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I suggest that these newsarticles be rewritten like this: „Facebook fined 8 hours of revenue for breaching order in Giphy takeover investigation“

acatton 5y ago
I've never understood why people focus so much on revenue. "My company has a 2M$ ARR." All right, good for you, but if you're spending 2.5M$ per year to run your company, it looks like a crappy business to me... I would suggest something more like "Facebook fined 15 hours of profit for breaching order in Giphy takeover investigation"
- yunohn 5y ago
  On the contrary, I don’t understand why you’re focusing on profit. It’s quite public knowledge that most companies avail accounting practices to lower profit over revenue. In fact, it’s not even a trick - investing profits back into your business is common sense.
  - Sebb767 5y ago
    But it's also common knowledge that there are quite a few low-margin businesses, which have insane revenue, but comparatively very low profit - general stores, for example. Think of someone living in SF and someone living somewhere in the central US in a cheap region, both earning 100k$. If you fine both of them 10k$, the latter one probably won't have a big problem, since the living costs are rather low. Someone in SF, though, will spent most of their income on rent, so this fine will hit them hard. Calling the fine 10% of their income will totally misrepresent the impact.
    - ViViDboarder 5y ago
      > But it's also common knowledge that there are quite a few low-margin businesses, which have insane revenue, but comparatively very low profit - general stores, for example. Sure. But Facebook isn’t one of those.
      - Sebb767 5y ago
        Which is pretty irrelevant - profit and revenue are only loosely correlated. My point is that simply stating the revenue percentage does hardly tell anything about the actual impact.
        wdb 5y ago
        You have the fine them were it hurts to make it more effectual so they won't do similar things anymore. There are also say why do they only pick on American companies but that's mostly because of SV is in the US.
        ViViDboarder 5y ago
        It can be relevant when talking about a company like Facebook while not relevant to others.
- BiteCode_dev 5y ago
  Because in order to avoid paying taxes, a lot of companies balance books so that no profit emerges.
  - robertlagrant 5y ago
    Yes, by paying for things and people. Because that's more valuable than paying taxes. However, that only works if one's willing to forego paying shareholders dividends (which are paid out of net). Lots of people are not willing to do that.
pessimizer 5y ago
Media outlets have a severe allergy to placing numbers in context, no matter who begs them to. They just want the number to look big. > For decades I have harangued reporters about writing down really big numbers, most often budget numbers, without providing any context that would make them meaningful for their audience. Even though leading news outlets, like the New York Times (NYT), Washington Post (WaPo), and National Public Radio (NPR), have well-educated audiences, most readers/listeners have no idea what $250 billion, or some other huge sum, over the next decade means. (Often the time period over which money will be spent is not even specified in a piece – it does matter.) https://cepr.net/the-new-york-times-big-deficit-numbers/ https://cepr.net/the-new-york-times-big-deficit-numbers/ The Times Is Working on Ways to Make Numbers-Based Stories Clearer for Readers By Margaret Sullivan - October 18, 2013 2:46 pm https://publiceditor.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/10/18/the-times-is-working-on-ways-to-make-numbers-based-stories-clearer-for-readers/?hp&_r=0 https://publiceditor.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/10/18/the-times-...
- woliveirajr 5y ago
  Remembers me this extension: https://dictionaryofnumbers.com/ https://dictionaryofnumbers.com/ (for Chrome, don't know about other browsers). Not sure it would have give the correct context (i.e., Facebook value) but would give swome context.
- bryanrasmussen 5y ago
  > They just want the number to look big. yes but on the other hand if they combined it with the hours of revenue you would have a big number that looks impressive being dwarfed by the realization of how big and scary that means Facebook is.
- Throwawayaerlei 5y ago
  Media outlets have a severe allergy to placing numbers in context, no matter who begs them to. Maybe they're lazy? And no matter how "well-educated" their audiences are, a very large fraction of them and their audiences are innumerate, it's hard to get across the message you desire.
JumpCrisscross 5y ago
> Facebook fined 8 hours of revenue for breaching order in Giphy takeover investigation This juxtaposes a local fine on a subsidiary to a conglomerate's global revenue. That's fine. It's revealing, in some ways. But it's more clickbait than the actual fine.
stevespang 5y ago
EXACTLY. Really rip Zuckerberg a new orifice by fining him at least a $$$$ Billion. Lot's of us want to watch him squirm.

