't think the company is in trouble, but likely to continue shifting focus. The good thing for them is that their products complement each other pretty well. FB the product has been changing quite a bit. Many people don't use it anymore to see what their "friends" are doing. They use it to follow certain groups of interest. For me it's becoming something between Reddit, Meetup, and Craigslist. (I don't check my FB often) Instagram (which I don't use) is still strong in what FB used to be, but the friendship model is more lax like in Twitter. The demographics also complement FB well. WhatsApp (which I use daily for everything) is huge all over the world. It's also catching up in the US. Besides the 1on1 communication, it's also big on groups. But the WahtsApp groups are quite different from the FB groups. They tend to be smaller and more personal. It's not really by design, it's mainly because it's connected to people's phones. They just need to figure out how to monetize it. The potential is huge. (but first please improve the calling quality, it's so bad) WhatsApp is a great product but among the three the most easily replaceable. But that's not going to happen any time soon. FB were smart keeping it independent and separate (many users don't even know they own it). One thing I really dislike about Google is that they merge everything under one umbrella.
paulsutter 9y ago
This is what Mark gets for contemplating a run for President...
mikeash 9y ago
I’m impressed at how misleading this headline is. If you didn’t know better, you might think Facebook’s bank accounts contain $100 billion less than they did a week ago. What they actually mean is that the stock price is down ~20%.
VeejayRampay 9y ago
I like how when you click on the headline, the article actually says "$70B". But then again, what's $30B nowadays.
benevol 9y ago
Facebook deserves to die. That's really all there is to say.
- sgregnt 9y ago
  Facebook deserves to prosper.
pimmen 9y ago
The advertisers leaving is what really hurts Facebook. Remember, you aren't Facebook's customer if you're just a regular user; you're the product. Think of it this way; imagine a farmer having a bad harvest. that's a lot of pressure, but he or she will try to cope with the loss and monetize what's left cleverly. Now, imagine the same farmer but the demand for the crop is falling. Now that's a capital "P" problem right there.
cJ0th 9y ago
This looks like big news but I think it is merely a small correction of its market value. For better or worse, they are going to stay for a very long time. At least from the current generation a significant amount of people will cling onto it for the rest of their lives like others do with cigarettes.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
stickdogg 9y ago
I hope they continue to lose money. That's a pretty negative feeling to have towards a business for me too. However, they started harvesting text and call info back in 2006; that is about the time I first started looking into anything technology related. I thought fb was terrific as it grew and helped enable more connectivity. Now that it has been shown to be true tho, the invasion of privacy is absolutely ludicrous.
Dowwie 9y ago
Change isn't coming. Sorry. Trump's victory signaled a social media gold-rush for political campaigns. 2018 is a major election year in American politics. You can bet that campaigns are evaluating and signing onto social media related efforts. To meet this demand, as Cambridge Analytica buckles, others will take it place. The people who benefit by these services are those who make the laws. While legislators benefit by social media targeted services, there won't be a political will sufficient to pass a law that will slay the goose laying golden eggs.
jjuhl 9y ago
With luck this could be the beginning of the end for Facebook. Probably not, but one can hope.

564 points by shahocean 9y ago

AdamN 9y ago

The bigger problem is recruiting. How many offers will be declined in favor of Google, startups, etc...

adsfasdfsad111 9y ago
lol, probably none?
adamnemecek 9y ago
It did more damage than you think
- brad0 9y ago
  Could you clarify?
brad0 9y ago
I don't believe that recruiting is a big problem. Their immediate problem is that money isn't coming in. When you don't have money coming in you're not worried about hiring more people.
otalp 9y ago
It's not like Google is a privacy haven for people who care about that sort of thing.
- Bajeezus 9y ago
  Google has a much better public profile than Facebook. In the eyes of the public, Facebook is a good deal more "evil" than Google.
  - Antifragile1 9y ago
    I guess people who dont understand Google and Facebook might think so. Anyone who is smart enough and informed, I dont think so.
- mieseratte 9y ago
  > It's not like Google is a privacy haven for people who care about that sort of thing. Google, Facebook, and Amazon are all on my shit-list. Any company that harnesses hapless users as a product can rot in hell.
  - drewmol 9y ago
    I'm a bit worried they will soon enough go the route of AT&T, Comcast, the Telco mafia, Airlines, etc. and embrace their suck, then just lobby for survival. https://www.fastcompany.com/40520529/big-tech-lobbying-spree-heres-how-much-apple-amazon-and-others-gave-d-c-in-2017 https://www.fastcompany.com/40520529/big-tech-lobbying-spree...
symlinkk 9y ago
I don't think you really need the best of the best programmers to keep Facebook running. Other than the infrastructure needed to support the massive number of users Facebook has, I doubt the rest of the work done over there is really much more difficult than work done anywhere else. And I doubt they'll have to improve the infrastructure very much any more, seeing as they've much got as many users now as they ever are going to have. If anything it will get easier over time as more and more people leave the platform.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
CryoLogic 9y ago
Facebook's offers are still higher value than Google/Startups. And Google (although not the company in question) has nearly as questionable data use as Facebook.

