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I don't think the first few years of ads really made a big difference - Facebook couldn't really figure out how to make advertising terribly profitable while no
by Syonyk 6y ago
I don't think the first few years of ads really made a big difference - Facebook couldn't really figure out how to make advertising terribly profitable while not driving people off.
Like most things, it took a few years to really take off. They IPO'd in 2012, and then really had to prove they could turn a profit (and increase it over time). I've honestly not been a heavy enough Facebook user to be able to pin the transition to a particular point in time (and it was almost certainly a long period of time, pushing for more and more), but the transition of the "Like" widget on random pages from an image icon to a data collection tool was probably a good indication of the transition.
In any case, by... oh, 2014 or so at the latest, they'd definitely started showing their true colors. Engagement Uber Alles. Because ads.
- skinnymuch 6y agoI don’t see much of a difference. It’s obvious this was going to happen. Is there any instance of a big site that doesn’t go this way? It seems as if sometimes people will always act surprised when sites monetize heavily. As if the site was always going to remain as basic as it was in its early days while growing. This is almost never the case except in cases where it goes paid [only]. Even those have exceptions (newspaper sites vs Substack)