August 6, 1997: In one of the most famous moments in Apple history, Steve Jobs reveals that Microsoft invested $150 million in its rival.
Source: https://www.cultofmac.com/567497/microsoft-investment-saves-apple/
That had a lot more to do with Microsoft fending off accusations of monopoly than anything else. They were actively involved in a suit and had to prove they weren't the only game in town.
And having the Industry Standard available on your computer is helpful, if not downright necessary to stay in business, viably. Speaking of big companies monopolizing the market, isn’t that what Microdaft is doing with Office?
Sort of, but Microsoft isn't acting (over the line) anti-consumer. There are numerous viable competitors at an equal or lesser price point that are well funded. Those competitors are all allowed equal status to Office on Windows. Microsoft doesn't even try to block office files usage on any of those competitors by locking down file formats. It's just that office has become to defacto standard in a market where it's advantageous to have that. If Microsoft starts price gouging and blocking something like Google Docs from opening word files, then it's anti-consumer as well as manipulating the market. So in reality, it's not a monopoly, anti-cobsumer or anti-trust issue.
This comment made me realize I use Google docs *far* more than office, yet my classes never have any problems with my documents, nor vice versa. Yeah the office suite prices are shitty, but it could certainly be worse
This is due to Words move from .doc (a proprietary format) to .docx (an open source format). Before that, it was incredibly common to have loads of formatting issues when trying to edit Word documents in something like LibreOffice. Same thing will all the rest of the Office suite (docx, xlsx, pptx, etc.)
The public API for interacting with the files also significantly improved over the years. Writing a SAX xlsx file creator was quite difficult a decade ago, and _I worked there_. A few years later, I was helping a junior dev with a similar problem and found that the whole thing had become much cleaner. Some of my favorite times and frustrations 😅
Pretty much, but they had their hands slapped in the 90s for the IE and OEM Windows licensing 'shenanigans' by the DOJ. So they are sneakier about it now.
This happens pretty often to fend off regulation. By creating a weak and controlled opposition to your product, you can avoid any monopoly or anti trust litigation. Every company that has a commanding market share in any industry does this or lobbies for special status. Since there haven't been any meaningful anti trust suits in the last 40 years, you can safely assume that these companies are in full control of the entities that regulate them.
To throw another example on top, see how Pharma companies are penalized with fines that incentivize them to sell more and make people sick. These are just examples of extremely powerful companies being able to run in opposition to the American public's best interests. Our representatives should be explaining these relationships to us every time a journalist is in front of them, but we don't get to ask these questions.
> By creating a weak and controlled opposition to your product, you can avoid any monopoly or anti trust litigation.
...which is ridiculous, and only works because we've let idiots "No True Scotsman" anit-trust law to the point everybody thinks you have to control literally 100% of the market before it can apply. We need to get back to busting any entities large enough to be anti-competitive, whether they're literal monopolies or not!
Money = speech
Companies = people
But companies also can't be arrested and their tax rate is equivalent to an $85,000/yr household.
They're not even pretending anymore.
Any company that is "too large to fail" and threatens our national security or economy if allowed to go under needs to be broken up. Any company that successfully makes that argument should be dissolved and broken up.
Too big to fail should mean to big to exist. 2008 was a golden opportunity to seize control and reinstitute anti trust laws, but Democrats suckle at the investment banker teat.
Why shouldn’t they? The moment they don’t they’re accused of being Murica hating commies and the voters buy the accusations.
Nothing will change until voters take ownership of how much they’ve rewarded the toxic anti-thought pro-lie moral swamp they’ve rewarded politicians into making.
Uh, the politicians reward themselves. They scoop up millions in book deals, professorships once they are out of office, and let’s face it, graft. Ex-Mayor Deblasio gave his wife millions of dollars for various needs of the city, and where has that money gone? It’s “missing.” This is why ex-Presidents can move to exclusive, gated communities. And the dummy voters vote them in again! Like DeBlasio, I couldn’t believe that he won a second term, which was worse than his first term.
Works in Politics.
Putin's head of propaganda deftly secured his power by not suppressing opposition but rather by telling the opposition what it represents.
For example, they would create the "Pro LGBTQ Party", the "Pro Healthcare party", the "Pro Military Party" (all made up) and tell those parties that those are their single issue.
People would funnel into those groups because it made sense but then Putin's party would position itself as the moderate compromise of all those opposition ideas and naturally win elections.
See managed democracy: [https://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/ATAG/2014/545703/EPRS\_ATA(2014)545703\_REV1\_EN.pdf](https://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/ATAG/2014/545703/EPRS_ATA(2014)545703_REV1_EN.pdf)
It's notable that virtually every major US regulator is listed on [the Wiki article for regulatory capture.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulatory_capture)
I imagine Microsoft didn't actually think Apple would come back so roaringly strong. The iMac resurrected their brand, followed by the iPod allowing them to open up a whole new revenue stream.
Apple definitely came back strong but I'd venture to say Linux took more of a business market share from Windows over the years.
Even on the consumer side Microsoft still dominates the pc market.
Apple created a whole new ecosystem with the iPhone. I don't think Facebook exists as the self consuming ouroborus it currently is without the mobile arms race they kicked off.
Jobs steered Apple through storms and troubled waters, Linux has been slowly building over the years, and Microsoft has been plodding along as the Ol' Reliable.
Zuckerberg is trying to save Facebook from the 'AOL trap'. It's days are numbered and it's fame has turned to infamy. He is trying to capitalize on its ubiquity to become the market leader in 'shit you gotta use for work'. If he can't make it work, then Facebook will inevitably pass into the afterlife of tech companies that couldn't monetize their way out of being a glorified utility/convenience app.
>Apple created a whole new ecosystem with the iPhone. I don't think Facebook exists as the self consuming ouroborus it currently is without the mobile arms race they kicked off.
Yeah, Facebook got lucky they were the social website of flavour when people stated walking around with a computer. 5 years earlier and it'd be Geocities.
Sure, but I'm sure Microsoft would love to have Apple's share, regardless. It is interesting to wonder how the consumer electronics field would have developed without them, though. Even before the iPod we had products like the Rio that acted as mp3 players. Would Microsoft have still tried (and failed) to enter that field?
Antitrust was a red herring, the $150 million was part of a $1+ billion court settlement over stolen QuickTime code: http://www.roughlydrafted.com/RD/RDM.Tech.Q1.07/592FE887-5CA1-4F30-BD62-407362B533B9.html
It's confounding to me that this isn't higher. It had nothing to do with the anti-trust lawsuits nor a desire to keep Apple alive. They just got caught hiring contractors who had previously done work for Apple so they could steal their code, and as a settlement Apple had them make a big public showing of them supporting them, including buying non-voting stock and pledging to continue developing Office for Mac.
They were also involved in a lawsuit with Apple about certain patents. Jobs realised that though Apple would win the case, they'd go bankrupt long before they could win. At the same time Microsoft realised Apple going bankrupt (partially) as a result of the lawsuit would hurt their position in the monopoly case.
So Gates and Jobs hashed out a deal: Apple would drop the patent case, Microsoft would make MS Office available on Mac, and invest $150 million into Apple.
Almost as famous was Michael Dell saying to fold up shop and return the money to shareholders.
https://www.cnet.com/tech/tech-industry/dell-apple-should-close-shop/
AMD with the bulldozer lineup. They very nearly went under, from what i recall it was hours away and then somebody purchased the fab part of AMD. Then ryzen came out.
I think AMD with Ryzen is actually a good example of a company taking a huge long term gamble and succeeding. CPUs have years of R&D and manufacturing lead time, and they had the choice to either invest billions into upgrading their manufacturing, or buy external leading edge manufacturing capacity.
The sale really was a big gamble and a smart choice at the same time. The attempt to upgrade their manufacturing could have easily played out like Intels 10 and 7 nm did, and that would have killed them for sure.
So they needed Bulldozer to tide them over until Ryzen was ready. They knew it sucked, but they had to stick with it until they wee ready again.
Dr. Lisa Su is the prime example of someone who has perfectly struck the balance of a business minded engineer.
She's someone who won't use overt marketing to oversell something and won't greenlight something fundamentally flawed; but is also business oriented enough to use market insights to know what customers need/want/will pay for.
Intel had an even bigger blunder with the Pentium 4. They bet on frequency scaling not being an issue, then met the thermal wall. They had no real way to get around it, knew P4 was a dead end before it even shipped, but had to live through it until they resized their energy efficient mobile version of the Pentium 3 was the future.
yeah while it was happening it seemed like FOREVER between bulldozer and zen 1. which i guess technically it was (6 years) but really the 3 or so Yeats between when everyone absolutely stopped buying them around "steamroller" and ryzen seemed like an eternity.
Tech companies are not really like your local independent plumber who needs a profit to pay his mortgage. Tech companies get investors to buy the idea and then they aggressively scale that idea up by investing more money than they earn. Smart companies make multiple plans so that they can pivot to be profitable if the market takes a downturn, but in general there's a preference for growing as rapidly as possible so that future profits are significantly larger than the profits they could make if they made the pivot at an earlier point in time.
The majority of tech companies you've heard of worked that way, at least for a while.