jlmorton 9y ago

In other words, FB has done somewhat worse than the NASDAQ, and about the same as GOOG over the same time period. Best not to take broad market movements and try to ascribe specific market expectations to individual companies.

ineedasername 9y ago
Except NAZDAQ rallied today, so did Google. Facebook did not. Google's decline was part of the halo effect cast over big data techs as a result of the facebook debacle, and indexes in general were down over fears of pending trade wars with China that have now eased slightly. Facebook's decline continued despite these other factors getting some relief. Its issues are all its own at the moment.
- jlmorton 9y ago
  In point of fact, FB is also up today, although only modestly.
  - ineedasername 9y ago
    ah, I see now they rallied shortly before close. I last checked them around 3:30 when they were still down about 2-3%. Though I think it's important to note they did not rally to the extent the rest of the market did, which largely erased 90% of the losses from the prior Friday.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
tylermenezes 9y ago
What are you talking about? The NASDAQ was down 4% since last Friday. Facebook was down almost 20% from Friday this morning...
- jlmorton 9y ago
  Sorry, but what are you talking about? Facebook closed on Thursday at $165. It closed on Friday at $160. FB was up by half a percent today, on Monday. https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/FB?p=FB https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/FB?p=FB

f2n 9y ago

Good, I hope we see a sleeping giants-style shaming of advertisers who financially support Facebook

TAForObvReasons 9y ago
Ironically many of the sleeping giants that could tip the scales were already pulling out. Case in point: Proctor and Gamble (2016) https://www.wsj.com/articles/p-g-to-scale-back-targeted-facebook-ads-1470760949 https://www.wsj.com/articles/p-g-to-scale-back-targeted-face...
- majormajor 9y ago
  Extra-ironically, look at the opening line there: > Procter & Gamble Co. PG 0.66% , the biggest advertising spender in the world, will move away from ads on Facebook that target specific consumers, concluding that the practice has limited effectiveness. More-and-more-specialized online display advertising rarely delivers as (heh) advertised on any platform. But on the other hand, the bit you leave out includes both that they weren't cutting their FB budget, and that they'd found some areas where it works better: > Mr. Pritchard said P&G won’t cut back on Facebook spending and will employ targeted ads where it makes sense, such as pitching diapers to expectant mothers. So the real question is: were these political campaigns the useless sort of micro-targeting, or the effective kind?
  - TAForObvReasons 9y ago
    P&G actually cut their digital ad spend : http://www.adweek.com/digital/procter-gamble-cut-140-million-in-digital-ad-spending-because-of-brand-safety-concerns/ http://www.adweek.com/digital/procter-gamble-cut-140-million... > “Digital ad spending was lower versus a high base period and due to current period choices to temporarily restrict spending in digital forums where our ads were not being placed according to our standards and specifications,” the company said in its earnings I suspect that FB targeted ads are not as useful for larger companies (who are generally advertising for awareness) compared to smaller or niche companies (where the target audience may be well defined).

otalp 9y ago

I fail to see how this will seriously damage them. They already own the two biggest alternatives to facebook - Instagram for pictures and WhatsApp for communication. More people are using their services than ever before and more people are getting access to the internet in developing countries.

