5 ms·

It's incredible how one of the largest companies in the world can still sustain double digit revenue growth after nearly 20 years. Not to mention mid single dig

by bko 3y ago

It's incredible how one of the largest companies in the world can still sustain double digit revenue growth after nearly 20 years. Not to mention mid single digit growth in MAU and DAU If you believe what media and popular social platforms report you would think no one uses Facebook anymore.

matrix_overload 3y ago
It is fueled by the advertising race (companies bidding against each other to complete for consumer's attention), which was in turn fueled by the monetary policy (effectively giving companies low-interest money hoping they would come up with the next TikTok). In other words, we injected money into that sector, so we saw it growing. The question is, how far can it be sustained after the interest rates are up, and whether we could possibly lower them without immediately triggering another inflation wave.
- mrkramer 3y ago
  >It is fueled by the advertising race (companies bidding against each other to complete for consumer's attention) Exactly but I would like to add that the companies which are in the advertising race are most likely monopolistic competitors[0] or in another words, they have very similar products and the only way to reach customers and to build brand is to invest heavily in the advertising. That's why advertising will stay strong and viable as a business model for very long time. >In other words, we injected money into that sector, so we saw it growing. But if the money is not used efficiently and if no innovations come about then no matter how much you invest, you won't see a sector growing. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monopolistic_competition https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monopolistic_competition
jaequery 3y ago
do you trust the numbers are correct?
- andrewmutz 3y ago
  Lying to investors is a pretty serious crime, so the numbers are probably correct.
  - sdfghswe 3y ago
    People say in America you can get away with anything if you're a billionaire. Not true. The crime of defrauding your investors will land you in jail even if you're a billionaire. I'm proud of America.
    - dragontamer 3y ago
      Eventually. It does take ~10 years in practice for people to notice the lies and for the FBI to finally arrest you. At least in Enron or Worldcom cases, these things can go on for a very long time. USA is eventually correct, but we take our sweet ass time getting there.
  - mupuff1234 3y ago
    Is it lying if you just don't put the effort to identify and flag bots?
  - htss2013 3y ago
    Falsifying scientific research involving hundreds of millions of dollars is serious crime too, and yet the president of Stanford and researchers at Duke are where they are. I have no idea what goes on at META or any other public company. I just know people have repeatedly underestimated the odds of misrepresentation in the past.
- lotsofpulp 3y ago
  One of the selling points of buying shares of businesses publicly listed in the US (and some other countries) is that the probability of the numbers being correct is very high.
- teaearlgraycold 3y ago
  The closest a report like this could be to "incorrect" is poorly planned short-term/long-term tradeoffs. You could, for example, renew an expensive contract with a vendor for a 1 year term instead of 5 years at a lower annual price. This quarter's costs will go down significantly compared to the last time this contract was up for renewal - but now you need to add the same cost to your ledger next year instead of 5 years down the line. Repeat that same short-sighted planning many times over and it's possible to fabricate a profit increase. But that will only last so long. It could work for people prepping for an IPO when they plan to essentially pump-and-dump. Not so much for a mature public company.