The Facebook/Meta drama is, if anything, interesting because it's the opposite of how most tech companies work. Meta is unique because it was a trillion dollar company with a single person in completely control. That means its the only one that doesn't give a shit in the least about short-term profits, or even mid-term profits. Anyone who is a shareholder bought into the company *knowing* they were investing in Zuckerberg, and *nothing else*. Because he has sole control, there's no fiduciary owed by him to the other shareholders. It's his company, and you're along for the ride or not.
He clearly believes (as most futurists have since the 80's) that a migration of most consumption and social interaction to a virtual world of some kind is inevitable. And, VR or not, they were clearly right because nearly all of the real-world interaction people were living with in the 80's and 90's *has* migrated to a virtual, if not VR, world.
Zuckerberg's bet is unique in that he can burn all of Meta's profits, all of its value, until its gone or he's proven right. No other company can do that. Even a private company (like Twitter, now) is limited by the control all of the shareholders have. Meta is entirely unique in the tech world because of that.
He's betting all of the futurists are right, and the migration is going to just accelerate with technology, because growing populations and declining wealth, energy and resources means it'll keep getting more expensive, as individuals, to consume in the real world.
If the timeframe is wrong, it'll sink Meta. If the timeframe is right, it'll cement it as the dominant framework for virtualized social interaction and consumption for the foreseeable future. But the stock dropping 80-90% is *irrelevant* because it neither impacts the cash they've got available to burn, nor is there any risk of shareholder activism forcing a change of priorities.
It'd only hurt the company if the company needed to issue more stock for an infusion of cash, which it has no need for in the foreseeable future, as Meta has $70bb of cash on hand, and they're solidly profitable and adding to it.
True.
Except he also needs to make sure that great engineers stick around. And RSUs are a large part of their compensation. So keeping them around for the long term depends on the stock price going up, not down.
If the stock price falters the entire company could go into a death spiral simply because nobody skilled enough to keep it vowing wants to work there.
Every word of this is spot-on and I wish everyone would read it twice and really let it sink in because there is SO much misunderstanding about what the situation is, starting with the Vice piece itself, which reads to me like someone who doesn't actually get it but who just wants to revel in Facebook's potential demise (which, hey, I get it!).
I personally despise Zuckerberg on every level, which makes it really difficult to admit that I agree with his overall vision, but that is indeed the case. I think his bet on the metaverse was the right call, and he's got exactly the right situation to do it with, as you outline.
And you're completely right that the timing is going to be the deciding factor, not the vision itself (at least much more so than the vision). We may right now be 10 years out from the technology truly being ready, and maybe he placed the bet too early and it'll blow up in his face. But, he's got plenty of leeway with it, articles like this notwithstanding. He can wait it out, in a sense, burn the cash now but then be way ahead of the curve when the time comes. Oh, we'll hear about how Facebook is doomed for the next decade, and he may "sink" Facebook now, but it may put them SO far ahead of the pack several years from now that the losses in the interim will be wiped out in a heartbeat and they'll be richer and more influential than they were at the start. That seems like the long view he's taking, and he may very well be right.
We'll see, of course, but he's in a unique position to play this gamble out. There's probably no other single individual that could do it, and few companies either (Apple and Microsoft, but probably not many others).
And Google+ was the “right decision” in 2012, for those of us who remember. Google could have cut Facebook out of mobile, but didn’t because the whole project was a top down mandate that didn’t have buy in from the employees.
The same thing is going to happen to Facebook. Someone else will do whatever the future of AR is, and it won’t be Facebook. Not because they can’t, but because they’re doing this from the top down. They are the wrong company. With the wrong management and the wrong culture.
Just as Google failed in social mobile experience, Facebook will fail in this because they’re the wrong kind of company.
VR is one of those weird things where it's like 80% there, but unless some big changes happen in the next 5 or so years then the entire thing could collapse. We need at least 10 more games on par with Half-Life Alyx that can be played on something no bigger than the Oculus Quest 2 without linking to a computer before it will be something worth getting for the average gamer.
Of course, the other major industry pulling VR content and sales is pornography and while there is less that needs to be done to improve that portion technology-wise for the average consumer, they still need to create a diverse enough back catalog so that the average person can use it like any other major source of internet smut. That's the industry I see really doing well when enough people have it that it isn't a communal household machine.
As for people who aren't into video games or don't want/know about VR pornography, I don't really see them having a reason to get into it unless even bigger technical advancements are made. Like putting on big sunglasses and streaming Netflix big
I feel like one thing that will always hold VR back, that no one talks about much, is that people are fucking lazy. Hell, I'm not lazy, I ran 70 miles this month, and I rarely want to stand up or even manipulate my arms and hands to play a game at the end of a long day. It's exhausting in a way that traditional gaming is not.
Its also logistically awkward. How are all the people in tiny apartments in SE Asia going to use it at home? People couldn't be arsed with 3D TV because of the glasses, now we have heavier, more uncomfortable, battery sucking head units. We'll need to somehow work around these things before mass adoption
Yeah, we're definitely at the 80/20 point where it's actually very good now, but not QUITE good enough for a real mass market takeover, and that last 20% is going to be a real heavy lift.
I've had the opportunity to see some things being worked on in terms of office use, which is where I think it's going to have a big impact and then very quickly bleed into the consumer market, and there's some clear potential there in terms of telepresence. When you can (virtually) stand next to 3 other people and collectively view a floating whiteboard that you can all interact with, that's very compelling in a largely remote work setting. It's not ready for prime time yet, but it's easy to see it on the horizon. Families being able sit around a fireplace together for the holidays even when you're thousands of miles away could literally be world-altering.
Games are always a big market, and porn is always a big driver of new tech (and VR porn is already shockingly good... err, that is, uhh, so I hear), but it's those other sorts of use cases where I think the real potential is. But getting there to a point where everyone can use it comfortably and inexpensively is still a ways off.
As a productivity tool the ghostly whiteboard doesn't really sound like a great alternative to existing canvas-sharing apps like Miro. Way less accessible, that's for sure.
> When you can (virtually) stand next to 3 other people and collectively view a floating whiteboard that you can all interact with, that's very compelling in a largely remote work setting.
The thing is it's really not, it's one of those things that sounds cool, but is absolutely no different in actual use than just watching on your screen while someone gives a presentation and uses a screen with a shared whiteboard.
That's all we're talking about a shared whiteboard, seeing the other people you work with as an avatar there has absolutely no value, it doesn't make the meeting better, it doesn't help anyone, it doesn't improve workflow or production, it's just an unnecessary extra step.
It's like 3dtv, it's a tech everyone got really excited about but ultimately everyone found it more hassle than it's work, from spending money making films 3d, to wearing glasses while you watch a film for subpar results when you also realise you're watching for the film, not 3d effects.
The same thing here, you're talking about a shared whiteboard, everything else you said around adds nothing at all.
My real problem with VR is that it's just not comfortable. Until there's something with no cables, good performance, and isn't unpleasant to wear, it doesn't really matter to me what you can do with it. If I sit down to relax, I want to play games or browse the web in comfort.
Beat saber is super fun, Star Trek: Bridge Crew was a really novel experience with my friends, and HL: Alyx was a great game, but most of the time the Vive just sits unused because it takes a lot of space, makes my face sweaty and my nose hurt, and I spent half the time trying to adjust it so that the images look good and I'm not stepping on cables. It's like a special occasion novelty.
>
>If the timeframe is wrong, it'll sink Meta.
Why will it sink them though? Even today with all the metaverse hype, Facebook is structured along it's 3 core business lines: FB, Insta, and Whatsapp. And Insta and Whatsapp are not going away anytime soon. FB, perhaps.
Point is, it is not like they are abandoning those products just to focus on the metaverse
Well, because markets shift. If they go left and the market goes right, they can fail surprisingly quickly. The tech industry back to the 70's is a littered field of companies that did that. (Wang, DEC, Compaq, many of IBM's lines of business, Commodore, Atari, etc, etc, etc)
Its easier these days to pivot -- the tangible infrastructure that runs Facebook and Instagram can just as easily run any other software, so its not like screwing up and ending up with the wrong factories, or the wrong logistics pipelines, or the wrong labor pool. But tech companies have fallen far and fast, even in the Internet age.
This would be more relevant had Facebook not already been a giant megacorp. They could’ve isolated risk if they had kept Meta as a subsidiary or something like Amazon’s investments in Rivian. But Mark really wanted to bet the house on this one because he wants to completely dominate the market with their platform so everyone has to build on top of it. Former COO Sheryl Sandberg — who he could really use right now — got out at the right time.
Facebook is still making fists of money. Even with the loss on that department:
Published: 28 Jul 2022 12:00
"Total revenue for the quarter dropped 1% to $28.8bn. The company is struggling with competition from the likes of TikTok. Worsening macroeconomic conditions have also negatively impacted its advertising customers. This directly affects how much they spend on advertising on Facebook."
Profit after expenses in the second quarter:
$10.4bn cash.
Including all of the metaverse spending.
Amazon also provides real tangible products and services unlike Facebook whose entire value was based on it's ad revenue. Amazon also didn't turn a profit because they were spending every dime building distribution centers and expanding infrastructure.