chrischen 9y ago
People in US don't really use Whatsapp. iOS users do use iMessage and Android use Hangouts.
- phinnaeus 9y ago
  Do android users actually uses Hangouts? I have a couple of friends on it but my understanding is that Android users (like myself) just stick with standard SMS/MMS in the US. Patiently waiting for Universal RCS to take off...
  - saym 9y ago
    I know this is just anecdotal, but my friends and I do heavily use Hangouts. It doesn't have enough functionality on its own, but I've augmented our experience with a chatbot powered by https://github.com/hangoutsbot/hangoutsbot https://github.com/hangoutsbot/hangoutsbot. Obviously I don't think that this experience is typical, not everyone is a programmer or has a server on which to run it.
  - becomingknown 9y ago
    Nope. Hangout is not at all a convenient app. Main Android apps after Whatsapp are Telegram, Kik, imo and WeChat.
  - int_19h 9y ago
    Hangouts also does SMS. And, on Nexus phones at least, it does it by default.
- antirez 9y ago
  We non-US people will never understand this, sorry. Instead of staying in a single cross-platform system US people prolonged for other ~5 years the use of SMS that was non existing here for a long time, also paying the highest costs in the world per SMS more or less (AFAIK you used to pay even for receiving), and now are picking OS-specific platforms.

stevemk14ebr 9y ago

Is it crazy to consider investing in their stocks soon-ish. I totally hate the company but if this is global-minimum i can make some cash pretty easy. I'm relying on the premise that most users will continue to user the site and that this is a short term media frenzy similar to youtube advertiser fiasco.

pedalpete 9y ago
If you hate the company, don't invest. If you're non-fussed but think it will return to it's glory days invest. If you love the company, invest. You aren't the only one who doesn't like the company, it "can" be taken as a negative signal and suggest the company will continue to lose. How many people LOVE facebook? I don't think they really exist anymore. Apple has it's haters, but it also has it's fans. Google has more haters than fans. Of course, we're talking about more mature companies here, so the upside is not as great, the downside could have a real impact. Of course, you have to consider FB as more than FB. If you loved Occulus, I'd say maybe invest. Big fan of Whatsapp, maybe invest. There should be other opportunities to invest in things you do like that you would be proud to own.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
symlinkk 9y ago
Not sure why you're being downvoted. Clearly a lot of investors agree with you, as the stock recovered at the end of today to be exactly where it was at the start of the day. If you truly believe what you wrote, then you should invest in it. I disagree with you, but I could be wrong.
- ams6110 9y ago
  It will be very volatile for a while, with people looking to get out, and others looking to make a quick profit.

nugi 9y ago

This is the beginning of the Big Churn. Less top talent will want to be associated with facebook. Already even a few more privacy clueless friends family members are deleting their accounts. Adverts were always so low yeild, and fb pages 'because we need one'. Now that is all changing due to perception. The FTC, stocks falling, are further indicatuons of falling trust. And all business is built on trust.

amelius 9y ago
> Less top talent will want to be associated with facebook. I don't necessarily consider myself top-talent, but I'm personally avoiding facebook's open source projects (e.g. React) because I don't approve of their company values.
- manmal 9y ago
  FB‘s open source projects are one of the few things they are doing right, so why avoid them? AFAIK the licenses are ok, so they are interchangeable in the end as maintainers.
  - TAForObvReasons 9y ago
    React may have changed to MIT but React-Native and other projects still use the BSD+Patents license. EDIT: this apparently was fixed last month.
    - focuser 9y ago
      React Native has been updated to MIT too: https://github.com/facebook/react-native/blob/master/LICENSE https://github.com/facebook/react-native/blob/master/LICENSE
    - mecha9 9y ago
      Actually now React Native uses the MIT license, this was changed in February: https://github.com/facebook/react-native/commit/26684cf3adf4094eb6c405d345a75bf8c7c0bf88 https://github.com/facebook/react-native/commit/26684cf3adf4...

reaperducer 9y ago

Perhaps some good will come out of all this. Maybe in the future, when some PHB asks development to add a questionable data gathering function to a platform they can say, "Remember Facebook?"

