4 ms·

Whatever happened to facebook in the span of 1 month that is so different than what was happening the past ~10 years? devaluation in multiple dimensions

by jdrc 5y ago

Waterluvian 5y ago
Their pivot to Meta deeply reinforced the writing on the wall. And then their first ever report of a declining user count was the coup de grace. Come to think of it I need to verify that the user count did decline. I only heard that anecdotally.
- rahulgoel 5y ago
  - DAUs decreased -0.05% from 1,930m in Q3 22 to 1,929m in Q4 22. ("sequentially") - DAUs increased +4.5% from 1,845m in Q4 21 to 1,929m in Q4 22. ("year over year") - See pp18: https://s21.q4cdn.com/399680738/files/doc_financials/2021/q4/Q4-2021_Earnings-Presentation-Final.pdf https://s21.q4cdn.com/399680738/files/doc_financials/2021/q4... DAUs are those using FB app only. Metric for those using all apps (Insta, Whatsapp, etc) increased. Btw - there are ~4.66B internet users - and FB has 77% of those log into one of their apps a month (MAPs = 3.59b, pp11).
  - Nextgrid 5y ago
    > FB has 77% of those log into one of their apps a month I would suspect some of those are bots or sockpuppet accounts.
  - swamp40 5y ago
    FB pushes you to Insta via its Reels preview videos right on top when you open the FB app. Instagram Reels is more addicting - full screen videos that just show you more of what you watch most intently, doesn't care that you "liked" a page 5 years ago. Zuck is depreciating FB.
    - skrtskrt 5y ago
      Reels is probably >90% recycled from TikTok, with the TikTok video waterwark still on it. The original content that is there has nothing on TikTok, and the Reels recommendation algorithm is crap - feels like a bunch of if-then statements and you have to make a massive effort to get yourself out of having a particular category in your feed (constantly swipe away as fast as possible if a video of that category comes up; but watch a single video all the way through in that category and it becomes half of your feed) I joined TikTok recently after watching Reels for a few months (I figured it's probably just as good, right and why have yet another app tracking me), and I was blown away by how much better TikTok content & algorithm is. Part of it is the user base. TikTok has truly some cool content for every niche you could imagine, and by and large comments are positive and funny.
  - vagabund 5y ago
    The obvious Zuckerbergian next vertical to exploit when you've run out of people on the planet to addict is to funnel those DAUs toward a dating service to birth future demand.
  - clairity 5y ago
    thank god for the 23% of us who have some good sense!
  - randomsearch 5y ago
    Slight aside, but DAU is such a BS metric. It's relatively easy to boost such numbers - just keep bugging people with a notification here or a sudden important event. And a user is not the same as a person. I've noticed previously I've suddenly been spammed via email by Facebook at the end of the month, presumably to boost their MAU. Much more meaningful would be a distribution of the number of minutes spent by individuals on the mobile app, and details of the click-through rate of adverts. Summary statistics - if chosen properly - of both could avoid abuse. I think at some point Wall St will be called out as having been very naive to pay attention to such stats.
- tootie 5y ago
  I think it's entirely possible and really not even that hard to "fix" Facebook. Zuckerberg seems more intent on pivoting to nonsense like Portal and Metaverse with no actual foundations. It's Zuck getting bored and letting his ego ruin a cash cow that can easily be a force for good in the world if they just tried. I think the only way this ends is with Zuck losing his job as CEO. He tripped up the stairs for 15 years and now thinks he is a visionary.
- eightysixfour 5y ago
  I think the cause and effect here is backwards, the writing was already on the wall. The pivot to Meta was a response to that.
colechristensen 5y ago
Just enough built up negativity that caused a transition in public (and market) sentiment. The markets aren't all that efficient or things like this wouldn't happen. Markets underestimated obvious risks and those risks reached high enough levels that there's a bit of a run to be the first out the door.
- XorNot 5y ago
  Markets also don't play the company, they play the other participants: even if you thought Facebook was overvalued, you're still incentivised to wait till everyone else has figured this out.
bostonsre 5y ago
Did it get bad enough that they actually had to finally tell the truth to investors?
YarickR2 5y ago
Tax optimizations by top shareholders
PeterisP 5y ago
Facebook's earlier valuation was reasonable only with an assumption that it will reasonably rapidly grow much, much larger than it is now. The market now started to believe that its long-term growth is going to be slower and more limited (i.e. disbelieving the Meta assertion that they're going to unlock humongous growth through metaverse), so that brings a huge adjustment down, closer to numbers justified by their current revenue.
- woodpanel 5y ago
  I echo OPs coup de grace statements. The underpinning failure of FB is indicated by - ad-revenue (97% of FB's revenue) has an uncertain growth-perspective (as seen with the iOS privacy updates) - Metaverse and VR in general (highlight Zuck's desperate, decade-long search for a new tech-moat) is a fad that is not going mainstream anytime soon - inability to lead libra into success All of these failures may seem unconnected but what ties them together is a deep underlying distrust of the company itself by the public