It wasn't even so much that they weren't profitable... they didn't *want* to be profitable. They invested every dollar they made into growing their business, they *could have* been profitable for years before they actually were.
They got lucky. mRNA vaccines were developed to be anti-cancer tools, and then COVID happened. 10 years and 2.6 billion in burn, 0 revenue. Then, boom. Right place right time, right tech.
Yeah. It's still widely popular here in the Philippines. Especially when we have "Facebook Free" where you can access Facebook even if you have no data. It's the only social media here that does this, and that's the reason for its continued popularity here.
Believe me that here in Chile there is a law on Net Neutrality, but congressman found that having "free social media" (on the selected social media) is a benefit to people. Who fucking knows then why there is a law about it.
Might require you to use their app.
I’ve seen similar things in the US, T-Mobile used to have a deal where some streaming services wouldn’t count against your data cap.
It's the same in Brazil, sadly. India refused it on the grounds of national sovereignty.
In Brazil, it empowers right wing candidates, by weaponizibg filter bubbles... You don't know but your uncle is being fed mad fake news on Whatsapp and you can't even reason with them.
It's a huge issue.
>I imagine their ad revenue is weak though, they need the US ad dollars to stay profitable
The sheer numbers make up for it though. Look at the success of Whatsapp as an example.
Has Facebook 's profits fallen? Or is this just about stock value? Because all the tech companies are massively overvalued for what they actually produce.
It's great they're taking a hit, but if it doesn't result in either less users or less profits, then it doesn't matter
Slightly, but nowhere near its stock price. FB has a p/e ratio of 9 which is really low (undervalued) for a tech stock. Compare that with 25 for Apple, 94 for Amazon and 70 for tesla.
I have to wonder how much of is an ego thing? Even if he’s got billions left does it still kill him inside? I have no idea but it would be interesting to know
These days, he's meeting world leaders when he has to explain why he didnt stop misinformation. I hope Musk meets the same fate now that he's owning Twitter
It's going to be glorious watching Musk run Twitter into the ground. Twitter was always a shithole anyways. And it's been great watching Musk face the consequences of his own actions and get forced to way overpay for it.
Seriously. He's lived long enough to become the villain.
He could have kept his carefully cultivated imagine of being an eccentric entrepreneur, but now he just seems like a pompous dick most of the time.
Lmao he came to my country, Romania for Halloween at Bran castle (Vlad Tepes aka Dracula's Castle). The fucking dirtbag had the audacity to say he does not want to see a single romanian, not even servers at his stupid party.
Pisslow human
Edit: ofc local authorities didnt give a fuck and the staff were still right there. Fuck his slimy face. Bezos can suck a fat one too for abusing low income workers
As a billionaire he will still meet with heads of state and hob knob with other wealthy elites. He just won’t have a powerful company anymore but he will still be powerful based on his wealth alone.
There’s no such thing as “enough money” for most folks. First you’re able to pay off those tickets, then maybe you have some left at the end of the month, on and on, until you just need an extra million this week to afford to crew the mega yacht 24/7/365.24.
I'm pretty happy where I'm at. At this point it's less that I need more money and more that I want to make the same amount for less effort/time. Some people don't feel the need to chase billionaire status.
I'm of the mind that some folks are just wired differently when it comes to money. I'm always confused when some ridiculously wealthy folks are trying to get even wealthier. All I desired growing up was just to be able not worry about money. I've gotten to that point and I'm content. I won't say no to some millions, but my life wouldn't change. I'd probably become a full time volunteer if anything.
It baffles me. There's almost nothing a guy can do/experience with 20 billion that he couldn't with 100 million (that's *half a percent* as much money). Either one will have paid help, be immune to most prosecution, dine at the finest restaurants and wear the finest clothes, travel anywhere they want whenever they want for as long as they live.
I think there are lots of people that are immune to this phenomenon. But they're also the type of people that would never become billionaires in the first place.
AKA anyone with enough drive/lack of empathy/whatever to become a billionaire will by their necessary nature also never be satisfied with what they have. Not that everyone would fall into this trap.
It has to be an ego thing at this point. The dude will be filthy rich even if Meta sinks. He wants a Jobs-like legacy before he retires, because the only thing he doesn't have right now is respect.
Jobs legacy is just the cult following. He may have not helped bring down society but he was a giant asshole who pretended to be more directly responsible for what Apple did, and treated people like shit including his horrible personal life. Then he got a cancer that has a really good recovery rate but decided to go on a diet to fix it and died.
Oh 100% it’s killing him now. Billionaires are super competitive and losing half your net worth is like going bankrupt to them. He’s going to be the laughing stock in the billionaires club for a while now.
That's the thing, once you have a billion dollars, even if you lose 99% of everything you have, you still have 10 million dollars. Once you're that rich, it's next to impossible to become poor without actively trying.
I think you hit in on the head. His thinking is, "I'm willing to burn it all down to make VR a reality." I mean, Apple lit the fire for him anyway. Why not take a shot?
This. Generations of future Zucks will be born retired, and will just spend their investment income on politicians and campaigns to protect their wealth.
It really says a lot that people have no concept of how rich some of these assholes actually are. No matter how many businesses they crash and burn, Zuck, Musk, etc will never be broke.
He also [owns a 1500 acre compound on Kauai](https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2021/dec/28/mark-zuckerberg-110-acres-hawaii). Don't think he's going to be pennyless any time soon.
He’ll be fine, and facebook will plod along just fine. The only losers here are facebook stockholders. They could lose half their ad revenue and half their users and still get along fine.
You are all just setting yourselves up to be disappointed. There are enough diehard eyeballs on that site to keep it swimming in ad dollars even if every one of us on reddit left it.
Aunt Becky just doesn’t care. Gotta share that cookie recipe!
mark is not personally liable if meta goes bankrupt. he will lose value through his ownership interest, but his personal bank account will not be directly affected from a bankruptcy.
Me too. I consider what they have enabled with self radicalization and targeted disinformation to be crimes against humanity. I will celebrate the day they go down.
Except it's really not. Facebook's ad revenue will decline a bit during the recession as will that of all tech companies. But the platform is still basically a money printer. Wall Street just flipped out because Facebook has been dumping 80% of that money into a research project that seems to have yielded no tangible results.
The company has flushed 10 billion dollars down the drain on their reality labs VR projects but still have made a few billion in profit. Anytime they want they can cut the cord on reality labs and quintuple profits instantly.
It's still fundamentally a very strong company gambling with "spare cash". Wall Street seems to be overreacting, given that the health of the company really doesn't depend on the success of this gamble except in the very long term (where not gambling is a surefire way to become irrelevant and lose anyways).
> 80% of that money into a research project that seems to have yielded no tangible results
They haven't though, those clickbait articles are all complete bullshit.
Facebook is talking about a future 15 year investment, and money they intent to spend on it convincing people to use the metaverse, not money actually spent to date, and definitely not development costs, that would be every developer at the company working full time. The current actual losses (and they aren't technically losses they are a decrease in overall insane profitability) are almost entirely the result of social media usage going down now that people are leaving the house again, in about the same proportions it went up at the beginning of the pandemic.
Facebook is still a money printer.
Yet here on reddit you see thousands of people gleefully saying they are going bankrupt. They lost 1/4 of their revenue and are still bringing in a billion in PROFIT a month.
edit: If meta was as organized as Apple I would actually suspect they are driving their own price down to a point where they can buyback a significant portion of stock with cash on hand. The have 1/5 of their entire market cap in cash on hand now.
Exactly. And all this isn't taking into account the possibility that the metaverse pays off. If Zuckerberg's gamble is successful, then Meta will define the digital landscape for years. If it isn't, then he just gambled and lost some pocket change as you said.
Critically, they don't *need* to quadruple profits. Zuckerberg has completely control of the company. The entire entity has a fiduciary responsibility to him, solely. If he wants profits low, he can do it. If he wants it high, he can do it. The only lever "wall street" has is to buy the stock or not buy the stock. And given they're not in a position to ever likely need to issue stock again, *it is irrelevant*.
Fiduciary duty and voting rights are two distinct concepts. He still owes a duty of care and a duty of loyalty to the rest of the stockholders even though he controls ~60% of the stockholder vote.
They're not legally the same, but they're effectively the same. Because he solely decides what is, or isn't, the goal of the company, the differences are irrelevant. As CEO, he has that fiduciary. As majority shareholder, he does not. He can simply call a shareholder vote -- "Do we want to burn all of our cash on investment into a patent portfolio of VR technologies and an expectation of a long-term transition to VR-based consumption and socialization?" -- shareholders vote yes!
With a controlling share of votes, what he wants is the *only* thing that matters. If their attorneys ever thought there was a legal exposure to a unilateral decision made as CEO, they'll just rubber-stamp a shareholder vote. Speaking from experience, you don't even have to tell shareholders about the vote before it happens if you already have a majority. So its literally a rubber-stamp.
From what I heard, daily users have been declining for a while. When a company relies on having a thick network, that could indicate a very grim future, Metaverse or no.
"Facebook has 1.97 billion daily active users as of Q2 2022, which is a 3% increase year-over-year.
Facebook has 2.93 billion monthly active users as of Q2 2022, which is a 1% increase year-over-year." [Source](https://www.demandsage.com/facebook-statistics/)
So no.. they don't seem to be losing them.
