7 ms·

Meta in Free Fall: Users Leaving, Revenue Down, Stock Keeps Falling

55 points by dxs 4y ago

rufius 4y ago
> CNBC spoke to a former advertising executive who said that even though TikTok is a Chinese-owned business, it has a recruiting edge over Meta because it is viewed as having less of a “moral downside.” I actually view the moral downside with TikTok as at least as bad as Meta. The PRC isn’t exactly some bastion of freedom and excellence. Neither is the US, but you’re fooling yourself if you think a highly influential company headquartered in China isn’t being manipulated by the CCP.
- superchroma 4y ago
  Amusingly, bytedance does military contracts in my country.
  - gruez 4y ago
    by "military contracts" do you mean selling some sort of non-military SaaS to the military (eg. office 365), or actually selling arms or arms related software?
    - nonrandomstring 4y ago
      Here's the trust you can put in Meta to deal fairly with military personnel [1]. If that's how they deal with those who've served, imagine the contempt they have for the service. [1] https://www.militarytimes.com/news/2022/09/28/meta-ordered-to-pay-175m-after-copying-green-beret-veterans-tech/ https://www.militarytimes.com/news/2022/09/28/meta-ordered-t...
      - ahahahahah 4y ago
        Oh, we're supporting patent trolls now?
        nonrandomstring 4y ago
        It's a British thing; I'll generally pick the underdog, even if both fighters are assholes.
    - superchroma 4y ago
      Not entirely sure. A friend of mine works for them and they're doing some sort of simulation stuff for our national navy.
- bovermyer 4y ago
  TikTok and Meta are both abominable organizations, but for different reasons. I'm curious what people who work for them think of their employer.
- varunprasad 4y ago
  Even completely setting aside the political aspects, how does TikTok have less of a moral downside as a product? At least Facebook and Instagram can genuinely claim to be built on the idea of helping people build relationships. As far as I understand it, TikTok completely eliminates the friend and family network. It's simply providing mind numbing bite size entertainment. It's genius is removing everything that might distract someone from scrolling mindlessly.
  - RobotToaster 4y ago
    One could argue that the lack of false pretence at least makes them (slightly) more honest.
- oogali 4y ago
  I view this quote as less about morals and more about Meta's reputation and failing recruiting efficiency. Yes, the target candidates who buy into this are fooling themselves but only because Meta's recruiting techniques no longer work in the current climate.
- krolden 4y ago
  It has nothing to do with morals. People use tiktok because their attention spans can only handle 30 second videos.
- rvz 4y ago
  So essentially TikTok is no better and is just as bad as Meta if not more worse then? (There really is no fundamental difference) The media really have new ways of spinning the cauldron and have an extremely short attention span on what is going on with TikTok, don't they?
- angryasian 4y ago
  Anyone that thinks this fails to understand the impact Facebook has had on the division and polarization of people through the spread of mis/disinformation and what companies like Cambridge Analytica has been able to accomplish through the Facebook platform. We can say this is true about youtube, twitter and probably someday tiktok, but at least for now Facebook / Meta is absolutely the worst as they not only sold/leaked the PII but they've also been actively encouraging all of this.
uncletaco 4y ago
Good.
- spicybright 4y ago
  Yes, but now we have to worry about what kind of horrible things they'll do with our data as they flail to maintain their balance on the way down. They already get hit with constant legal battles and fines regularly when on their "best behavior".
dominotw 4y ago
As a software developer this makes me sad. META set a new standard for developer compensation. Hope downfall of SNAP, META doesn't cause developer comps to roll back to early 2010s level.
- z9znz 4y ago
  I'm a big fan of increasing developer compensation, but if that compensation is based on inflated and unsustainable business models/goals, then it's a false promise.
  - fullshark 4y ago
    Meta is certainly not the first tech company I'd accuse of having an unsustainable business model, they actually built a money printing machine and aren't getting devs on illusory future revenue streams.
- joshstrange 4y ago
  I'll admit I don't know a ton about how much this would have affected it but could it be because FB/Meta was not part of the salary fixing ring (Apple, Google, Intel, and Adobe) so they were paying "market" rates vs the fixed ones.
awb 4y ago
I wonder if Zuck will leave the company soon. Watching him rent out the UFC event on Saturday night and cheering while his wife sat by him horrified just looked like he’s slowly starting to burst the bubble he’s been living in. Not judging the move at all, as I think many people change in their middle age adult lives. But just looked to me like a departure from the early days of Zuck.
- realce 4y ago
  Is THAT why there was nobody else there? I was curious.
- fred_is_fred 4y ago
  Going from goofy nerd to jacked-up middle-aged billionaire is a well-trodden path in tech.
  - i67vw3 4y ago
