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Interesting that Apple in April rolled out privacy prompts[1] that Facebook complained about (and tried to persuade public opinion with a full-page ad in Decemb

by jasode 5y ago

Interesting that Apple in April rolled out privacy prompts[1] that Facebook complained about (and tried to persuade public opinion with a full-page ad in December 2020) ... and yet it didn't seem to slow down Facebook's numbers by much: 2021-09 $28.2b revenue, $9.1b income +17% 2020-09 $21.2b revenue, $7.8b income Possibilities: - ads shown to iPhone FB users smaller piece of revenue pie than Android FB users - advertisers keep spending the same amount (or more) even though they have less info because of less tracking of Apple users to correlate with dollars spent People keep saying FB is in trouble but it doesn't matter if it's the leaked research about emotional manipulation, or the Cambridge Analytica scandal, or extra Apple privacy features. The revenue keeps coming in and growing. Who thinks all of today's press about the recent whistleblowers will have any effect on next year's numbers? [1] 96% of iOS users opt out of app tracking: https://www.google.com/search?q=facebook+apple+opt-in+privacy+users+96+percent https://www.google.com/search?q=facebook+apple+opt-in+privac...

ojbyrne 5y ago
You have your dates transposed.
crate_barre 5y ago
Insane right? This is behemoth, they would need a near calamity to stop printing money.
gonehome 5y ago
FB is the least likely to be hurt by Apple's move since they have their own massive number of users across multiple properties and lots of tracking on the web. If anything they might benefit by smaller players that have less access getting hurt more by Apple. I'm not personally a fan of FB (mostly due to the ad based business model), but today's negative press will have zero affect on them - mostly because (imo) it's bullshit. A lot of the issues FB deals with are social problems at scale. It's insane that any one company is expected to successfully moderate three billion people, they're doing the best they can with impossible constraints. If anything unseats them it'll be a technical shift that moves things to protocols 'web3'. Zuckerberg is an extremely good CEO though so I suspect he's already planning for this potential and FB's upcoming name change and structure is probably a way to accommodate this (in addition to having Oculus be a more separate entity for VR/AR and the next platform).
- colinmhayes 5y ago
  I don't think giving some people special privileges that allows them to post revenge porn which ruins people's lives is the best they can do. I don't think allowing ads that they know are contributing to sex slavery is the best they can do. I definitely don't think allowing governments to organize genocide on their platform is the best they can do. Their constraints are not impossible. They've just got to realize that their algorithm to detect rule breaking doesn't work and they need to hire minimum 100,000 moderators.
  - whymauri 5y ago
    One just has to read the leaks of internal employee messages to realize that FB is clearly not doing the best they can do. Literally by admission of their own employees. https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/10/facebook-papers-democracy-election-zuckerberg/620478/ https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/10/facebook-p...
  - aierou 5y ago
    Your own examples cover a broad range of social and political issues that even the savviest state governments struggle to navigate. How could anyone possibly moderate for such delicate and complex expectations? 100,000 moderators? Perhaps our demands for censorship are what is unreasonable.
    - colinmhayes 5y ago
      Facebook can easily afford 100,000 moderators. But that's not even the problem. Facebook knew they were causing the genocide in Myanmar. They knew they were contributing to sex slavery in Ethiopia. They decided not to solve those problems because they were concerned about the effect it would have on engagement. If they don't want to do what it takes to make their platform safe they should expect legal intervention.
  - slownews45 5y ago
    Is govt doing a good job with this stuff off of facebook? I know plenty of folks who really had trouble getting even govt action on all sorts of harm (revenge porn / various internet scams). I really hope at least govt can deliver on this stuff reliably - the risk is folks will lose faith in govt rather than these big companies (google / apple / whatsapp / instagram etc).
alfalfasprout 5y ago
The newly updated DOJ complaint alleges collusion w/ google to deanonymize users to work around Apple's privacy changes...
- SliderUp 5y ago
  It's shitty. Doesn't seem to be illegal though?
  - nielsbot 5y ago
    Maybe forbidden by Apple's TOS?
long_time_gone 5y ago
>> 2020-09 $21.2b revenue, $7.8b income >> 2021-09 $28.2b revenue, $9.1b income +17% Let's not overlook the 5.4% inflation rate during this time period.
ed_elliott_asc 5y ago
FB wasn’t affected as every single user said “ok, don’t show this again” or some version of that.
cm2012 5y ago
1) Its the latter, iPhone remains bigger than Android in fb ad spend. 2) The whistle-blower stuff will have no effect at all on FBs numbers. Opinions on FB are set at this point.
acchow 5y ago
> didn't seem to slow down Facebook's numbers by much: I guess it depends on what you mean by "much". YoY 3Q advertising revenue growth was: - 2019: 28% - 2020: 22% - 2021: 17% Was it going to trend downward to 17% without the iOS change? Who knows.
- jsnell 5y ago
  Where are you getting 17% from? The linked financial highlights show 33% YoY revenue growth for advertising.
  - statguy 5y ago
    I believe that is the income growth rate, not the revenue growth rate.
- statguy 5y ago
  That is the income (profit) growth rate.
urthor 5y ago
It's all about revenue per transaction. Facebook (and Google's) advertising platform and ability to onboard new customers is their core business model. I urge any front end developer, UX specialist, or product designer, to closely study the workflow of https://www.facebook.com/business/ads https://www.facebook.com/business/ads. The entire Facebook news feed is a side hustle.
tdsamardzhiev 5y ago
> advertisers keep spending the same amount (or more) even though they have less info because of less tracking of Apple users to correlate with dollars spent Plot twist: You are the consumer, and ads are the product. Most of the data they got on you is garbage, and the algorithms they run on it have an unfalsifiable claim of usefulness.
rlo56 5y ago
Third possibility - FB fudges numbers.
cblconfederate 5y ago
> advertisers keep spending the same amount Historically, advertising spend has been ~constant as % of GDP. It will keep being so even if they have to go back to billboards. At this point the game is how to dazzle advertisers with dashboards and graphs.

