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I'm not one to normally defend Facebook, but I disagree. Advertising was not prioritized for a huge chunk of Facebook's history, so I'd argue it's not part of t
by rm999 9y ago
I'm not one to normally defend Facebook, but I disagree. Advertising was not prioritized for a huge chunk of Facebook's history, so I'd argue it's not part of their core ethos (it's a necessary evil, if you will). While a lot of their more recent product decisions have been made around revenue generation, I don't think that's what keeps their leadership up at night. Keeping a monopoly on user attention (euphemism is "connecting the world") is their biggest challenge, especially in the ever-evolving social industry.
- hw 9y agoYou're right in what keeps the leadership up at night - figuring out how to keep users glued to Facebook. That however, is also core to their business model, in that without user attention, advertisers wouldn't pay to advertise on Facebook. Given that FB is now a public company, it needs to prove to shareholders, beyond anything else, that it's growing its revenues and profits. Turn FB into a company that puts its users first instead of its profits, and its stock price would probably be 1/3 of what it is today.
- newscracker 9y ago> Advertising was not prioritized for a huge chunk of Facebook's history, so I'd argue it's not part of their core ethos (it's a necessary evil, if you will). Perhaps it was not prioritized because a certain amount of scale, in terms of active members, is required to be very successful (to the extent of getting to "rule the world" kind of level)? Many companies start with fewer user hostile items until they reach a massive scale so as to protect their turf from competitors who may use that against them as well as to keep people coming back to the platform often and for long durations.