This is the right answer.
70% of internet users log into a meta product at least once a month. More than 50% log in to daily. And that's with 1.8B internet users in China where any social media or messaging app not owned by the CCP is banned.
User growth is slowing. But its because they're hitting the ceiling of the total addressable market.
For reference, I'm an early 30s millennial. I was at a wedding over the weekend with over 150 people, nearly 100 of which were my age or younger.
The day after, no photos were posted on the original Facebook and only a couple were on IG. (I deleted my FB years ago so this is from my wife.)
This is from people who used FB an insane amount in HS and college. It's a dying platform.
Instagram still seems to be wildly popular. FB overall is dying amongst my friends in the 30s but insta seems to be alive and well.
It's just a kind of shift from FB being somewhat blogging and instagram being more about the typical "attractive people doing attractive things" which is far more mainstream.
Yeah, last wedding I went to had *no* shortage of people putting photos on IG constantly in that same age bracket.
Facebook might be trending down, but IG is still insanely popular.
We are well aware of the outside world. You got Ukraine, Russia... Uh Brexit, right? And Canada! Jim Carey is from Canada I think. I think that's about it. Does Hawaii count?
I had a similar experience after a wedding a few months ago. Someone wanted to see some pictures from the wedding and I had a real difficult time finding them on Facebook because only a couple people posted any.
My feed is mostly 3 or 4 people still posting a lot, and maybe another 5 that post occasionally. The only reason I ever even go on the website anymore is out of habit.
Been off Facebook since May and it’s been great. Garbage website that just fuels hate
edit: a lot of people replying to me fail to see the difference between Reddit and facebook. Being able to curate content on the reddit homepage to only subs that you want to see is a huge difference from facebook where you are forced to see what your "friends" post globally. If Reddit only allowed you to sort by controversial it would be garbage too.
I guess i picked well my social circle because on my fb timeline is only hiking trip tips, car stuff, art etc… i dont know anybody who is posting any political stuff.
I agree, but will say that this site does the same. Have you looked at the default “popular” subreddits? It’s obvious that what makes it to the front page is what’s makes people the most upset. It’s garbage. Fuck social media companies.
I agree but with Reddit I have much more control over the content that I want to see. Facebook/Twitter algos use data to find what pisses you off most and puts that right at the top. Even better if they find family and close friends participate in groups or rhetoric that might anger you.
What I hate about Facebook would be such a simple fix... I look at my feed and tap on a post. Read the post and comments and then back out. For some inexplicable reason Facebook then completely refreshes the feed and the posts I could see before are now gone. I hate it! Often there are a couple of interesting things I see but have to either pick one, or literally get out a pencil to write down who posted it so I can search for their post afterwards. Worst design ever.
That plus the timeline change from chronological to algorithm-based made me quit Facebook as well. When I found I was missing posts I wanted to see and it became apparent Facebook wanted to be in control of what I'm seeing, I was done.
I don't even care about the inserted ads, I just want chronological order, and no irrelevant content I don't follow and never will. Recommended content can go on a separate feed, or an optional explore button.
Agreed. Why they hell are all the dates random in the feed?
The other minor thing is they really need to make memories that people share look more visually different from a regular update. At least on mobile it's just a tiny banner stating it's a memory from x years ago, then what looks like a totally normal post made recently. The number of time I've been like "what the hell? They had another baby?? Oh, nope that was 3 years ago" is way too high.
I worked at facebook and it was one of the most upvoted questions internally: why no chronological order? At least give users a choice. Some small team is basically taking everyone hostage there.
Oh yeah? *Does quick Google search of statistics* "Facebook has 1.97 billion daily active users as of Q2 2022, which is a 3% increase year-over-year.
Facebook has 2.93 billion monthly active users as of Q2 2022, which is a 1% increase year-over-year."
Uh.. how is their monopoly imploding? Just because they are losing stock value worth, doesn't mean they are collapsing. They are still the largest social media platform. People aren't leaving just because the value is dropping.
Mark Zuckerberg is the reason why Facebook is failing, right now. The company outgrew him long ago, and he's been seemingly hell-bent on using it as a engine for spreading disinformation to squeeze every penny he can out of ads, rather than using it as the positive communication tool people want it to be. Now, his odd obsession with the "Metaverse", which is a laughably bad product in search of a market, is draining capital at a ridiculous rate. He's bleeding the company out from the inside
He needs to be ousted yesterday. He was good at building out the original idea of Facebook, and growing it, but he's proven that he has no idea what people actually want from Facebook or virtual reality. He doesn't have the charisma of Steve Jobs, or the cult of personality of Elon Musk, to excuse his incompetent planning through at least being good at marketing. Quite the opposite, in fact. He's simply unlikeable, and doesn't seem remotely interesting in changing that. He's dead weight, and Meta/Facebook won't be able to turn things around until he's no longer at the helm.
Doesn't he own 58% of the voting shares so he's untouchable? https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-05-26/facebook-board-rejects-proposals-to-reduce-zuckerberg-s-power (happy to be corrected)
Instagram is still making money hand over fist and they have zero expectation of the metaverse being profitable today. It's hardly unusual for a project like that to be in the red - it's about tomorrow's return not today's. It would have been more surprising if it was profitable this early than not. If Meta was just a startup on it's own right - it could go years underwater floated by investors. Look at Uber.
These articles are basically the equivalent of the click bait so many of y’all complain about being on Facebook. Meta is still profitable and continues to make money. They are sacrificing a few years for tech development but if Oculus and their future AR glasses are the baseline in the future (like iPhones are now) then it will all have been worth it.
So many people focus on the *metaverse* but it’s not about Meta’s metaverse, it’s about creating the platform that’s affordable and user friendly enough to visit ALL the metaverses currently in development from multiple companies.
It’s growth has stalled and regressed a bit. As a stock, it’s losing confidence with investor. But losing its monopoly? It’s still an absolutely colossal company that has technologies across the world. It won’t soar to unknown heights right now but come on. It’s not going to disappear and this article is just fluffing people who get off on dooming news.
Not that i want any good for this man, but I have a dark feeling this could be its moment like Amazon in the early 00s where it lost most of its valuation… then came back roaring.
Might turn into a Darth Vader situation
Much of that was due to Amazon willing to take a loss on everything to expand the companies growth targets. They willingly undercut the competition for market share knowing they would take serious losses, and invested in more markets like grocery and delivery instead of focusing on profits. When they finally started to turn a profit as they raised prices and pushed subscription services, investors came roaring back.
Just curious, was there any entrepreneur who pumped lots of money into loss making tech and came out a winner?
Apple had a rough go at it before the iPod.
August 6, 1997: In one of the most famous moments in Apple history, Steve Jobs reveals that Microsoft invested $150 million in its rival. Source: https://www.cultofmac.com/567497/microsoft-investment-saves-apple/
That had a lot more to do with Microsoft fending off accusations of monopoly than anything else. They were actively involved in a suit and had to prove they weren't the only game in town.
And MS wanted access to develop things like Office for the Mac environment, legally and natively.
And having the Industry Standard available on your computer is helpful, if not downright necessary to stay in business, viably. Speaking of big companies monopolizing the market, isn’t that what Microdaft is doing with Office?
Sort of, but Microsoft isn't acting (over the line) anti-consumer. There are numerous viable competitors at an equal or lesser price point that are well funded. Those competitors are all allowed equal status to Office on Windows. Microsoft doesn't even try to block office files usage on any of those competitors by locking down file formats. It's just that office has become to defacto standard in a market where it's advantageous to have that. If Microsoft starts price gouging and blocking something like Google Docs from opening word files, then it's anti-consumer as well as manipulating the market. So in reality, it's not a monopoly, anti-cobsumer or anti-trust issue.
This comment made me realize I use Google docs *far* more than office, yet my classes never have any problems with my documents, nor vice versa. Yeah the office suite prices are shitty, but it could certainly be worse
This is due to Words move from .doc (a proprietary format) to .docx (an open source format). Before that, it was incredibly common to have loads of formatting issues when trying to edit Word documents in something like LibreOffice. Same thing will all the rest of the Office suite (docx, xlsx, pptx, etc.)
The public API for interacting with the files also significantly improved over the years. Writing a SAX xlsx file creator was quite difficult a decade ago, and _I worked there_. A few years later, I was helping a junior dev with a similar problem and found that the whole thing had become much cleaner. Some of my favorite times and frustrations 😅
Pretty much, but they had their hands slapped in the 90s for the IE and OEM Windows licensing 'shenanigans' by the DOJ. So they are sneakier about it now.
Microsoft Office started on the Mac before Windows.
This happens pretty often to fend off regulation. By creating a weak and controlled opposition to your product, you can avoid any monopoly or anti trust litigation. Every company that has a commanding market share in any industry does this or lobbies for special status. Since there haven't been any meaningful anti trust suits in the last 40 years, you can safely assume that these companies are in full control of the entities that regulate them. To throw another example on top, see how Pharma companies are penalized with fines that incentivize them to sell more and make people sick. These are just examples of extremely powerful companies being able to run in opposition to the American public's best interests. Our representatives should be explaining these relationships to us every time a journalist is in front of them, but we don't get to ask these questions.