acatton 5y ago

I've never understood why people focus so much on revenue. "My company has a 2M$ ARR." All right, good for you, but if you're spending 2.5M$ per year to run your company, it looks like a crappy business to me... I would suggest something more like "Facebook fined 15 hours of profit for breaching order in Giphy takeover investigation"

yunohn 5y ago
On the contrary, I don’t understand why you’re focusing on profit. It’s quite public knowledge that most companies avail accounting practices to lower profit over revenue. In fact, it’s not even a trick - investing profits back into your business is common sense.
- Sebb767 5y ago
  But it's also common knowledge that there are quite a few low-margin businesses, which have insane revenue, but comparatively very low profit - general stores, for example. Think of someone living in SF and someone living somewhere in the central US in a cheap region, both earning 100k$. If you fine both of them 10k$, the latter one probably won't have a big problem, since the living costs are rather low. Someone in SF, though, will spent most of their income on rent, so this fine will hit them hard. Calling the fine 10% of their income will totally misrepresent the impact.
  - ViViDboarder 5y ago
    > But it's also common knowledge that there are quite a few low-margin businesses, which have insane revenue, but comparatively very low profit - general stores, for example. Sure. But Facebook isn’t one of those.
    - Sebb767 5y ago
      Which is pretty irrelevant - profit and revenue are only loosely correlated. My point is that simply stating the revenue percentage does hardly tell anything about the actual impact.
      - wdb 5y ago
        You have the fine them were it hurts to make it more effectual so they won't do similar things anymore. There are also say why do they only pick on American companies but that's mostly because of SV is in the US.
      - ViViDboarder 5y ago
        It can be relevant when talking about a company like Facebook while not relevant to others.
BiteCode_dev 5y ago
Because in order to avoid paying taxes, a lot of companies balance books so that no profit emerges.
- robertlagrant 5y ago
  Yes, by paying for things and people. Because that's more valuable than paying taxes. However, that only works if one's willing to forego paying shareholders dividends (which are paid out of net). Lots of people are not willing to do that.

pessimizer 5y ago

Media outlets have a severe allergy to placing numbers in context, no matter who begs them to. They just want the number to look big. > For decades I have harangued reporters about writing down really big numbers, most often budget numbers, without providing any context that would make them meaningful for their audience. Even though leading news outlets, like the New York Times (NYT), Washington Post (WaPo), and National Public Radio (NPR), have well-educated audiences, most readers/listeners have no idea what $250 billion, or some other huge sum, over the next decade means. (Often the time period over which money will be spent is not even specified in a piece – it does matter.) https://cepr.net/the-new-york-times-big-deficit-numbers/ https://cepr.net/the-new-york-times-big-deficit-numbers/ The Times Is Working on Ways to Make Numbers-Based Stories Clearer for Readers By Margaret Sullivan - October 18, 2013 2:46 pm https://publiceditor.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/10/18/the-times-is-working-on-ways-to-make-numbers-based-stories-clearer-for-readers/?hp&_r=0 https://publiceditor.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/10/18/the-times-...

woliveirajr 5y ago
Remembers me this extension: https://dictionaryofnumbers.com/ https://dictionaryofnumbers.com/ (for Chrome, don't know about other browsers). Not sure it would have give the correct context (i.e., Facebook value) but would give swome context.
bryanrasmussen 5y ago
> They just want the number to look big. yes but on the other hand if they combined it with the hours of revenue you would have a big number that looks impressive being dwarfed by the realization of how big and scary that means Facebook is.
Throwawayaerlei 5y ago
Media outlets have a severe allergy to placing numbers in context, no matter who begs them to. Maybe they're lazy? And no matter how "well-educated" their audiences are, a very large fraction of them and their audiences are innumerate, it's hard to get across the message you desire.

JumpCrisscross 5y ago

> Facebook fined 8 hours of revenue for breaching order in Giphy takeover investigation This juxtaposes a local fine on a subsidiary to a conglomerate's global revenue. That's fine. It's revealing, in some ways. But it's more clickbait than the actual fine.

stevespang 5y ago

EXACTLY. Really rip Zuckerberg a new orifice by fining him at least a $$$$ Billion. Lot's of us want to watch him squirm.