by jasode 5y ago

ojbyrne 5y ago

You have your dates transposed.

crate_barre 5y ago

Insane right? This is behemoth, they would need a near calamity to stop printing money.

gonehome 5y ago

FB is the least likely to be hurt by Apple's move since they have their own massive number of users across multiple properties and lots of tracking on the web. If anything they might benefit by smaller players that have less access getting hurt more by Apple. I'm not personally a fan of FB (mostly due to the ad based business model), but today's negative press will have zero affect on them - mostly because (imo) it's bullshit. A lot of the issues FB deals with are social problems at scale. It's insane that any one company is expected to successfully moderate three billion people, they're doing the best they can with impossible constraints. If anything unseats them it'll be a technical shift that moves things to protocols 'web3'. Zuckerberg is an extremely good CEO though so I suspect he's already planning for this potential and FB's upcoming name change and structure is probably a way to accommodate this (in addition to having Oculus be a more separate entity for VR/AR and the next platform).

colinmhayes 5y ago
I don't think giving some people special privileges that allows them to post revenge porn which ruins people's lives is the best they can do. I don't think allowing ads that they know are contributing to sex slavery is the best they can do. I definitely don't think allowing governments to organize genocide on their platform is the best they can do. Their constraints are not impossible. They've just got to realize that their algorithm to detect rule breaking doesn't work and they need to hire minimum 100,000 moderators.
- whymauri 5y ago
  One just has to read the leaks of internal employee messages to realize that FB is clearly not doing the best they can do. Literally by admission of their own employees. https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/10/facebook-papers-democracy-election-zuckerberg/620478/ https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/10/facebook-p...
- aierou 5y ago
  Your own examples cover a broad range of social and political issues that even the savviest state governments struggle to navigate. How could anyone possibly moderate for such delicate and complex expectations? 100,000 moderators? Perhaps our demands for censorship are what is unreasonable.
  - colinmhayes 5y ago
    Facebook can easily afford 100,000 moderators. But that's not even the problem. Facebook knew they were causing the genocide in Myanmar. They knew they were contributing to sex slavery in Ethiopia. They decided not to solve those problems because they were concerned about the effect it would have on engagement. If they don't want to do what it takes to make their platform safe they should expect legal intervention.
- slownews45 5y ago
  Is govt doing a good job with this stuff off of facebook? I know plenty of folks who really had trouble getting even govt action on all sorts of harm (revenge porn / various internet scams). I really hope at least govt can deliver on this stuff reliably - the risk is folks will lose faith in govt rather than these big companies (google / apple / whatsapp / instagram etc).

alfalfasprout 5y ago

The newly updated DOJ complaint alleges collusion w/ google to deanonymize users to work around Apple's privacy changes...

SliderUp 5y ago
It's shitty. Doesn't seem to be illegal though?
- nielsbot 5y ago
  Maybe forbidden by Apple's TOS?

long_time_gone 5y ago

>> 2020-09 $21.2b revenue, $7.8b income >> 2021-09 $28.2b revenue, $9.1b income +17% Let's not overlook the 5.4% inflation rate during this time period.

ed_elliott_asc 5y ago

FB wasn’t affected as every single user said “ok, don’t show this again” or some version of that.

cm2012 5y ago

1) Its the latter, iPhone remains bigger than Android in fb ad spend. 2) The whistle-blower stuff will have no effect at all on FBs numbers. Opinions on FB are set at this point.

acchow 5y ago

> didn't seem to slow down Facebook's numbers by much: I guess it depends on what you mean by "much". YoY 3Q advertising revenue growth was: - 2019: 28% - 2020: 22% - 2021: 17% Was it going to trend downward to 17% without the iOS change? Who knows.

jsnell 5y ago
Where are you getting 17% from? The linked financial highlights show 33% YoY revenue growth for advertising.
- statguy 5y ago
  I believe that is the income growth rate, not the revenue growth rate.
statguy 5y ago
That is the income (profit) growth rate.

urthor 5y ago

It's all about revenue per transaction. Facebook (and Google's) advertising platform and ability to onboard new customers is their core business model. I urge any front end developer, UX specialist, or product designer, to closely study the workflow of https://www.facebook.com/business/ads https://www.facebook.com/business/ads. The entire Facebook news feed is a side hustle.

tdsamardzhiev 5y ago

> advertisers keep spending the same amount (or more) even though they have less info because of less tracking of Apple users to correlate with dollars spent Plot twist: You are the consumer, and ads are the product. Most of the data they got on you is garbage, and the algorithms they run on it have an unfalsifiable claim of usefulness.

rlo56 5y ago

Third possibility - FB fudges numbers.

cblconfederate 5y ago

> advertisers keep spending the same amount Historically, advertising spend has been ~constant as % of GDP. It will keep being so even if they have to go back to billboards. At this point the game is how to dazzle advertisers with dashboards and graphs.