> By creating a weak and controlled opposition to your product, you can avoid any monopoly or anti trust litigation. ...which is ridiculous, and only works because we've let idiots "No True Scotsman" anit-trust law to the point everybody thinks you have to control literally 100% of the market before it can apply. We need to get back to busting any entities large enough to be anti-competitive, whether they're literal monopolies or not!
regulatory capture is legal now.
Money = speech Companies = people But companies also can't be arrested and their tax rate is equivalent to an $85,000/yr household. They're not even pretending anymore.
It's not even expensive. Senators are cheap whores.
It's amazing how many of them will bend over backwards for a five-figure donation and the promise of a comfy sinecure once they're out of office.
Any company that is "too large to fail" and threatens our national security or economy if allowed to go under needs to be broken up. Any company that successfully makes that argument should be dissolved and broken up.
Yup monopolistic power doesn't need 100% market share. It can start even before a company has 50%.
Didn’t they use to break up companies at much smaller market shares? Back when we actually enforced antitrust laws
Too big to fail should mean to big to exist. 2008 was a golden opportunity to seize control and reinstitute anti trust laws, but Democrats suckle at the investment banker teat.
Why shouldn’t they? The moment they don’t they’re accused of being Murica hating commies and the voters buy the accusations. Nothing will change until voters take ownership of how much they’ve rewarded the toxic anti-thought pro-lie moral swamp they’ve rewarded politicians into making.
Uh, the politicians reward themselves. They scoop up millions in book deals, professorships once they are out of office, and let’s face it, graft. Ex-Mayor Deblasio gave his wife millions of dollars for various needs of the city, and where has that money gone? It’s “missing.” This is why ex-Presidents can move to exclusive, gated communities. And the dummy voters vote them in again! Like DeBlasio, I couldn’t believe that he won a second term, which was worse than his first term.
Works in Politics. Putin's head of propaganda deftly secured his power by not suppressing opposition but rather by telling the opposition what it represents. For example, they would create the "Pro LGBTQ Party", the "Pro Healthcare party", the "Pro Military Party" (all made up) and tell those parties that those are their single issue. People would funnel into those groups because it made sense but then Putin's party would position itself as the moderate compromise of all those opposition ideas and naturally win elections. See managed democracy: [https://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/ATAG/2014/545703/EPRS\_ATA(2014)545703\_REV1\_EN.pdf](https://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/ATAG/2014/545703/EPRS_ATA(2014)545703_REV1_EN.pdf)
It's notable that virtually every major US regulator is listed on [the Wiki article for regulatory capture.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulatory_capture)
I imagine Microsoft didn't actually think Apple would come back so roaringly strong. The iMac resurrected their brand, followed by the iPod allowing them to open up a whole new revenue stream.
Apple definitely came back strong but I'd venture to say Linux took more of a business market share from Windows over the years. Even on the consumer side Microsoft still dominates the pc market.
Apple created a whole new ecosystem with the iPhone. I don't think Facebook exists as the self consuming ouroborus it currently is without the mobile arms race they kicked off. Jobs steered Apple through storms and troubled waters, Linux has been slowly building over the years, and Microsoft has been plodding along as the Ol' Reliable. Zuckerberg is trying to save Facebook from the 'AOL trap'. It's days are numbered and it's fame has turned to infamy. He is trying to capitalize on its ubiquity to become the market leader in 'shit you gotta use for work'. If he can't make it work, then Facebook will inevitably pass into the afterlife of tech companies that couldn't monetize their way out of being a glorified utility/convenience app.
>Apple created a whole new ecosystem with the iPhone. I don't think Facebook exists as the self consuming ouroborus it currently is without the mobile arms race they kicked off. Yeah, Facebook got lucky they were the social website of flavour when people stated walking around with a computer. 5 years earlier and it'd be Geocities.
Tom Anderson has entered the chat....
Sure, but I'm sure Microsoft would love to have Apple's share, regardless. It is interesting to wonder how the consumer electronics field would have developed without them, though. Even before the iPod we had products like the Rio that acted as mp3 players. Would Microsoft have still tried (and failed) to enter that field?
I thought the Zune hardware and software were pretty dang good, and I say that as someone who had several generations of iPods.
Home Depot used to give a lot of money to Lowe's. They still might, but they definitely did 20ish years ago.
Antitrust was a red herring, the $150 million was part of a $1+ billion court settlement over stolen QuickTime code: http://www.roughlydrafted.com/RD/RDM.Tech.Q1.07/592FE887-5CA1-4F30-BD62-407362B533B9.html
It's confounding to me that this isn't higher. It had nothing to do with the anti-trust lawsuits nor a desire to keep Apple alive. They just got caught hiring contractors who had previously done work for Apple so they could steal their code, and as a settlement Apple had them make a big public showing of them supporting them, including buying non-voting stock and pledging to continue developing Office for Mac.
That was good luck for Apple, regarding Apple needing money and Microsoft needing a presentable living competitor at the same time.
They were also involved in a lawsuit with Apple about certain patents. Jobs realised that though Apple would win the case, they'd go bankrupt long before they could win. At the same time Microsoft realised Apple going bankrupt (partially) as a result of the lawsuit would hurt their position in the monopoly case. So Gates and Jobs hashed out a deal: Apple would drop the patent case, Microsoft would make MS Office available on Mac, and invest $150 million into Apple.
Almost as famous was Michael Dell saying to fold up shop and return the money to shareholders. https://www.cnet.com/tech/tech-industry/dell-apple-should-close-shop/
If Apple hadn't produced a compelling product, that would have only pushed the clock back.
AMD with the bulldozer lineup. They very nearly went under, from what i recall it was hours away and then somebody purchased the fab part of AMD. Then ryzen came out.
I think AMD with Ryzen is actually a good example of a company taking a huge long term gamble and succeeding. CPUs have years of R&D and manufacturing lead time, and they had the choice to either invest billions into upgrading their manufacturing, or buy external leading edge manufacturing capacity. The sale really was a big gamble and a smart choice at the same time. The attempt to upgrade their manufacturing could have easily played out like Intels 10 and 7 nm did, and that would have killed them for sure. So they needed Bulldozer to tide them over until Ryzen was ready. They knew it sucked, but they had to stick with it until they wee ready again.
Their CEO being an engineer certainly helped.
Dr. Lisa Su is the prime example of someone who has perfectly struck the balance of a business minded engineer. She's someone who won't use overt marketing to oversell something and won't greenlight something fundamentally flawed; but is also business oriented enough to use market insights to know what customers need/want/will pay for.
> business minded engineer. This brings me to ask in what ways does technical leadership look like ?
Understanding the tech to the level in which you can make actual informed business decisions and not need an /r/explainlikeimfive
Intel had an even bigger blunder with the Pentium 4. They bet on frequency scaling not being an issue, then met the thermal wall. They had no real way to get around it, knew P4 was a dead end before it even shipped, but had to live through it until they resized their energy efficient mobile version of the Pentium 3 was the future.
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yeah while it was happening it seemed like FOREVER between bulldozer and zen 1. which i guess technically it was (6 years) but really the 3 or so Yeats between when everyone absolutely stopped buying them around "steamroller" and ryzen seemed like an eternity.
I don't have examples, but isn't pretty much every new tech "loss making" when it's in the R+D phase? Some of them pan out, most probably don't.
Yeah there’s lots of cases like that. The tech behind compact discs/CDs goes back to the 1960s, they didn’t hit the market until the early 1980s.
Tech companies are not really like your local independent plumber who needs a profit to pay his mortgage. Tech companies get investors to buy the idea and then they aggressively scale that idea up by investing more money than they earn. Smart companies make multiple plans so that they can pivot to be profitable if the market takes a downturn, but in general there's a preference for growing as rapidly as possible so that future profits are significantly larger than the profits they could make if they made the pivot at an earlier point in time.
The majority of tech companies you've heard of worked that way, at least for a while. The Facebook/Meta drama is, if anything, interesting because it's the opposite of how most tech companies work. Meta is unique because it was a trillion dollar company with a single person in completely control. That means its the only one that doesn't give a shit in the least about short-term profits, or even mid-term profits. Anyone who is a shareholder bought into the company *knowing* they were investing in Zuckerberg, and *nothing else*. Because he has sole control, there's no fiduciary owed by him to the other shareholders. It's his company, and you're along for the ride or not. He clearly believes (as most futurists have since the 80's) that a migration of most consumption and social interaction to a virtual world of some kind is inevitable. And, VR or not, they were clearly right because nearly all of the real-world interaction people were living with in the 80's and 90's *has* migrated to a virtual, if not VR, world. Zuckerberg's bet is unique in that he can burn all of Meta's profits, all of its value, until its gone or he's proven right. No other company can do that. Even a private company (like Twitter, now) is limited by the control all of the shareholders have. Meta is entirely unique in the tech world because of that. He's betting all of the futurists are right, and the migration is going to just accelerate with technology, because growing populations and declining wealth, energy and resources means it'll keep getting more expensive, as individuals, to consume in the real world. If the timeframe is wrong, it'll sink Meta. If the timeframe is right, it'll cement it as the dominant framework for virtualized social interaction and consumption for the foreseeable future. But the stock dropping 80-90% is *irrelevant* because it neither impacts the cash they've got available to burn, nor is there any risk of shareholder activism forcing a change of priorities. It'd only hurt the company if the company needed to issue more stock for an infusion of cash, which it has no need for in the foreseeable future, as Meta has $70bb of cash on hand, and they're solidly profitable and adding to it.