Whatever happened to facebook in the span of 1 month that is so different than what was happening the past ~10 years? devaluation in multiple dimensions

by jdrc 5y ago

Whatever happened to facebook in the span of 1 month that is so different than what was happening the past ~10 years? devaluation in multiple dimensions

Waterluvian 5y ago

Their pivot to Meta deeply reinforced the writing on the wall. And then their first ever report of a declining user count was the coup de grace. Come to think of it I need to verify that the user count did decline. I only heard that anecdotally.

rahulgoel 5y ago
- DAUs decreased -0.05% from 1,930m in Q3 22 to 1,929m in Q4 22. ("sequentially") - DAUs increased +4.5% from 1,845m in Q4 21 to 1,929m in Q4 22. ("year over year") - See pp18: https://s21.q4cdn.com/399680738/files/doc_financials/2021/q4/Q4-2021_Earnings-Presentation-Final.pdf https://s21.q4cdn.com/399680738/files/doc_financials/2021/q4... DAUs are those using FB app only. Metric for those using all apps (Insta, Whatsapp, etc) increased. Btw - there are ~4.66B internet users - and FB has 77% of those log into one of their apps a month (MAPs = 3.59b, pp11).
- Nextgrid 5y ago
  > FB has 77% of those log into one of their apps a month I would suspect some of those are bots or sockpuppet accounts.
- swamp40 5y ago
  FB pushes you to Insta via its Reels preview videos right on top when you open the FB app. Instagram Reels is more addicting - full screen videos that just show you more of what you watch most intently, doesn't care that you "liked" a page 5 years ago. Zuck is depreciating FB.
  - skrtskrt 5y ago
    Reels is probably >90% recycled from TikTok, with the TikTok video waterwark still on it. The original content that is there has nothing on TikTok, and the Reels recommendation algorithm is crap - feels like a bunch of if-then statements and you have to make a massive effort to get yourself out of having a particular category in your feed (constantly swipe away as fast as possible if a video of that category comes up; but watch a single video all the way through in that category and it becomes half of your feed) I joined TikTok recently after watching Reels for a few months (I figured it's probably just as good, right and why have yet another app tracking me), and I was blown away by how much better TikTok content & algorithm is. Part of it is the user base. TikTok has truly some cool content for every niche you could imagine, and by and large comments are positive and funny.
- vagabund 5y ago
  The obvious Zuckerbergian next vertical to exploit when you've run out of people on the planet to addict is to funnel those DAUs toward a dating service to birth future demand.
- clairity 5y ago
  thank god for the 23% of us who have some good sense!
- randomsearch 5y ago
  Slight aside, but DAU is such a BS metric. It's relatively easy to boost such numbers - just keep bugging people with a notification here or a sudden important event. And a user is not the same as a person. I've noticed previously I've suddenly been spammed via email by Facebook at the end of the month, presumably to boost their MAU. Much more meaningful would be a distribution of the number of minutes spent by individuals on the mobile app, and details of the click-through rate of adverts. Summary statistics - if chosen properly - of both could avoid abuse. I think at some point Wall St will be called out as having been very naive to pay attention to such stats.
tootie 5y ago
I think it's entirely possible and really not even that hard to "fix" Facebook. Zuckerberg seems more intent on pivoting to nonsense like Portal and Metaverse with no actual foundations. It's Zuck getting bored and letting his ego ruin a cash cow that can easily be a force for good in the world if they just tried. I think the only way this ends is with Zuck losing his job as CEO. He tripped up the stairs for 15 years and now thinks he is a visionary.
eightysixfour 5y ago
I think the cause and effect here is backwards, the writing was already on the wall. The pivot to Meta was a response to that.

colechristensen 5y ago

Just enough built up negativity that caused a transition in public (and market) sentiment. The markets aren't all that efficient or things like this wouldn't happen. Markets underestimated obvious risks and those risks reached high enough levels that there's a bit of a run to be the first out the door.

XorNot 5y ago
Markets also don't play the company, they play the other participants: even if you thought Facebook was overvalued, you're still incentivised to wait till everyone else has figured this out.

bostonsre 5y ago

Did it get bad enough that they actually had to finally tell the truth to investors?

YarickR2 5y ago

Tax optimizations by top shareholders

PeterisP 5y ago

Facebook's earlier valuation was reasonable only with an assumption that it will reasonably rapidly grow much, much larger than it is now. The market now started to believe that its long-term growth is going to be slower and more limited (i.e. disbelieving the Meta assertion that they're going to unlock humongous growth through metaverse), so that brings a huge adjustment down, closer to numbers justified by their current revenue.

woodpanel 5y ago
I echo OPs coup de grace statements. The underpinning failure of FB is indicated by - ad-revenue (97% of FB's revenue) has an uncertain growth-perspective (as seen with the iOS privacy updates) - Metaverse and VR in general (highlight Zuck's desperate, decade-long search for a new tech-moat) is a fad that is not going mainstream anytime soon - inability to lead libra into success All of these failures may seem unconnected but what ties them together is a deep underlying distrust of the company itself by the public