    Bezos right now looks straight up as a mafia boss. In the 90's videos he looks like a typical nerd (video can be seen on 90 minutes america). Right now, he looks like a mafia boss with his bald/shaved head and the gang member jacket (from the photos I have seen).
meltyness 4y ago
It's a shame the returns on this is so sputtering and confusing. VR continues to show a great deal of promise as an excellent tool for supporting HCI. Using my Quest 2 has been an absolute pleasure, and it seems an obvious choice over producing and transporting gargantuan televisions, creating separate rooms to support projectors, trying to figure out how to produce holograms, as a natural stop-off before BCI is viable, providing widespread affordable and comfortable living situations, and any other competing technology I can think of
z9znz 4y ago
Meta just has nothing to offer. In fact, the only truly useful thing it provides is Whatsapp (which it acquired primarily to gain users); and there are good alternatives to Whatsapp, so it's an "also". The actual human connection features of Facebook turned out to be a novelty as humans discovered that they don't really do enough interesting things often; so keeping up with one's friends doesn't require a live feed, but rather a weekly or monthly note will do. So once the friend status stuff became so blasé, and users were spending less attention on FB, FB amped up the suggested content. Now, as has been illustrated on some HN posts, the vast majority of what one sees on FB is just suggested content. Instagram is the same. People just aren't interesting enough to keep an entire platform alive. Sure, the influencers and posers will provide a lot of content, but within any given category there are hundreds of similar (and quickly boring) options. The grand business model of attracting people to a platform and then showing them lots of ads just cannot survive long term without real content; and there's less and less real content each year. Meta is so large and has so much marketshare already that no pivot could save them. Their only chance is to merge with a content company like Netflix (where the content machine is arguably already oversaturating the channels and leaving viewers bored despite many new series each year). In 10 years, Meta is likely to be just another AOL.
- thraxil 4y ago
  > So once the friend status stuff became so blasé, and users were spending less attention on FB, FB amped up the suggested content. Now, as has been illustrated on some HN posts, the vast majority of what one sees on FB is just suggested content. > > Instagram is the same. People just aren't interesting enough to keep an entire platform alive. Sure, the influencers and posers will provide a lot of content, but within any given category there are hundreds of similar (and quickly boring) options. The irony (for me, at least) is that it was Meta's attempts to drive more engagement that pushed me away from both platforms. When Facebook was just the actual activity of my friends, I enjoyed it. Once they started messing with things and it became more about "suggested content" than a useful way to keep in touch with my friends, I realized how much of a time waste it was and deleted my account. I haven't deleted my Instagram account yet, but it seems to be inevitable as Instagram turns more and more into a low-rent TikTok where the feed has been taken over by content suggested by the algorithm rather than just the photos posted by my contacts (and FWIW, I don't follow any "influencers", only people that I actually know or artists whose work I enjoy). I may be an outlier, but to me every "improvement" that they've made to try to increase the amount of content and engagement has made it less attractive because it feels less genuine and more generic. On the other side of it, it also makes me less likely to bother posting content because I know that the algorithm won't be showing it to anyone or will be prioritizing it lower than the stuff that's been carefully constructed to be "engaging".
rodolphoarruda 4y ago
Online marketing, its processes and practices, need to be revisited. I know some small companies that don't even have public websites, just "pages" within Fb/Insta, so their entire marketing operation relies on Meta's policies of the day.
lbriner 4y ago
Not surprisng that companies with extreme levels of cash will eventually fall off a cliff. At least Musk starts up other companies since 10 medium sized companies are potentially more sustainable and useful than one enormous one. As soon as you are that rich, you can afford to waste unimaginable amounts of money on concepts or ideas - even terrible ones, when smaller companies would be forced to prove the market before they spent their much smaller budgets.
Karawebnetwork 4y ago
This is no surprise to me, as a manager of several large groups and pages. There is no real moderation, raids are commonplace and while trolls are able to bypass the moderation algorithm to write their post, real users regularly get banned for responding to them harshly. Public groups are simply a chore, anyone can raid with laughing reactions and, depending on the setting, leave comments. The moderation and pending membership queue of a public group that has one or two controversial viral posts becomes immediately unusable. Fake accounts are rampant and users you ban as a community moderator always come back with a similar name accompanied by "II", "III", "IV"... when you report them as fake accounts, the algorithm responds that there is no problem. When you report oblivious trolls and hate speech (with only one letter changed, think n-word but with a w, etc.), the algorithm responds that there is no problem with the message. These days, Facebook is simply not safe for most organic uses other than corporate pages and maybe the occasional meme pages. But please, don't read the comments if you value your wellbeing.
