3 ms·

You're right. Their stock was going to tank eventually because of increasing privacy regulations.

toomuchtodo 5y ago
I hope someone at Apple’s financial team made the suggestion to trade derivatives on Meta to reap the benefits of their actions on Meta stock price.
- prvc 5y ago
  Is that legal?
  - danielvaughn 5y ago
    This is an interesting question. I'm not an expert but it doesn't sound like it would be illegal.
  - toomuchtodo 5y ago
    Not legal advice: Apple made its intentions public. It was the market that mispriced the impact.
    - detaro 5y ago
      Apple likely has access to non-public statistics actually showing the impact.
      - toomuchtodo 5y ago
        Are they obligated to not trade on their own research and information? And it’s not Apple stock, it’s Meta’s. Great topic for a Matt Levine Money Stuff segment on his laws of insider trading series. https://github.com/0xNF/lawsofinsidertrading.com https://github.com/0xNF/lawsofinsidertrading.com
        detaro 5y ago
        Fair point, it's a good question if they have an obligation to not use the customer information they gather or not.
- joezydeco 5y ago
  ATT was public knowledge for months before the Meta earnings report.
Nextgrid 5y ago
The real problem is that the business relies on abusing their users - an obvious conflict of interest. Over time, either the users will evolve to make the abuse less effective (equivalent of "banner blindness" of early web advertising), use technical countermeasures (ad-blocking, alternative clients, etc) or use their political power to vote for regulations that will make outlaw said abuse. A mix of all of these is currently happening. The only areas where this kind of adversarial relationship will work is if the adversary has no choice - such as military/defense or law enforcement for example (military enemies can't vote, suspected & convicted criminals can but the feedback loop is so long that it's not going to have effects any time soon). But if the adversary has a free choice, over time they will exercise that choice which will reduce (and eventually eliminate) the profitability of abusing them. I don't see this - or any other business built primarily on advertising and "growth & engagement" - as a winning long-term strategy.
- quickthrowman 5y ago
  > The real problem is that the business relies on abusing their users - an obvious conflict of interest. This has been my thesis re: FB for a long time now. Using fear, hate, sex, etc to manipulate higher engagement from users isn’t sustainable. It’s abusive and eventually people will move on.

I hope someone at Apple’s financial team made the suggestion to trade derivatives on Meta to reap the benefits of their actions on Meta stock price.

prvc 5y ago
Is that legal?
- danielvaughn 5y ago
  This is an interesting question. I'm not an expert but it doesn't sound like it would be illegal.
- toomuchtodo 5y ago
  Not legal advice: Apple made its intentions public. It was the market that mispriced the impact.
  - detaro 5y ago
    Apple likely has access to non-public statistics actually showing the impact.
    - toomuchtodo 5y ago
      Are they obligated to not trade on their own research and information? And it’s not Apple stock, it’s Meta’s. Great topic for a Matt Levine Money Stuff segment on his laws of insider trading series. https://github.com/0xNF/lawsofinsidertrading.com https://github.com/0xNF/lawsofinsidertrading.com
      - detaro 5y ago
        Fair point, it's a good question if they have an obligation to not use the customer information they gather or not.
joezydeco 5y ago
ATT was public knowledge for months before the Meta earnings report.

Nextgrid 5y ago

The real problem is that the business relies on abusing their users - an obvious conflict of interest. Over time, either the users will evolve to make the abuse less effective (equivalent of "banner blindness" of early web advertising), use technical countermeasures (ad-blocking, alternative clients, etc) or use their political power to vote for regulations that will make outlaw said abuse. A mix of all of these is currently happening. The only areas where this kind of adversarial relationship will work is if the adversary has no choice - such as military/defense or law enforcement for example (military enemies can't vote, suspected & convicted criminals can but the feedback loop is so long that it's not going to have effects any time soon). But if the adversary has a free choice, over time they will exercise that choice which will reduce (and eventually eliminate) the profitability of abusing them. I don't see this - or any other business built primarily on advertising and "growth & engagement" - as a winning long-term strategy.

quickthrowman 5y ago
> The real problem is that the business relies on abusing their users - an obvious conflict of interest. This has been my thesis re: FB for a long time now. Using fear, hate, sex, etc to manipulate higher engagement from users isn’t sustainable. It’s abusive and eventually people will move on.