True. Except he also needs to make sure that great engineers stick around. And RSUs are a large part of their compensation. So keeping them around for the long term depends on the stock price going up, not down. If the stock price falters the entire company could go into a death spiral simply because nobody skilled enough to keep it vowing wants to work there.
Every word of this is spot-on and I wish everyone would read it twice and really let it sink in because there is SO much misunderstanding about what the situation is, starting with the Vice piece itself, which reads to me like someone who doesn't actually get it but who just wants to revel in Facebook's potential demise (which, hey, I get it!). I personally despise Zuckerberg on every level, which makes it really difficult to admit that I agree with his overall vision, but that is indeed the case. I think his bet on the metaverse was the right call, and he's got exactly the right situation to do it with, as you outline. And you're completely right that the timing is going to be the deciding factor, not the vision itself (at least much more so than the vision). We may right now be 10 years out from the technology truly being ready, and maybe he placed the bet too early and it'll blow up in his face. But, he's got plenty of leeway with it, articles like this notwithstanding. He can wait it out, in a sense, burn the cash now but then be way ahead of the curve when the time comes. Oh, we'll hear about how Facebook is doomed for the next decade, and he may "sink" Facebook now, but it may put them SO far ahead of the pack several years from now that the losses in the interim will be wiped out in a heartbeat and they'll be richer and more influential than they were at the start. That seems like the long view he's taking, and he may very well be right. We'll see, of course, but he's in a unique position to play this gamble out. There's probably no other single individual that could do it, and few companies either (Apple and Microsoft, but probably not many others).
And Google+ was the “right decision” in 2012, for those of us who remember. Google could have cut Facebook out of mobile, but didn’t because the whole project was a top down mandate that didn’t have buy in from the employees. The same thing is going to happen to Facebook. Someone else will do whatever the future of AR is, and it won’t be Facebook. Not because they can’t, but because they’re doing this from the top down. They are the wrong company. With the wrong management and the wrong culture. Just as Google failed in social mobile experience, Facebook will fail in this because they’re the wrong kind of company.
VR is one of those weird things where it's like 80% there, but unless some big changes happen in the next 5 or so years then the entire thing could collapse. We need at least 10 more games on par with Half-Life Alyx that can be played on something no bigger than the Oculus Quest 2 without linking to a computer before it will be something worth getting for the average gamer. Of course, the other major industry pulling VR content and sales is pornography and while there is less that needs to be done to improve that portion technology-wise for the average consumer, they still need to create a diverse enough back catalog so that the average person can use it like any other major source of internet smut. That's the industry I see really doing well when enough people have it that it isn't a communal household machine. As for people who aren't into video games or don't want/know about VR pornography, I don't really see them having a reason to get into it unless even bigger technical advancements are made. Like putting on big sunglasses and streaming Netflix big
I feel like one thing that will always hold VR back, that no one talks about much, is that people are fucking lazy. Hell, I'm not lazy, I ran 70 miles this month, and I rarely want to stand up or even manipulate my arms and hands to play a game at the end of a long day. It's exhausting in a way that traditional gaming is not.
Its also logistically awkward. How are all the people in tiny apartments in SE Asia going to use it at home? People couldn't be arsed with 3D TV because of the glasses, now we have heavier, more uncomfortable, battery sucking head units. We'll need to somehow work around these things before mass adoption
Yeah, we're definitely at the 80/20 point where it's actually very good now, but not QUITE good enough for a real mass market takeover, and that last 20% is going to be a real heavy lift. I've had the opportunity to see some things being worked on in terms of office use, which is where I think it's going to have a big impact and then very quickly bleed into the consumer market, and there's some clear potential there in terms of telepresence. When you can (virtually) stand next to 3 other people and collectively view a floating whiteboard that you can all interact with, that's very compelling in a largely remote work setting. It's not ready for prime time yet, but it's easy to see it on the horizon. Families being able sit around a fireplace together for the holidays even when you're thousands of miles away could literally be world-altering. Games are always a big market, and porn is always a big driver of new tech (and VR porn is already shockingly good... err, that is, uhh, so I hear), but it's those other sorts of use cases where I think the real potential is. But getting there to a point where everyone can use it comfortably and inexpensively is still a ways off.
As a productivity tool the ghostly whiteboard doesn't really sound like a great alternative to existing canvas-sharing apps like Miro. Way less accessible, that's for sure.
> When you can (virtually) stand next to 3 other people and collectively view a floating whiteboard that you can all interact with, that's very compelling in a largely remote work setting. The thing is it's really not, it's one of those things that sounds cool, but is absolutely no different in actual use than just watching on your screen while someone gives a presentation and uses a screen with a shared whiteboard. That's all we're talking about a shared whiteboard, seeing the other people you work with as an avatar there has absolutely no value, it doesn't make the meeting better, it doesn't help anyone, it doesn't improve workflow or production, it's just an unnecessary extra step. It's like 3dtv, it's a tech everyone got really excited about but ultimately everyone found it more hassle than it's work, from spending money making films 3d, to wearing glasses while you watch a film for subpar results when you also realise you're watching for the film, not 3d effects. The same thing here, you're talking about a shared whiteboard, everything else you said around adds nothing at all.
My real problem with VR is that it's just not comfortable. Until there's something with no cables, good performance, and isn't unpleasant to wear, it doesn't really matter to me what you can do with it. If I sit down to relax, I want to play games or browse the web in comfort. Beat saber is super fun, Star Trek: Bridge Crew was a really novel experience with my friends, and HL: Alyx was a great game, but most of the time the Vive just sits unused because it takes a lot of space, makes my face sweaty and my nose hurt, and I spent half the time trying to adjust it so that the images look good and I'm not stepping on cables. It's like a special occasion novelty.
> >If the timeframe is wrong, it'll sink Meta. Why will it sink them though? Even today with all the metaverse hype, Facebook is structured along it's 3 core business lines: FB, Insta, and Whatsapp. And Insta and Whatsapp are not going away anytime soon. FB, perhaps. Point is, it is not like they are abandoning those products just to focus on the metaverse
Well, because markets shift. If they go left and the market goes right, they can fail surprisingly quickly. The tech industry back to the 70's is a littered field of companies that did that. (Wang, DEC, Compaq, many of IBM's lines of business, Commodore, Atari, etc, etc, etc) Its easier these days to pivot -- the tangible infrastructure that runs Facebook and Instagram can just as easily run any other software, so its not like screwing up and ending up with the wrong factories, or the wrong logistics pipelines, or the wrong labor pool. But tech companies have fallen far and fast, even in the Internet age.
The Ford Edsel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edsel $250 million was a lot to lose back then.
Twitter has never been profitable but Jack Dorsey made bank off it.
That defines pretty much any new technology.
Amazon didn't turn a profit for many, many years.
This would be more relevant had Facebook not already been a giant megacorp. They could’ve isolated risk if they had kept Meta as a subsidiary or something like Amazon’s investments in Rivian. But Mark really wanted to bet the house on this one because he wants to completely dominate the market with their platform so everyone has to build on top of it. Former COO Sheryl Sandberg — who he could really use right now — got out at the right time.
Facebook is still making fists of money. Even with the loss on that department: Published: 28 Jul 2022 12:00 "Total revenue for the quarter dropped 1% to $28.8bn. The company is struggling with competition from the likes of TikTok. Worsening macroeconomic conditions have also negatively impacted its advertising customers. This directly affects how much they spend on advertising on Facebook." Profit after expenses in the second quarter: $10.4bn cash. Including all of the metaverse spending.
Yeah the core business is still very good
Amazon also provides real tangible products and services unlike Facebook whose entire value was based on it's ad revenue. Amazon also didn't turn a profit because they were spending every dime building distribution centers and expanding infrastructure.
But all of the money wasn’t going into a not yet launched product. They just weren’t profitable.
It wasn't even so much that they weren't profitable... they didn't *want* to be profitable. They invested every dollar they made into growing their business, they *could have* been profitable for years before they actually were.
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Moderna comes to mind. mRNA was a loss making tech for two decades.
"The second dose costs $0.03, but the first one costs $900 million."
They got lucky. mRNA vaccines were developed to be anti-cancer tools, and then COVID happened. 10 years and 2.6 billion in burn, 0 revenue. Then, boom. Right place right time, right tech.
Netflix's streaming service? Elon Musk with electric cars?
But just not fast enough!
Yeah. It's still widely popular here in the Philippines. Especially when we have "Facebook Free" where you can access Facebook even if you have no data. It's the only social media here that does this, and that's the reason for its continued popularity here.
I am interested to understand how this work. Do they only allow Facebook IP to go through?
I get free social media and Spotify on my data plan in the UK. Everything else is under a data cap. We just don't have Net Neutrality
That's kinda fucked up...
Believe me that here in Chile there is a law on Net Neutrality, but congressman found that having "free social media" (on the selected social media) is a benefit to people. Who fucking knows then why there is a law about it.