jlmorton 9y ago
Facebook runs a messaging service with ~1.2 billion monthly active users. One of the core features of the product is to integrate with other contacts on your phone, and you have to explicitly enable this feature, agreeing to "ongoing upload" of your "text and call history". Apple runs a messaging service called iMessage. It logs all of your call metadata, SMS history, etc. There is no opt-in, it's just default behavior. Apple also runs iCloud. All of your data is sent there, too, including complete conversations. Can someone for the life of me explain to me what makes Facebook the villain here? Apple does exactly the same thing. Facebook has never sold this data. There is no evidence they've even used the data for anything except its explicitly-stated purpose.
- tzahola 9y ago
  Apple doesn’t use your data for asdvertisements.
- symlinkk 9y ago
  > you have to explicitly enable this feature, agreeing to "ongoing upload" of your "text and call history" I don't remember this being explicitly asked of me in any obvious way. And even if it was, I would have assumed they only needed that permission to get a list of contacts on my phone, and that the rest of it would be unused. > Apple runs a messaging service called iMessage Yes, and it's all encrypted and none of it is sent to third-party advertisers or creepy voter manipulation firms. > Facebook has never sold this data. There is no evidence they've even used the data for anything except its explicitly-stated purpose. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/19/technology/facebook-cambridge-analytica-explained.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/19/technology/facebook-cambr...
  - 9y ago

nickpsecurity 9y ago

Facebook didnt loose $100B in 10 days: it's market value dropped in response to bad news. Stocks go up and down all the time on companies that remain around a long time. It's still making piles of money. Its users have a huge, switching cost to block a transition, too.

matt_s 9y ago

Could this spark a small tech bubble burst? Will non-tech people be fed up with their data being abused by tech/ad companies? If this trend goes viral (ironic, eh?) it could mean less ad money. Advertising has had it really good compared to older days of TV and radio with targeted online communities and data about them. Maybe this just sparks less VC investment towards freemium products?

AdamN 9y ago

What's interesting for me is that I finally deleted my account. I never used it anyway but now I feel empowered to say "I don't have an FB account" and that's ok. I think this is a sea change - there will never again be this dominant of a social network imho. From now on the space will be fractured into niches (AngelList, LinkedIn, NextDoor, etc...).

toasterlovin 9y ago
We shall see. Media lends itself to being highly concentrated. Social media, because of network effects, even more so.
- username223 9y ago
  Only up to a point. In the real world, people move in multiple social spheres, and usually like to keep them separate. I think the same is true online. For example, some kids see Facebook as "the place their parents are," a place to act polite and keep things to themselves. After all, why are we "toasterlovin" and "username223" here?
  - toasterlovin 9y ago
    Good points. I think there's a good chance that there will be a changing of the guard at some point. But social media within a given sphere is a winner take all game. Then the winner in the biggest sphere will try and buy all adjacent social media companies (see Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp). The only hope I see is either 1) somebody has a large enough ego to think they can take on the dominant player (Snapchat/Evan Spiegel), or 2) the government gets some sense and decides that it's not a good idea to let the dominant player buy adjacent companies. So maybe Snapchat wins eventually as their demographic grows older. But then we're in the same position we're in now, just with a different company on top. At least, that's how things seem like they will play out to me.
    - username223 9y ago
      Agreed. Our weak antitrust rules are causing problems in all sorts of areas, and this is just one of them. The world would have been a better place if Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp had remained separate, each pursuing its own version of a "social network." WhatsApp even had a subscription model that people accepted.

bb88 9y ago

So while it seems like $100B dollars is a large sum, it's really about 12% ish of the market valuation. Yes it hurts, but no, it's not the end of the company. Think of it this way. How much money will FB have to spend to rebrand itself and fix the privacy issues. $1 Billion, maybe $2 Billion? You can do a lot with $2B dollars.

megablast 9y ago
It will be back up within a few weeks. That is the way it works.
shady-lady 9y ago
it's 18% percent. current market cap is 465 billion [yahoo data] market cap 10 days ago was 565 billion (465 + 100) drop is 100B/565B = ~18% over the last ten days. share price now back to july '17 price, wiping out 9 months of gains. i'd also posit that there will be more to come to light. loose data practices costs points!

l33tbro 9y ago

Facebook isn't going anywhere for a long time. They'll retain the privacy-clueless fossils with FB. They'll keep the aspirational set with IG. Anything even remotely competitive or alternative they'll just throw cash at and snap up.