- floor2 4y ago
  Meanwhile, I can't create an account without giving a phone number. I tried to create a Twitter account, but was either instantly banned the moment I completed the sign-up form (using an incognito window) or was blocked from completing the form due to mandatory phone number. It's even worse if you try to use a VPN, TOR or any other privacy-protecting browser plugins to block tracking. Somehow we've gotten the worst of both worlds, where real users are blocked but spammers can get in.
  - t0bia_s 4y ago
    My friend got 24h ban after trying login to his Instagram account from LibreWolf on Fedora that he freshly installed on his laptop. Twice. He was previously on Firefox on Win10.
- nojs 4y ago
  Meanwhile I literally can’t create an instagram account: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33043357 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33043357
coinbasetwwa 4y ago
If Zuckerberg is serious about turning his company around he should bring back Palmer Luckey, but now as head of content moderation. Making peace with his former enemies and turning the company into a true melting pot would boost its value to users and bring innovative content. However, I fear he lacks the wisdom and boldness to do the right thing.
AndrewDucker 4y ago
What I want from Facebook: To know what my friends are up to. What I get is, well - of the top ten items in my feed right now: 5 are actual updates from friends 3 are ads 2 are "Have you considered adding these people? Or using this functionality?". I find it off-putting and makes me less likely to actually use the app.
- t0bia_s 4y ago
  "What I want from Facebook: To know what my friends are up to." I found out that this bend my view on people that I know. I prefer to curiously ask in real life about what they are doing instead to start coversion with knowing of what they want to be known about them online. Which is mostly saturated with "filters" and not real. So I disabled feed completely by plugins in browser 4 years ago. Nowadays I use FB only for marketplace and sharing links of my works from portfolio.
  - AndrewDucker 4y ago
    I have friends all over the world, from various stages of my life. And I have two small children. I literally cannot have that kind of conversation with the majority of people. I'll take what I can get.
    - t0bia_s 4y ago
      If digital connection is enough for friendship for you than you have plenty of time.
      - AndrewDucker 4y ago
        I'm sorry, I'm not sure what you're trying to say here.
        t0bia_s 4y ago
        For me, there is no value of friendship maintained by baised digital connection. I rather invest time in real relationships. There I find people with similar approach.
yalogin 4y ago
I don’t know if it’s a free fall or not but once this is negative news cycle and particularly the phrase free fall is used, it becomes very tough to get out of.
- fullshark 4y ago
  Meta has been under attack / in a negative news cycle pretty much nonstop since Donald Trump was elected in 2016, or 6 years ago.
metahatetrain 4y ago
They're facing a lot of headwinds. - Got distracted by launching a crypto currency - Overhired in 2021, thinking pandemic media consumption would continue. I blame this on Bay Area bias. - Overinvested in the Oculus side project. - Got distracted by the "Meta" rebrand. It's telling how they fell so shortly after the rebrand. - Sandburg left. She's someone who could stand up to Mark. - Apple and tracking. This was always a risk. It's ok to take the money while you can, but it feels like there wasn't a plan for later. - Got distracted and didn't take TikTok seriously.
- fuckHNtho 4y ago
  meta, metaverse, sandberg.. all these things are happening simply because they saturated fb user growth. stock market doesnt care how big you are, they just want growth. meta is flailing about in the water, if they cant find growth from somewhere they will drown. (and i will celebrate)
- ninethirty 4y ago
  I'm late to the party, but I'll chime in anyway... Keeping up with friends can only work if one has friends; We are more isolated than ever. I always blamed the boring suburbs/built environment for this, but Japan has the same problem, so idk. The poll of 1,254 adults aged 18 and older found that 27 percent of millennials have no close friends, 25 percent have no “acquaintances” and 22 percent — or 1 in 5 — have no buddies at all. Japan’s Kyodo news agency reported On the 12th, citing the results of the survey, 31.3 percent of Japanese surveyed said they had no close friends, far higher than the United States, Germany and Sweden. "Every empire contains the seeds of its own destruction" -G.W.F. Hege
rpep 4y ago
The Metaverse is just an example of everything that's wrong with it. Why would anyone want to spend time in something that looks horrendously outdated?
pupppet 4y ago
Zuck, just give me some yearly paid subscription option to only see my friends’ content, I’d bite.