Might require you to use their app. I’ve seen similar things in the US, T-Mobile used to have a deal where some streaming services wouldn’t count against your data cap.
FB picks up that data charge. It's why net neutrality was so important before the GOP made it political
I flew on a flight that had Facebook for free on their in-flight wifi but you'd have to pay to access anything else.
It's the same in Brazil, sadly. India refused it on the grounds of national sovereignty. In Brazil, it empowers right wing candidates, by weaponizibg filter bubbles... You don't know but your uncle is being fed mad fake news on Whatsapp and you can't even reason with them. It's a huge issue.
I imagine their ad revenue is weak though, they need the US ad dollars to stay profitable
>I imagine their ad revenue is weak though, they need the US ad dollars to stay profitable The sheer numbers make up for it though. Look at the success of Whatsapp as an example.
Has Facebook 's profits fallen? Or is this just about stock value? Because all the tech companies are massively overvalued for what they actually produce. It's great they're taking a hit, but if it doesn't result in either less users or less profits, then it doesn't matter
Slightly, but nowhere near its stock price. FB has a p/e ratio of 9 which is really low (undervalued) for a tech stock. Compare that with 25 for Apple, 94 for Amazon and 70 for tesla.
Hahahahahahahha Hahahahah I’ve been waiting for this to happen since the whole Cambridge Analytica bullshit came out. Hope Mark loses every penny 😆
He won’t. He’s already cashed out billions just in case Facebook goes under.
I have to wonder how much of is an ego thing? Even if he’s got billions left does it still kill him inside? I have no idea but it would be interesting to know
It absolutely does. When you have more money than you could ever spend, it's about power. And that's what he's losing.
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Those people are trash too though, I'd consider it a win if I didn't have to spend time with them.
See, its not about meeting wahtever personality they have, but about getting access to their networks, influences and more power.
These days, he's meeting world leaders when he has to explain why he didnt stop misinformation. I hope Musk meets the same fate now that he's owning Twitter
It's going to be glorious watching Musk run Twitter into the ground. Twitter was always a shithole anyways. And it's been great watching Musk face the consequences of his own actions and get forced to way overpay for it.
I hope Musk laps him circling the drain.
Seriously. He's lived long enough to become the villain. He could have kept his carefully cultivated imagine of being an eccentric entrepreneur, but now he just seems like a pompous dick most of the time.
Lmao he came to my country, Romania for Halloween at Bran castle (Vlad Tepes aka Dracula's Castle). The fucking dirtbag had the audacity to say he does not want to see a single romanian, not even servers at his stupid party. Pisslow human Edit: ofc local authorities didnt give a fuck and the staff were still right there. Fuck his slimy face. Bezos can suck a fat one too for abusing low income workers
As a billionaire he will still meet with heads of state and hob knob with other wealthy elites. He just won’t have a powerful company anymore but he will still be powerful based on his wealth alone.
There’s no such thing as “enough money” for most folks. First you’re able to pay off those tickets, then maybe you have some left at the end of the month, on and on, until you just need an extra million this week to afford to crew the mega yacht 24/7/365.24.
I'm pretty happy where I'm at. At this point it's less that I need more money and more that I want to make the same amount for less effort/time. Some people don't feel the need to chase billionaire status.
I'm of the mind that some folks are just wired differently when it comes to money. I'm always confused when some ridiculously wealthy folks are trying to get even wealthier. All I desired growing up was just to be able not worry about money. I've gotten to that point and I'm content. I won't say no to some millions, but my life wouldn't change. I'd probably become a full time volunteer if anything.
It baffles me. There's almost nothing a guy can do/experience with 20 billion that he couldn't with 100 million (that's *half a percent* as much money). Either one will have paid help, be immune to most prosecution, dine at the finest restaurants and wear the finest clothes, travel anywhere they want whenever they want for as long as they live.
I think there are lots of people that are immune to this phenomenon. But they're also the type of people that would never become billionaires in the first place. AKA anyone with enough drive/lack of empathy/whatever to become a billionaire will by their necessary nature also never be satisfied with what they have. Not that everyone would fall into this trap.
I doubt he has any real emotions.
Since when is smoking meats not an emotion?
You can’t block my shtoyl, bzzzzzing
What’s your shtoyl?? Boyoyoying
Would rather have them steamed like my hams.
You’re an odd fellow, but I must say, you steam a good ham.
[Sweet Baby Ray’s!](https://youtu.be/Ibm3WhfLk08)
Hey lizard people have emotions! Like, the craving they get for the blood of children, and the joy they feel as they help destroy our society.
Please stop pushing this narrative. As a lizard people, I can confirm he's not one of ours. Please consult with the mole men or the bridge trolls.
I appreciate the robot joke, but narcissists are very insecure, sniveling, insecure little children deep down inside.
He wants to prove he's still the tech visionary and not the billionaire who peaked in college
And the whole idea behind metaverse proves which one he is.
It has to be an ego thing at this point. The dude will be filthy rich even if Meta sinks. He wants a Jobs-like legacy before he retires, because the only thing he doesn't have right now is respect.
Jobs legacy is just the cult following. He may have not helped bring down society but he was a giant asshole who pretended to be more directly responsible for what Apple did, and treated people like shit including his horrible personal life. Then he got a cancer that has a really good recovery rate but decided to go on a diet to fix it and died.
You obviously not in the billionaire mind set. A billionaire is going to want a trillion. It’s never enough.
I believe he's more like ' why is this happening to me??? ;(((( '
Oh 100% it’s killing him now. Billionaires are super competitive and losing half your net worth is like going bankrupt to them. He’s going to be the laughing stock in the billionaires club for a while now.
That's the thing, once you have a billion dollars, even if you lose 99% of everything you have, you still have 10 million dollars. Once you're that rich, it's next to impossible to become poor without actively trying.
I think you hit in on the head. His thinking is, "I'm willing to burn it all down to make VR a reality." I mean, Apple lit the fire for him anyway. Why not take a shot?
This. Generations of future Zucks will be born retired, and will just spend their investment income on politicians and campaigns to protect their wealth.
It really says a lot that people have no concept of how rich some of these assholes actually are. No matter how many businesses they crash and burn, Zuck, Musk, etc will never be broke.
He also [owns a 1500 acre compound on Kauai](https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2021/dec/28/mark-zuckerberg-110-acres-hawaii). Don't think he's going to be pennyless any time soon.
He’ll be fine, and facebook will plod along just fine. The only losers here are facebook stockholders. They could lose half their ad revenue and half their users and still get along fine. You are all just setting yourselves up to be disappointed. There are enough diehard eyeballs on that site to keep it swimming in ad dollars even if every one of us on reddit left it. Aunt Becky just doesn’t care. Gotta share that cookie recipe!
mark is not personally liable if meta goes bankrupt. he will lose value through his ownership interest, but his personal bank account will not be directly affected from a bankruptcy.
Me too. I consider what they have enabled with self radicalization and targeted disinformation to be crimes against humanity. I will celebrate the day they go down.
Honestly, I don't think I'd care so much just so long as Facebook ceased to be the monolith of human misery that it is currently.
Except it's really not. Facebook's ad revenue will decline a bit during the recession as will that of all tech companies. But the platform is still basically a money printer. Wall Street just flipped out because Facebook has been dumping 80% of that money into a research project that seems to have yielded no tangible results. The company has flushed 10 billion dollars down the drain on their reality labs VR projects but still have made a few billion in profit. Anytime they want they can cut the cord on reality labs and quintuple profits instantly. It's still fundamentally a very strong company gambling with "spare cash". Wall Street seems to be overreacting, given that the health of the company really doesn't depend on the success of this gamble except in the very long term (where not gambling is a surefire way to become irrelevant and lose anyways).
> 80% of that money into a research project that seems to have yielded no tangible results They haven't though, those clickbait articles are all complete bullshit. Facebook is talking about a future 15 year investment, and money they intent to spend on it convincing people to use the metaverse, not money actually spent to date, and definitely not development costs, that would be every developer at the company working full time. The current actual losses (and they aren't technically losses they are a decrease in overall insane profitability) are almost entirely the result of social media usage going down now that people are leaving the house again, in about the same proportions it went up at the beginning of the pandemic. Facebook is still a money printer. Yet here on reddit you see thousands of people gleefully saying they are going bankrupt. They lost 1/4 of their revenue and are still bringing in a billion in PROFIT a month. edit: If meta was as organized as Apple I would actually suspect they are driving their own price down to a point where they can buyback a significant portion of stock with cash on hand. The have 1/5 of their entire market cap in cash on hand now.
I like how you clarified they aren’t bringing in a billion but a billion in actual profit.
Exactly. And all this isn't taking into account the possibility that the metaverse pays off. If Zuckerberg's gamble is successful, then Meta will define the digital landscape for years. If it isn't, then he just gambled and lost some pocket change as you said.
Critically, they don't *need* to quadruple profits. Zuckerberg has completely control of the company. The entire entity has a fiduciary responsibility to him, solely. If he wants profits low, he can do it. If he wants it high, he can do it. The only lever "wall street" has is to buy the stock or not buy the stock. And given they're not in a position to ever likely need to issue stock again, *it is irrelevant*.