ardit33 9y ago
Unless it becomes so uncool that you are lame if you still actively use it... eg. like having a myspace, or a .hotmail, or a @aol email account Social networks have to be both useful and trendy in order to fully succeed.... messenger and whatsup are both very useful, FB itself is less, and it needs to be somewhat trendy in order to survive Personally I find fb very useful to keep up with family and friends, but that might be not be the same for other people, especially very young folks
- deltaprotocol 9y ago
  Sorry to say it but its been a few years since I started to consider FB "useds" lame (just to use your word, but I would describe them with harsher terms). It seems my side of the fence is growing in numbers pretty fast lately.
- ams6110 9y ago
  Myspace actually did keep a niche going with musicians for quite some time after its general popularity had waned. No idea why that was or if there's even any of that left.
panarky 9y ago
No, Facebook isn't going to die tomorrow. It'll still be around 5 years from now. After all, even AOL is still clinging to life. But their valuation depends on extrapolating today's growth and cash flow into the future. So even a slight slowdown in their growth rate or small reduction in margins can have a magnified effect on the company's valuation. Since expectations of higher future valuation drives high compensation for strong performers, any hint of this unraveling will result in brain drain. It's almost certainly already begun. Yes, my mom will still be on Facebook in 5 years. But I won't be there, my kids won't be there, and my friends won't be there. Since the network effect works in reverse, the users who remain will spend fewer minutes per day on Facebook and Instagram than they do today. And ARPU is dismal for the fossils who think Facebook is the internet.

kin 9y ago

I genuinely believe that advertisers are only pulling out because it's the PR thing to do. There are many other companies that would love to take advantage of a less competitive bid for Facebook ad space and I have no doubt they will be taking advantage of it and will continue to spend boats of money on Facebook.

mingabunga 9y ago
Agree, it's a great platform for advertisers and they know it's great for targeting and conversions. Most of the outrage and awareness seems to be in the tech sphere (the vocal minority?) while the rest of the world just gets on with it.
anaptdemise 9y ago
Two of the largest advertisers don’t think Facebook ads are effective. The latest, P&G, specifically call out how narrow targeting is ineffective. > After cutting back on certain digital ads, “we didn’t see a reduction in the growth rate,” said Mr. Moeller during the call. “What that tells me is that the spending we cut was largely ineffective.” https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052702304192704577406394017764460 https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052702304192704577406... https://www.wsj.com/articles/p-g-to-scale-back-targeted-facebook-ads-1470760949 https://www.wsj.com/articles/p-g-to-scale-back-targeted-face...
- MarkMc 9y ago
  I wonder why Facebook doesn't make deals with supermarkets to collect data on every single purchase. There's no doubt that Facebook advertising would be far more effective if it knew when John Smith last purchased toothpaste.
- kin 9y ago
  Yeah I'm not surprised. It's really hard to track how any online advertising leads to B&M purchases. On the flip side, I have no doubt online retailers thrive with Faceboook ads.

CryoLogic 9y ago

I wouldn't particularly mind if it lost another 100-200b in market cap. It's gotta be enough to have a long term affect, and to teach the other social media giants a lesson so they don't replicate the same behavior. Unfortunately the might just get better at hiding it.

bigtones 9y ago

Shares in Facebook did not fall on Monday - they were up 0.45% at market close.

dennisgorelik 9y ago
FB +0.45% S&P +2.72% That means FB is still falling relative to the overall market trend.
- unreal37 9y ago
  Falling upwards? Words having meanings! Let's just use words that mean what they mean. Facebook did not "LOSE" $100B, and the stock is not "falling".

stanislavb 9y ago

Let it burn

jarjoura 9y ago

It's too easy for some of you to get excited about one giant corporation taking a rather public beating. The anti-facebook tribe is strong in the Hacker News community. Plus, what SV company wasn't a free-for-all of user data in 2012-2013? I don't know if any of you remember the Path app's lawsuit that triggered Apple's lockdown of API permissions. Apple, who suddenly got religion about privacy, but they too learned from their mistakes. Anyway, I'm not here to argue in favor of FB, but the stock going down is pretty self perpetuated right now. It's algorithmically triggered in response to bad news in the press, that then generates more bad press like this and so on. I'm not sure where the bottom will be here, but I'm pretty sure it'll reverse course soon enough.