55 points by dxs 4y ago

> CNBC spoke to a former advertising executive who said that even though TikTok is a Chinese-owned business, it has a recruiting edge over Meta because it is viewed as having less of a “moral downside.” I actually view the moral downside with TikTok as at least as bad as Meta. The PRC isn’t exactly some bastion of freedom and excellence. Neither is the US, but you’re fooling yourself if you think a highly influential company headquartered in China isn’t being manipulated by the CCP.

superchroma 4y ago
Amusingly, bytedance does military contracts in my country.
- gruez 4y ago
  by "military contracts" do you mean selling some sort of non-military SaaS to the military (eg. office 365), or actually selling arms or arms related software?
  - nonrandomstring 4y ago
    Here's the trust you can put in Meta to deal fairly with military personnel [1]. If that's how they deal with those who've served, imagine the contempt they have for the service. [1] https://www.militarytimes.com/news/2022/09/28/meta-ordered-to-pay-175m-after-copying-green-beret-veterans-tech/ https://www.militarytimes.com/news/2022/09/28/meta-ordered-t...
    - ahahahahah 4y ago
      Oh, we're supporting patent trolls now?
      - nonrandomstring 4y ago
        It's a British thing; I'll generally pick the underdog, even if both fighters are assholes.
  - superchroma 4y ago
    Not entirely sure. A friend of mine works for them and they're doing some sort of simulation stuff for our national navy.
bovermyer 4y ago
TikTok and Meta are both abominable organizations, but for different reasons. I'm curious what people who work for them think of their employer.
varunprasad 4y ago
Even completely setting aside the political aspects, how does TikTok have less of a moral downside as a product? At least Facebook and Instagram can genuinely claim to be built on the idea of helping people build relationships. As far as I understand it, TikTok completely eliminates the friend and family network. It's simply providing mind numbing bite size entertainment. It's genius is removing everything that might distract someone from scrolling mindlessly.
- RobotToaster 4y ago
  One could argue that the lack of false pretence at least makes them (slightly) more honest.
oogali 4y ago
I view this quote as less about morals and more about Meta's reputation and failing recruiting efficiency. Yes, the target candidates who buy into this are fooling themselves but only because Meta's recruiting techniques no longer work in the current climate.
krolden 4y ago
It has nothing to do with morals. People use tiktok because their attention spans can only handle 30 second videos.
rvz 4y ago
So essentially TikTok is no better and is just as bad as Meta if not more worse then? (There really is no fundamental difference) The media really have new ways of spinning the cauldron and have an extremely short attention span on what is going on with TikTok, don't they?
angryasian 4y ago
Anyone that thinks this fails to understand the impact Facebook has had on the division and polarization of people through the spread of mis/disinformation and what companies like Cambridge Analytica has been able to accomplish through the Facebook platform. We can say this is true about youtube, twitter and probably someday tiktok, but at least for now Facebook / Meta is absolutely the worst as they not only sold/leaked the PII but they've also been actively encouraging all of this.

uncletaco 4y ago

Good.

spicybright 4y ago
Yes, but now we have to worry about what kind of horrible things they'll do with our data as they flail to maintain their balance on the way down. They already get hit with constant legal battles and fines regularly when on their "best behavior".

dominotw 4y ago

As a software developer this makes me sad. META set a new standard for developer compensation. Hope downfall of SNAP, META doesn't cause developer comps to roll back to early 2010s level.

z9znz 4y ago
I'm a big fan of increasing developer compensation, but if that compensation is based on inflated and unsustainable business models/goals, then it's a false promise.
- fullshark 4y ago
  Meta is certainly not the first tech company I'd accuse of having an unsustainable business model, they actually built a money printing machine and aren't getting devs on illusory future revenue streams.
joshstrange 4y ago
I'll admit I don't know a ton about how much this would have affected it but could it be because FB/Meta was not part of the salary fixing ring (Apple, Google, Intel, and Adobe) so they were paying "market" rates vs the fixed ones.

awb 4y ago

I wonder if Zuck will leave the company soon. Watching him rent out the UFC event on Saturday night and cheering while his wife sat by him horrified just looked like he’s slowly starting to burst the bubble he’s been living in. Not judging the move at all, as I think many people change in their middle age adult lives. But just looked to me like a departure from the early days of Zuck.

