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Bots or not - that $25B is coming from somewhere. I'm most sad that so many smart humans are working on this of all the important problems in the world. Makes

Bots or not - that $25B is coming from somewhere. I'm most sad that so many smart humans are working on this of all the important problems in the world. Makes loads of money though, so won't change until incentives change.

cm2012 5y ago
Solving world hunger is obviously better than ads, but I'd say in the scheme of things tech people spend their time on, ad improvements is middling in importance? It's not the bottom. Good ad targeting means: 1) New small businesses (on Shopify) can reach customers without going through retail gatekeepers. Ask any Shopify seller, nothing beats FB. 2) New challenger SaaS brands can get in front of customers to compete with mammoth corporate brands with worse software (I see this all the time on my job). 3) Without good ad targeting, only bottom hanging fruit advertisers that appeal to the lowest common denominator can afford to spend. Weight loss, teeth whitening, etc. Good ad targeting means a better user experience with ads.
truth_ 5y ago
Not completely unrelated: FB makes killer programming tools loved by most. - PyTorch for Deep Learning overtook TensorFlow in Academia and Competitions and breathing down the neck in Industry despite the latter having significant inertia. - React.js is THE hottest frontend framework now. - GraphQL is highly adopted in the industry. I want FB to exist as long as possible and very successfully as I do not want the tools to go away. I have worked with two of the three, and I love them. It had made me fond of and loyal to FB and FAIR.
- azangru 5y ago
  > React.js is THE hottest frontend framework now. I am not quite sure what you mean by "the hottest". Would you say that jquery was THE hottest frontend library circa 2014, or that Wordpress it THE hottest CMS now? React is hugely popular, no doubt about it. It absolutely was the hottest frontend framework somewhere around 2015. It's more complicated now, I think.
s3r3nity 5y ago
> I'm most sad that so many smart humans are working on this of all the important problems in the world. Depends upon values and perspectives of the problem. Part of me agrees with you, and yet part of me is sympathetic to the goals of connecting the world, encouraging community discussion, and bringing transparency to social issues and reducing the power of governments to control the narratives. - to the point that many governments fear FB and ban it outright. (e.g. Do you think China banned Facebook because of "misinformation?" Or that the ratio of real information to misinformation was a little too much for them to lose control of their propaganda narratives?) Would I say that's more important than sustainable farming / agricultural tech? I don't think so - but to each their own.
baby 5y ago
I don't work there anymore, but I always liked the idea of connecting the world. Sure a service without ads would be great, but you gotta pay the bill and you can't connect the world with a monthly fee. I get that this is HN and the majority thinks "this is bad", but just writing this because there are people like me with a different opinion.

cm2012 5y ago

Solving world hunger is obviously better than ads, but I'd say in the scheme of things tech people spend their time on, ad improvements is middling in importance? It's not the bottom. Good ad targeting means: 1) New small businesses (on Shopify) can reach customers without going through retail gatekeepers. Ask any Shopify seller, nothing beats FB. 2) New challenger SaaS brands can get in front of customers to compete with mammoth corporate brands with worse software (I see this all the time on my job). 3) Without good ad targeting, only bottom hanging fruit advertisers that appeal to the lowest common denominator can afford to spend. Weight loss, teeth whitening, etc. Good ad targeting means a better user experience with ads.

truth_ 5y ago

Not completely unrelated: FB makes killer programming tools loved by most. - PyTorch for Deep Learning overtook TensorFlow in Academia and Competitions and breathing down the neck in Industry despite the latter having significant inertia. - React.js is THE hottest frontend framework now. - GraphQL is highly adopted in the industry. I want FB to exist as long as possible and very successfully as I do not want the tools to go away. I have worked with two of the three, and I love them. It had made me fond of and loyal to FB and FAIR.

azangru 5y ago
> React.js is THE hottest frontend framework now. I am not quite sure what you mean by "the hottest". Would you say that jquery was THE hottest frontend library circa 2014, or that Wordpress it THE hottest CMS now? React is hugely popular, no doubt about it. It absolutely was the hottest frontend framework somewhere around 2015. It's more complicated now, I think.

s3r3nity 5y ago

> I'm most sad that so many smart humans are working on this of all the important problems in the world. Depends upon values and perspectives of the problem. Part of me agrees with you, and yet part of me is sympathetic to the goals of connecting the world, encouraging community discussion, and bringing transparency to social issues and reducing the power of governments to control the narratives. - to the point that many governments fear FB and ban it outright. (e.g. Do you think China banned Facebook because of "misinformation?" Or that the ratio of real information to misinformation was a little too much for them to lose control of their propaganda narratives?) Would I say that's more important than sustainable farming / agricultural tech? I don't think so - but to each their own.

baby 5y ago

I don't work there anymore, but I always liked the idea of connecting the world. Sure a service without ads would be great, but you gotta pay the bill and you can't connect the world with a monthly fee. I get that this is HN and the majority thinks "this is bad", but just writing this because there are people like me with a different opinion.