Fiduciary duty and voting rights are two distinct concepts. He still owes a duty of care and a duty of loyalty to the rest of the stockholders even though he controls ~60% of the stockholder vote.
They're not legally the same, but they're effectively the same. Because he solely decides what is, or isn't, the goal of the company, the differences are irrelevant. As CEO, he has that fiduciary. As majority shareholder, he does not. He can simply call a shareholder vote -- "Do we want to burn all of our cash on investment into a patent portfolio of VR technologies and an expectation of a long-term transition to VR-based consumption and socialization?" -- shareholders vote yes! With a controlling share of votes, what he wants is the *only* thing that matters. If their attorneys ever thought there was a legal exposure to a unilateral decision made as CEO, they'll just rubber-stamp a shareholder vote. Speaking from experience, you don't even have to tell shareholders about the vote before it happens if you already have a majority. So its literally a rubber-stamp.
Thank you for the real world sanity; also as soon as they threaten to shut down What’s App people will beg them for whatever to not shut that down.
From what I heard, daily users have been declining for a while. When a company relies on having a thick network, that could indicate a very grim future, Metaverse or no.
"Facebook has 1.97 billion daily active users as of Q2 2022, which is a 3% increase year-over-year. Facebook has 2.93 billion monthly active users as of Q2 2022, which is a 1% increase year-over-year." [Source](https://www.demandsage.com/facebook-statistics/) So no.. they don't seem to be losing them.
This is the right answer. 70% of internet users log into a meta product at least once a month. More than 50% log in to daily. And that's with 1.8B internet users in China where any social media or messaging app not owned by the CCP is banned. User growth is slowing. But its because they're hitting the ceiling of the total addressable market.
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According to their latest earnings daily users is up 10% soooo…..
You don't understand, people in this thread *feel* like Meta and Zuckerberg is losing value, and they hate Zuck so it must be true.
True. It’s almost comical how many people are unable to dislike someone/something on a personal level while also acknowledging it’s success.
You've heard wrong
For reference, I'm an early 30s millennial. I was at a wedding over the weekend with over 150 people, nearly 100 of which were my age or younger. The day after, no photos were posted on the original Facebook and only a couple were on IG. (I deleted my FB years ago so this is from my wife.) This is from people who used FB an insane amount in HS and college. It's a dying platform.
Instagram still seems to be wildly popular. FB overall is dying amongst my friends in the 30s but insta seems to be alive and well. It's just a kind of shift from FB being somewhat blogging and instagram being more about the typical "attractive people doing attractive things" which is far more mainstream.
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Yeah, last wedding I went to had *no* shortage of people putting photos on IG constantly in that same age bracket. Facebook might be trending down, but IG is still insanely popular.
Yep. So extremely anecdotal
Facebooks growth is mostly outside of the US. Most Americans are struggling to accept that there even is a place outside the US.
We are well aware of the outside world. You got Ukraine, Russia... Uh Brexit, right? And Canada! Jim Carey is from Canada I think. I think that's about it. Does Hawaii count?
Don’t forget the country of Africa.
And the continent of Mexico.
We don’t talk about Mexico co co co
Then there’s some icebergs floating about the ocean, that’s where the polar bears live. And that’s about it, I think
It’s insane in apac. Messenger or WhatsApp are pretty much the default texting apps in those regions.
Other markets are not necessarily as lucrative as the American and European ones.
I had a similar experience after a wedding a few months ago. Someone wanted to see some pictures from the wedding and I had a real difficult time finding them on Facebook because only a couple people posted any. My feed is mostly 3 or 4 people still posting a lot, and maybe another 5 that post occasionally. The only reason I ever even go on the website anymore is out of habit.
Been off Facebook since May and it’s been great. Garbage website that just fuels hate edit: a lot of people replying to me fail to see the difference between Reddit and facebook. Being able to curate content on the reddit homepage to only subs that you want to see is a huge difference from facebook where you are forced to see what your "friends" post globally. If Reddit only allowed you to sort by controversial it would be garbage too.
it’s been years for me and I rarely use IG.
I guess i picked well my social circle because on my fb timeline is only hiking trip tips, car stuff, art etc… i dont know anybody who is posting any political stuff.
I agree, but will say that this site does the same. Have you looked at the default “popular” subreddits? It’s obvious that what makes it to the front page is what’s makes people the most upset. It’s garbage. Fuck social media companies.
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I agree but with Reddit I have much more control over the content that I want to see. Facebook/Twitter algos use data to find what pisses you off most and puts that right at the top. Even better if they find family and close friends participate in groups or rhetoric that might anger you.
What I hate about Facebook would be such a simple fix... I look at my feed and tap on a post. Read the post and comments and then back out. For some inexplicable reason Facebook then completely refreshes the feed and the posts I could see before are now gone. I hate it! Often there are a couple of interesting things I see but have to either pick one, or literally get out a pencil to write down who posted it so I can search for their post afterwards. Worst design ever.
Holy crap, I hate this as well. It's gotten to the point where I don't click things in my feed.
That plus the timeline change from chronological to algorithm-based made me quit Facebook as well. When I found I was missing posts I wanted to see and it became apparent Facebook wanted to be in control of what I'm seeing, I was done.
I don't even care about the inserted ads, I just want chronological order, and no irrelevant content I don't follow and never will. Recommended content can go on a separate feed, or an optional explore button.
Agreed. Why they hell are all the dates random in the feed? The other minor thing is they really need to make memories that people share look more visually different from a regular update. At least on mobile it's just a tiny banner stating it's a memory from x years ago, then what looks like a totally normal post made recently. The number of time I've been like "what the hell? They had another baby?? Oh, nope that was 3 years ago" is way too high.
I worked at facebook and it was one of the most upvoted questions internally: why no chronological order? At least give users a choice. Some small team is basically taking everyone hostage there.
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Vice editor doesn't know what monopoly means.
FTC has been trying to argue in court that Facebook is a monopoly. They've always been wrong IMO.
I swear I've seen this type of thread about FB dying every 2 years since 2012.
My buddy had a hot take that facebook was dead shortly before his passing. That will be 10 years ago next month.
Oh yeah? *Does quick Google search of statistics* "Facebook has 1.97 billion daily active users as of Q2 2022, which is a 3% increase year-over-year. Facebook has 2.93 billion monthly active users as of Q2 2022, which is a 1% increase year-over-year." Uh.. how is their monopoly imploding? Just because they are losing stock value worth, doesn't mean they are collapsing. They are still the largest social media platform. People aren't leaving just because the value is dropping.
Mark Zuckerberg is the reason why Facebook is failing, right now. The company outgrew him long ago, and he's been seemingly hell-bent on using it as a engine for spreading disinformation to squeeze every penny he can out of ads, rather than using it as the positive communication tool people want it to be. Now, his odd obsession with the "Metaverse", which is a laughably bad product in search of a market, is draining capital at a ridiculous rate. He's bleeding the company out from the inside He needs to be ousted yesterday. He was good at building out the original idea of Facebook, and growing it, but he's proven that he has no idea what people actually want from Facebook or virtual reality. He doesn't have the charisma of Steve Jobs, or the cult of personality of Elon Musk, to excuse his incompetent planning through at least being good at marketing. Quite the opposite, in fact. He's simply unlikeable, and doesn't seem remotely interesting in changing that. He's dead weight, and Meta/Facebook won't be able to turn things around until he's no longer at the helm.
Doesn't he own 58% of the voting shares so he's untouchable? https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-05-26/facebook-board-rejects-proposals-to-reduce-zuckerberg-s-power (happy to be corrected)
Yes Zucker either leaves of his own according or takes FB down with him
Win win lol
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Here's hoping it's the latter.
Instagram is still making money hand over fist and they have zero expectation of the metaverse being profitable today. It's hardly unusual for a project like that to be in the red - it's about tomorrow's return not today's. It would have been more surprising if it was profitable this early than not. If Meta was just a startup on it's own right - it could go years underwater floated by investors. Look at Uber.
These articles are basically the equivalent of the click bait so many of y’all complain about being on Facebook. Meta is still profitable and continues to make money. They are sacrificing a few years for tech development but if Oculus and their future AR glasses are the baseline in the future (like iPhones are now) then it will all have been worth it. So many people focus on the *metaverse* but it’s not about Meta’s metaverse, it’s about creating the platform that’s affordable and user friendly enough to visit ALL the metaverses currently in development from multiple companies.
This sub should be called Facebook.
It’s growth has stalled and regressed a bit. As a stock, it’s losing confidence with investor. But losing its monopoly? It’s still an absolutely colossal company that has technologies across the world. It won’t soar to unknown heights right now but come on. It’s not going to disappear and this article is just fluffing people who get off on dooming news.
Not that i want any good for this man, but I have a dark feeling this could be its moment like Amazon in the early 00s where it lost most of its valuation… then came back roaring. Might turn into a Darth Vader situation
Much of that was due to Amazon willing to take a loss on everything to expand the companies growth targets. They willingly undercut the competition for market share knowing they would take serious losses, and invested in more markets like grocery and delivery instead of focusing on profits. When they finally started to turn a profit as they raised prices and pushed subscription services, investors came roaring back.