realce 4y ago
Is THAT why there was nobody else there? I was curious.
fred_is_fred 4y ago
Going from goofy nerd to jacked-up middle-aged billionaire is a well-trodden path in tech.
- i67vw3 4y ago
  Bezos right now looks straight up as a mafia boss. In the 90's videos he looks like a typical nerd (video can be seen on 90 minutes america). Right now, he looks like a mafia boss with his bald/shaved head and the gang member jacket (from the photos I have seen).

meltyness 4y ago

It's a shame the returns on this is so sputtering and confusing. VR continues to show a great deal of promise as an excellent tool for supporting HCI. Using my Quest 2 has been an absolute pleasure, and it seems an obvious choice over producing and transporting gargantuan televisions, creating separate rooms to support projectors, trying to figure out how to produce holograms, as a natural stop-off before BCI is viable, providing widespread affordable and comfortable living situations, and any other competing technology I can think of

z9znz 4y ago

Meta just has nothing to offer. In fact, the only truly useful thing it provides is Whatsapp (which it acquired primarily to gain users); and there are good alternatives to Whatsapp, so it's an "also". The actual human connection features of Facebook turned out to be a novelty as humans discovered that they don't really do enough interesting things often; so keeping up with one's friends doesn't require a live feed, but rather a weekly or monthly note will do. So once the friend status stuff became so blasé, and users were spending less attention on FB, FB amped up the suggested content. Now, as has been illustrated on some HN posts, the vast majority of what one sees on FB is just suggested content. Instagram is the same. People just aren't interesting enough to keep an entire platform alive. Sure, the influencers and posers will provide a lot of content, but within any given category there are hundreds of similar (and quickly boring) options. The grand business model of attracting people to a platform and then showing them lots of ads just cannot survive long term without real content; and there's less and less real content each year. Meta is so large and has so much marketshare already that no pivot could save them. Their only chance is to merge with a content company like Netflix (where the content machine is arguably already oversaturating the channels and leaving viewers bored despite many new series each year). In 10 years, Meta is likely to be just another AOL.

thraxil 4y ago
> So once the friend status stuff became so blasé, and users were spending less attention on FB, FB amped up the suggested content. Now, as has been illustrated on some HN posts, the vast majority of what one sees on FB is just suggested content. > > Instagram is the same. People just aren't interesting enough to keep an entire platform alive. Sure, the influencers and posers will provide a lot of content, but within any given category there are hundreds of similar (and quickly boring) options. The irony (for me, at least) is that it was Meta's attempts to drive more engagement that pushed me away from both platforms. When Facebook was just the actual activity of my friends, I enjoyed it. Once they started messing with things and it became more about "suggested content" than a useful way to keep in touch with my friends, I realized how much of a time waste it was and deleted my account. I haven't deleted my Instagram account yet, but it seems to be inevitable as Instagram turns more and more into a low-rent TikTok where the feed has been taken over by content suggested by the algorithm rather than just the photos posted by my contacts (and FWIW, I don't follow any "influencers", only people that I actually know or artists whose work I enjoy). I may be an outlier, but to me every "improvement" that they've made to try to increase the amount of content and engagement has made it less attractive because it feels less genuine and more generic. On the other side of it, it also makes me less likely to bother posting content because I know that the algorithm won't be showing it to anyone or will be prioritizing it lower than the stuff that's been carefully constructed to be "engaging".

rodolphoarruda 4y ago

Online marketing, its processes and practices, need to be revisited. I know some small companies that don't even have public websites, just "pages" within Fb/Insta, so their entire marketing operation relies on Meta's policies of the day.

lbriner 4y ago

Not surprisng that companies with extreme levels of cash will eventually fall off a cliff. At least Musk starts up other companies since 10 medium sized companies are potentially more sustainable and useful than one enormous one. As soon as you are that rich, you can afford to waste unimaginable amounts of money on concepts or ideas - even terrible ones, when smaller companies would be forced to prove the market before they spent their much smaller budgets.

