4 ms·

It’s baked into the business model. Attention is the main material of the business, however it is gotten. It can’t change. Facebook couldn’t afford for it to c

It’s baked into the business model. Attention is the main material of the business, however it is gotten. It can’t change. Facebook couldn’t afford for it to change.

throwaway7281 6y ago
That's the money line. Easy to understand, if you understand it.
sveme 6y ago
That's actually always a good guidance: What's the business model/the aim of a company? Does it align with my own aims and wishes? It's the basic difference between Google/Facebook and Apple. Google/Facebook sells ads, Apple sells hardware. Google/Facebook need to know as much as possible about you to sell more ads. Apple does not. Obviously, these things can change.
- izacus 6y ago
  If that's true, why did Apple ads start showing in iOS? There's now a promotion for Apples services in iOS 14 settings, we're getting notifications about Apple arcade things, the Apple Ads tracking setting is ON by default and split from 3rd party ad tracking settings... Not to mention their actions like political censorship (just from today: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24939717 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24939717 ) Your narrative fits Apple marketing, but not their actions anymore.
  - sveme 6y ago
    As I said, things can change, company aims can change - and as you said, it's not clear cut anymore whether Apple is to be trusted.
  - throw0101a 6y ago
    > If that's true, why did Apple ads start showing in iOS? Just because Apple does things besides sell hardware, doesn't mean those other things are their primary focus. "Services" make up 'only' 22% of their revenue: * https://sixcolors.com/post/2020/10/apple-q4-2020-results-record-mac-revenue-iphone-down/ https://sixcolors.com/post/2020/10/apple-q4-2020-results-rec... I'd hazard to guess that App stores, Music, Pay, and TV make up the majority of revenues—and not ads.
    - botverse 6y ago
      It depends of where they find growth to be at
- wdr1 6y ago
  > Apple sells hardware That's a very limited view of Apple.
nkozyra 6y ago
That's self evident but Facebook could afford not incentivizing political engagement. It's only fairly recently that this threat vector was exploited. Facebook grew for years without being a disinformation channel.
- pjc50 6y ago
  As we found out when HN tried to ban politics, everything is political.
  - nkozyra 6y ago
    I think there's an argument you can never fully ban it and there are ways to subtly inject and influence politics. But my point was that Facebook could survive and thrive in a hypothetical situation wherein engagement over political content/disinformation was removed.
  - foldr 6y ago
    I don't want to start a meta flamewar, but I don't think HN has ever officially banned political discussion tout court. There's always been a fair amount of it on the site for the past decade, as far as I remember.
    - arethuza 6y ago
      The guidelines says the following are off-topic: "Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon." So I'd say HN explicitly allows some political content as long as it is "interesting". https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
      - foldr 6y ago
        Yes indeed. That's the policy on stories, though. I think the policy on political discussion in comments (which often occurs in threads for "non-political" stories) has always been fairly unrestrictive.

It’s baked into the business model. Attention is the main material of the business, however it is gotten. It can’t change. Facebook couldn’t afford for it to change.

throwaway7281 6y ago

That's the money line. Easy to understand, if you understand it.

sveme 6y ago

That's actually always a good guidance: What's the business model/the aim of a company? Does it align with my own aims and wishes? It's the basic difference between Google/Facebook and Apple. Google/Facebook sells ads, Apple sells hardware. Google/Facebook need to know as much as possible about you to sell more ads. Apple does not. Obviously, these things can change.

izacus 6y ago
If that's true, why did Apple ads start showing in iOS? There's now a promotion for Apples services in iOS 14 settings, we're getting notifications about Apple arcade things, the Apple Ads tracking setting is ON by default and split from 3rd party ad tracking settings... Not to mention their actions like political censorship (just from today: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24939717 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24939717 ) Your narrative fits Apple marketing, but not their actions anymore.
- sveme 6y ago
  As I said, things can change, company aims can change - and as you said, it's not clear cut anymore whether Apple is to be trusted.
- throw0101a 6y ago
  > If that's true, why did Apple ads start showing in iOS? Just because Apple does things besides sell hardware, doesn't mean those other things are their primary focus. "Services" make up 'only' 22% of their revenue: * https://sixcolors.com/post/2020/10/apple-q4-2020-results-record-mac-revenue-iphone-down/ https://sixcolors.com/post/2020/10/apple-q4-2020-results-rec... I'd hazard to guess that App stores, Music, Pay, and TV make up the majority of revenues—and not ads.
  - botverse 6y ago
    It depends of where they find growth to be at
wdr1 6y ago
> Apple sells hardware That's a very limited view of Apple.

nkozyra 6y ago

That's self evident but Facebook could afford not incentivizing political engagement. It's only fairly recently that this threat vector was exploited. Facebook grew for years without being a disinformation channel.

pjc50 6y ago
As we found out when HN tried to ban politics, everything is political.
- nkozyra 6y ago
  I think there's an argument you can never fully ban it and there are ways to subtly inject and influence politics. But my point was that Facebook could survive and thrive in a hypothetical situation wherein engagement over political content/disinformation was removed.
- foldr 6y ago
  I don't want to start a meta flamewar, but I don't think HN has ever officially banned political discussion tout court. There's always been a fair amount of it on the site for the past decade, as far as I remember.
  - arethuza 6y ago
    The guidelines says the following are off-topic: "Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon." So I'd say HN explicitly allows some political content as long as it is "interesting". https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
    - foldr 6y ago
      Yes indeed. That's the policy on stories, though. I think the policy on political discussion in comments (which often occurs in threads for "non-political" stories) has always been fairly unrestrictive.