mvdtnz 3y ago
I have been using Facebook a lot more lately as more communities move into Facebook Groups and Reddit gets steadily worse (and I mean the Reddit community, not the Reddit software, which is also degrading). I'm not happy about it, but it is what it is. I'd much rather be on good old forums with a different user account per community.
- bko 3y ago
  I had good luck on the marketplace. And kids stuff daycare is there (private of course) There are some other apps for daycare tracking but they're terrible. So I guess it depends on what you compare fb to. I'm pretty happy with it for the most part
- seanmcdirmid 3y ago
  I'm actually using Facebook a lot lately after having sworn off reddit a long time ago. Cursed AI, a group related to the kind of car I own (report/sharing problems), local news... I don't really use it much for the social stuff.
tester756 3y ago
and if you listened to hackernews they'd tell you that startups are the only way to go cuz those boring corpos cant get tiniest shit done without months of emailing and 25 ppl involved
JumpinJack_Cash 3y ago
> > If you believe what media and popular social platforms report you would think no one uses Facebook anymore. Facebook is where real life is at. Nobody uses twitter (now X) to organize things, Instagram is just for advertising already established companies and for brands. Facebook, meetup and Eventbrite are the places where the very first steps of every local community are taken, but Facebook is superior of course because you can bounce back between building a community and talking to your friends and family, plus you can directly reach members of communities which kinda do the same thing as what you have in mind. Facebook is essentially the 'do stuff' social media, whereas Instagram is the 'promote stuff' social media and Twitter is the 'dunk on other people and start flame wars' social media. Unironically if the goal of your online presence is to wind up doing stuff in the real world, then Facebook is the only game in town.
- anuraaga 3y ago
  Yup - quit Facebook some years back with no regrets, even despite this, but the reality is that it means missing out on high school reunions, something I will never experience in my life because FB controls it.
haunter 3y ago
>you would think no one uses Facebook anymore Facebook Marketplace is a killer product imo. Depends on your location so probably not in the US where Craigslist exist, or Gumtree in the UK, but in a lot of countries the digital classified market is very barren. Facebook Marketplace is basically filled up the niche perfectly. I really like it and use it almost everyday, pretty much my only use case for Facebook nowadays.
- sefrost 3y ago
  Same with WhatsApp. It would be impossible for me to have a social life without WhatsApp. It covers so many groups. I managed to get some groups of technical friends to move to other products but I don't think that would be possible with other people. WhatsApp is not just the default group messaging app.... I don't think non-technical people could even name another. Maybe iMessage? But that's only for small and more affluent friendship groups. I don't think anybody would ever have an iMessage group for an apartment building or amateur sports team. It wouldn't even cross anyones mind to use it.
- subpixel 3y ago
  Craigslist is toast in the US. Still operating but FB marketplace is an order of magnitude more effective and popular.
htss2013 3y ago
Or perhaps the metrics are more engineered than we realize? It is the more parsimonious explanation.
smrtinsert 3y ago
Groups groups and groups! It really gave FB a second life. Reddit shooting itself in the foot probably helped too