domevent 9y ago
Anyway, I'm not here to argue in favor of FB You’re just doing a really great impression of someone who is? My initial reaction was an unrealistic belief that you and others singing a similar tune work for FB, but I doubt that. I think it’s a very rational fear that FB is the first domino to fall, possibly along with Uber. Fear and self-interest, and the simple desire not to see your industry facing a prolonged public backlash ending in regulation makes more sense as a motive. Is that about right?
- pdpi 9y ago
  > You’re just doing a really great impression of someone who is? I read that less as "arguing in favour of FB", and more as a reminder that overindulging in the blood frenzy makes you lose perspective.
- jarjoura 9y ago
  As it's impossible for me to convince anyone in this thread of anything on this topic, I'm just freely making some points. People have already picked a side to stand on and the line has been drawn. Case in point, you've already gotten your pitchfork out.
  - domevent 9y ago
    You didn’t really respond to anything I said, just complained that people aren’t agreeing with you and some ad hom that those people are mob-like.

nstj 9y ago

@dang: “Facebook stock has dropped $100B in in 10 days...”

tinyhouse 9y ago

I have no idea where the FB stock is going. I don't think the company is in trouble, but likely to continue shifting focus. The good thing for them is that their products complement each other pretty well. FB the product has been changing quite a bit. Many people don't use it anymore to see what their "friends" are doing. They use it to follow certain groups of interest. For me it's becoming something between Reddit, Meetup, and Craigslist. (I don't check my FB often) Instagram (which I don't use) is still strong in what FB used to be, but the friendship model is more lax like in Twitter. The demographics also complement FB well. WhatsApp (which I use daily for everything) is huge all over the world. It's also catching up in the US. Besides the 1on1 communication, it's also big on groups. But the WahtsApp groups are quite different from the FB groups. They tend to be smaller and more personal. It's not really by design, it's mainly because it's connected to people's phones. They just need to figure out how to monetize it. The potential is huge. (but first please improve the calling quality, it's so bad) WhatsApp is a great product but among the three the most easily replaceable. But that's not going to happen any time soon. FB were smart keeping it independent and separate (many users don't even know they own it). One thing I really dislike about Google is that they merge everything under one umbrella.

paulsutter 9y ago

This is what Mark gets for contemplating a run for President...

mikeash 9y ago

I’m impressed at how misleading this headline is. If you didn’t know better, you might think Facebook’s bank accounts contain $100 billion less than they did a week ago. What they actually mean is that the stock price is down ~20%.

VeejayRampay 9y ago

I like how when you click on the headline, the article actually says "$70B". But then again, what's $30B nowadays.

benevol 9y ago

Facebook deserves to die. That's really all there is to say.

sgregnt 9y ago
Facebook deserves to prosper.

pimmen 9y ago

The advertisers leaving is what really hurts Facebook. Remember, you aren't Facebook's customer if you're just a regular user; you're the product. Think of it this way; imagine a farmer having a bad harvest. that's a lot of pressure, but he or she will try to cope with the loss and monetize what's left cleverly. Now, imagine the same farmer but the demand for the crop is falling. Now that's a capital "P" problem right there.

cJ0th 9y ago

This looks like big news but I think it is merely a small correction of its market value. For better or worse, they are going to stay for a very long time. At least from the current generation a significant amount of people will cling onto it for the rest of their lives like others do with cigarettes.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

stickdogg 9y ago

I hope they continue to lose money. That's a pretty negative feeling to have towards a business for me too. However, they started harvesting text and call info back in 2006; that is about the time I first started looking into anything technology related. I thought fb was terrific as it grew and helped enable more connectivity. Now that it has been shown to be true tho, the invasion of privacy is absolutely ludicrous.

Dowwie 9y ago

Change isn't coming. Sorry. Trump's victory signaled a social media gold-rush for political campaigns. 2018 is a major election year in American politics. You can bet that campaigns are evaluating and signing onto social media related efforts. To meet this demand, as Cambridge Analytica buckles, others will take it place. The people who benefit by these services are those who make the laws. While legislators benefit by social media targeted services, there won't be a political will sufficient to pass a law that will slay the goose laying golden eggs.

jjuhl 9y ago

With luck this could be the beginning of the end for Facebook. Probably not, but one can hope.