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Most Canadian small businesses rely on Meta to get customers. If you think these companies don't add value, you are totally oblivious to the millions of small

Most Canadian small businesses rely on Meta to get customers. If you think these companies don't add value, you are totally oblivious to the millions of small businesses that rely on these platforms to reach customers and niche audiences around the world.

pjc50 1y ago
They need a platform, but it doesn't have to be Meta.
llm_nerd 1y ago
[flagged]
- carlosjobim 1y ago
  [flagged]
  - llm_nerd 1y ago
    What is ugly or uncivil about noting someone's biases? The "your small businesses would fail without Meta" line is from the official lobbyist arm of Meta, and it's usually a pretty good tell that someone is a Meta employee and is thus likely to have a very rose coloured, idealized version of the org.
    - deleted 1y ago
      [deleted]
    - carlosjobim 1y ago
      What do you achieve with that? Isn't it better to argue against the points made rather than argue against the person making them? Anybody could have made the same points.
    - disgruntledphd2 1y ago
      Full disclosure: I worked at Facebook from 2013 to 2018, almost entirely on ads. Like, you may not want to hear this, but lots of SMBs get value from targeted ads, and this has lead to lots and lots of successful businesses. I encourage my wife to use these kinds of ads (mostly on TikTok and IG these days) for her business, and they work reasonably well. That's not to say that Facebook hasn't had a bunch of bad impacts on the world (Myanmar and other poorer countries come to mind), but the OP's point is a good one, and lots of people who don't work at Meta believe this. Ultimately, Facebook provide a service that it appears lots of people like (I do use Whatsapp but not really the rest of them) and it's not up to you to determine whether or not they've been good or bad for society. As I keep bringing up in these discussions, should we ban radios for their role in the Rwandan genocide? Changing forms of communication are always going to cause societal changes, and we're currently living through the biggest one since the invention of the printing press. I'm not sure one can blame just one company for all of this, and honestly if you had to pick one I'd probably pick Google for making it profitable to write garbage and monetise through ads (but as I said, the Internet and computer mediated communication are a huge change and it's basically impossible to say what actually drove the changes).
- xvector 1y ago
  I've worked at most FAANG companies, including Google, Apple, and Meta in the past (not currently). In my experience working at these companies and diving into the reported incidents/issues (e.g. Batterygate, Myanmar, Cambridge Analytica), I have found that comments like yours present an overly reductive worldview. You are likely entirely informed by ragebait news articles that grossly misrepresent the issues as opposed to a nuanced understanding of (1) the widely reported incidents, and (2) the services these companies provide and those that rely on them to make a living. No, it would not be replaced "in an instant" with other options, and any other options would quickly evolve into the same state as FB/IG today unless you make targeted ads illegal (which - again - would collapse millions of small businesses and centralize power for wealthy large businesses).
  - nottorp 1y ago
    > would collapse millions of small businesses How? And do they have the right to exist if their only income is targeted ads?
    - xvector 1y ago
      How do you expect small businesses to acquire customers? Spending tens of millions of dollars competing in generalized ad space to reach the same audience they can reach today with $1000? Most small businesses that exist today would become nonviable overnight, and that is a huge chunk of the economy. Sure, you can say "they shouldn't have the right to exist" because they use targeted ads, but I have yet to hear a solid argument for why such ads are an infringement on our fundamental rights such that the whole SMB segment of the economy is worth destroying.
      - nottorp 1y ago
        Let me guess, there were no small businesses in the whole world before the advent of digital automated targeted ads?
        xvector 1y ago
- alex1138 1y ago
  I've seen too much from the last few years (covid, mostly, but other things) to take much stock in what people are commonly referring to as misinformation But yeah, I don't like what they do competition wise (Whatsapp seems like clear antitrust) and their products are badly designed (have more things shoved into your feed that you're not following!)
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
tonyedgecombe 1y ago
Yeah, because small businesses didn't exist before Facebook arrived.

pjc50 1y ago

They need a platform, but it doesn't have to be Meta.

llm_nerd 1y ago

[flagged]

carlosjobim 1y ago
[flagged]
- llm_nerd 1y ago
  What is ugly or uncivil about noting someone's biases? The "your small businesses would fail without Meta" line is from the official lobbyist arm of Meta, and it's usually a pretty good tell that someone is a Meta employee and is thus likely to have a very rose coloured, idealized version of the org.
  - deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
  - carlosjobim 1y ago
    What do you achieve with that? Isn't it better to argue against the points made rather than argue against the person making them? Anybody could have made the same points.
  - disgruntledphd2 1y ago
    Full disclosure: I worked at Facebook from 2013 to 2018, almost entirely on ads. Like, you may not want to hear this, but lots of SMBs get value from targeted ads, and this has lead to lots and lots of successful businesses. I encourage my wife to use these kinds of ads (mostly on TikTok and IG these days) for her business, and they work reasonably well. That's not to say that Facebook hasn't had a bunch of bad impacts on the world (Myanmar and other poorer countries come to mind), but the OP's point is a good one, and lots of people who don't work at Meta believe this. Ultimately, Facebook provide a service that it appears lots of people like (I do use Whatsapp but not really the rest of them) and it's not up to you to determine whether or not they've been good or bad for society. As I keep bringing up in these discussions, should we ban radios for their role in the Rwandan genocide? Changing forms of communication are always going to cause societal changes, and we're currently living through the biggest one since the invention of the printing press. I'm not sure one can blame just one company for all of this, and honestly if you had to pick one I'd probably pick Google for making it profitable to write garbage and monetise through ads (but as I said, the Internet and computer mediated communication are a huge change and it's basically impossible to say what actually drove the changes).
xvector 1y ago
I've worked at most FAANG companies, including Google, Apple, and Meta in the past (not currently). In my experience working at these companies and diving into the reported incidents/issues (e.g. Batterygate, Myanmar, Cambridge Analytica), I have found that comments like yours present an overly reductive worldview. You are likely entirely informed by ragebait news articles that grossly misrepresent the issues as opposed to a nuanced understanding of (1) the widely reported incidents, and (2) the services these companies provide and those that rely on them to make a living. No, it would not be replaced "in an instant" with other options, and any other options would quickly evolve into the same state as FB/IG today unless you make targeted ads illegal (which - again - would collapse millions of small businesses and centralize power for wealthy large businesses).
- nottorp 1y ago
  > would collapse millions of small businesses How? And do they have the right to exist if their only income is targeted ads?
  - xvector 1y ago
    How do you expect small businesses to acquire customers? Spending tens of millions of dollars competing in generalized ad space to reach the same audience they can reach today with $1000? Most small businesses that exist today would become nonviable overnight, and that is a huge chunk of the economy. Sure, you can say "they shouldn't have the right to exist" because they use targeted ads, but I have yet to hear a solid argument for why such ads are an infringement on our fundamental rights such that the whole SMB segment of the economy is worth destroying.
    - nottorp 1y ago
      Let me guess, there were no small businesses in the whole world before the advent of digital automated targeted ads?
      - xvector 1y ago
alex1138 1y ago
I've seen too much from the last few years (covid, mostly, but other things) to take much stock in what people are commonly referring to as misinformation But yeah, I don't like what they do competition wise (Whatsapp seems like clear antitrust) and their products are badly designed (have more things shoved into your feed that you're not following!)
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]

tonyedgecombe 1y ago

Yeah, because small businesses didn't exist before Facebook arrived.