by bko 3y ago

matrix_overload 3y ago

It is fueled by the advertising race (companies bidding against each other to complete for consumer's attention), which was in turn fueled by the monetary policy (effectively giving companies low-interest money hoping they would come up with the next TikTok). In other words, we injected money into that sector, so we saw it growing. The question is, how far can it be sustained after the interest rates are up, and whether we could possibly lower them without immediately triggering another inflation wave.

mrkramer 3y ago
>It is fueled by the advertising race (companies bidding against each other to complete for consumer's attention) Exactly but I would like to add that the companies which are in the advertising race are most likely monopolistic competitors[0] or in another words, they have very similar products and the only way to reach customers and to build brand is to invest heavily in the advertising. That's why advertising will stay strong and viable as a business model for very long time. >In other words, we injected money into that sector, so we saw it growing. But if the money is not used efficiently and if no innovations come about then no matter how much you invest, you won't see a sector growing. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monopolistic_competition https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monopolistic_competition

jaequery 3y ago

do you trust the numbers are correct?

andrewmutz 3y ago
Lying to investors is a pretty serious crime, so the numbers are probably correct.
- sdfghswe 3y ago
  People say in America you can get away with anything if you're a billionaire. Not true. The crime of defrauding your investors will land you in jail even if you're a billionaire. I'm proud of America.
  - dragontamer 3y ago
    Eventually. It does take ~10 years in practice for people to notice the lies and for the FBI to finally arrest you. At least in Enron or Worldcom cases, these things can go on for a very long time. USA is eventually correct, but we take our sweet ass time getting there.
- mupuff1234 3y ago
  Is it lying if you just don't put the effort to identify and flag bots?
- htss2013 3y ago
  Falsifying scientific research involving hundreds of millions of dollars is serious crime too, and yet the president of Stanford and researchers at Duke are where they are. I have no idea what goes on at META or any other public company. I just know people have repeatedly underestimated the odds of misrepresentation in the past.
lotsofpulp 3y ago
One of the selling points of buying shares of businesses publicly listed in the US (and some other countries) is that the probability of the numbers being correct is very high.
teaearlgraycold 3y ago
The closest a report like this could be to "incorrect" is poorly planned short-term/long-term tradeoffs. You could, for example, renew an expensive contract with a vendor for a 1 year term instead of 5 years at a lower annual price. This quarter's costs will go down significantly compared to the last time this contract was up for renewal - but now you need to add the same cost to your ledger next year instead of 5 years down the line. Repeat that same short-sighted planning many times over and it's possible to fabricate a profit increase. But that will only last so long. It could work for people prepping for an IPO when they plan to essentially pump-and-dump. Not so much for a mature public company.

mvdtnz 3y ago

I have been using Facebook a lot more lately as more communities move into Facebook Groups and Reddit gets steadily worse (and I mean the Reddit community, not the Reddit software, which is also degrading). I'm not happy about it, but it is what it is. I'd much rather be on good old forums with a different user account per community.

bko 3y ago
I had good luck on the marketplace. And kids stuff daycare is there (private of course) There are some other apps for daycare tracking but they're terrible. So I guess it depends on what you compare fb to. I'm pretty happy with it for the most part
seanmcdirmid 3y ago
I'm actually using Facebook a lot lately after having sworn off reddit a long time ago. Cursed AI, a group related to the kind of car I own (report/sharing problems), local news... I don't really use it much for the social stuff.

tester756 3y ago

and if you listened to hackernews they'd tell you that startups are the only way to go cuz those boring corpos cant get tiniest shit done without months of emailing and 25 ppl involved

JumpinJack_Cash 3y ago

> > If you believe what media and popular social platforms report you would think no one uses Facebook anymore. Facebook is where real life is at. Nobody uses twitter (now X) to organize things, Instagram is just for advertising already established companies and for brands. Facebook, meetup and Eventbrite are the places where the very first steps of every local community are taken, but Facebook is superior of course because you can bounce back between building a community and talking to your friends and family, plus you can directly reach members of communities which kinda do the same thing as what you have in mind. Facebook is essentially the 'do stuff' social media, whereas Instagram is the 'promote stuff' social media and Twitter is the 'dunk on other people and start flame wars' social media. Unironically if the goal of your online presence is to wind up doing stuff in the real world, then Facebook is the only game in town.

anuraaga 3y ago
Yup - quit Facebook some years back with no regrets, even despite this, but the reality is that it means missing out on high school reunions, something I will never experience in my life because FB controls it.

haunter 3y ago

>you would think no one uses Facebook anymore Facebook Marketplace is a killer product imo. Depends on your location so probably not in the US where Craigslist exist, or Gumtree in the UK, but in a lot of countries the digital classified market is very barren. Facebook Marketplace is basically filled up the niche perfectly. I really like it and use it almost everyday, pretty much my only use case for Facebook nowadays.

sefrost 3y ago
Same with WhatsApp. It would be impossible for me to have a social life without WhatsApp. It covers so many groups. I managed to get some groups of technical friends to move to other products but I don't think that would be possible with other people. WhatsApp is not just the default group messaging app.... I don't think non-technical people could even name another. Maybe iMessage? But that's only for small and more affluent friendship groups. I don't think anybody would ever have an iMessage group for an apartment building or amateur sports team. It wouldn't even cross anyones mind to use it.
subpixel 3y ago
Craigslist is toast in the US. Still operating but FB marketplace is an order of magnitude more effective and popular.

htss2013 3y ago

Or perhaps the metrics are more engineered than we realize? It is the more parsimonious explanation.

smrtinsert 3y ago

Groups groups and groups! It really gave FB a second life. Reddit shooting itself in the foot probably helped too