Karawebnetwork 4y ago

This is no surprise to me, as a manager of several large groups and pages. There is no real moderation, raids are commonplace and while trolls are able to bypass the moderation algorithm to write their post, real users regularly get banned for responding to them harshly. Public groups are simply a chore, anyone can raid with laughing reactions and, depending on the setting, leave comments. The moderation and pending membership queue of a public group that has one or two controversial viral posts becomes immediately unusable. Fake accounts are rampant and users you ban as a community moderator always come back with a similar name accompanied by "II", "III", "IV"... when you report them as fake accounts, the algorithm responds that there is no problem. When you report oblivious trolls and hate speech (with only one letter changed, think n-word but with a w, etc.), the algorithm responds that there is no problem with the message. These days, Facebook is simply not safe for most organic uses other than corporate pages and maybe the occasional meme pages. But please, don't read the comments if you value your wellbeing.

floor2 4y ago
Meanwhile, I can't create an account without giving a phone number. I tried to create a Twitter account, but was either instantly banned the moment I completed the sign-up form (using an incognito window) or was blocked from completing the form due to mandatory phone number. It's even worse if you try to use a VPN, TOR or any other privacy-protecting browser plugins to block tracking. Somehow we've gotten the worst of both worlds, where real users are blocked but spammers can get in.
- t0bia_s 4y ago
  My friend got 24h ban after trying login to his Instagram account from LibreWolf on Fedora that he freshly installed on his laptop. Twice. He was previously on Firefox on Win10.
nojs 4y ago
Meanwhile I literally can’t create an instagram account: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33043357 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33043357

coinbasetwwa 4y ago

If Zuckerberg is serious about turning his company around he should bring back Palmer Luckey, but now as head of content moderation. Making peace with his former enemies and turning the company into a true melting pot would boost its value to users and bring innovative content. However, I fear he lacks the wisdom and boldness to do the right thing.

AndrewDucker 4y ago

What I want from Facebook: To know what my friends are up to. What I get is, well - of the top ten items in my feed right now: 5 are actual updates from friends 3 are ads 2 are "Have you considered adding these people? Or using this functionality?". I find it off-putting and makes me less likely to actually use the app.

t0bia_s 4y ago
"What I want from Facebook: To know what my friends are up to." I found out that this bend my view on people that I know. I prefer to curiously ask in real life about what they are doing instead to start coversion with knowing of what they want to be known about them online. Which is mostly saturated with "filters" and not real. So I disabled feed completely by plugins in browser 4 years ago. Nowadays I use FB only for marketplace and sharing links of my works from portfolio.
- AndrewDucker 4y ago
  I have friends all over the world, from various stages of my life. And I have two small children. I literally cannot have that kind of conversation with the majority of people. I'll take what I can get.
  - t0bia_s 4y ago
    If digital connection is enough for friendship for you than you have plenty of time.
    - AndrewDucker 4y ago
      I'm sorry, I'm not sure what you're trying to say here.
      - t0bia_s 4y ago
        For me, there is no value of friendship maintained by baised digital connection. I rather invest time in real relationships. There I find people with similar approach.

yalogin 4y ago

I don’t know if it’s a free fall or not but once this is negative news cycle and particularly the phrase free fall is used, it becomes very tough to get out of.

fullshark 4y ago
Meta has been under attack / in a negative news cycle pretty much nonstop since Donald Trump was elected in 2016, or 6 years ago.

metahatetrain 4y ago

They're facing a lot of headwinds. - Got distracted by launching a crypto currency - Overhired in 2021, thinking pandemic media consumption would continue. I blame this on Bay Area bias. - Overinvested in the Oculus side project. - Got distracted by the "Meta" rebrand. It's telling how they fell so shortly after the rebrand. - Sandburg left. She's someone who could stand up to Mark. - Apple and tracking. This was always a risk. It's ok to take the money while you can, but it feels like there wasn't a plan for later. - Got distracted and didn't take TikTok seriously.

fuckHNtho 4y ago
meta, metaverse, sandberg.. all these things are happening simply because they saturated fb user growth. stock market doesnt care how big you are, they just want growth. meta is flailing about in the water, if they cant find growth from somewhere they will drown. (and i will celebrate)
ninethirty 4y ago
I'm late to the party, but I'll chime in anyway... Keeping up with friends can only work if one has friends; We are more isolated than ever. I always blamed the boring suburbs/built environment for this, but Japan has the same problem, so idk. The poll of 1,254 adults aged 18 and older found that 27 percent of millennials have no close friends, 25 percent have no “acquaintances” and 22 percent — or 1 in 5 — have no buddies at all. Japan’s Kyodo news agency reported On the 12th, citing the results of the survey, 31.3 percent of Japanese surveyed said they had no close friends, far higher than the United States, Germany and Sweden. "Every empire contains the seeds of its own destruction" -G.W.F. Hege

rpep 4y ago

The Metaverse is just an example of everything that's wrong with it. Why would anyone want to spend time in something that looks horrendously outdated?

pupppet 4y ago

Zuck, just give me some yearly paid subscription option to only see my friends’ content, I’d bite.