Their innovation isn't in ads, it's in creating a sticky app experience that downranks posts with external URLs to keep people on their site, one that's now fine-tuned to retain the lowest-common denominator of technology user (boomers). Ironically, a segment that the OG Facebook avoided like the plague is now their bread and butter.

People who don't understand nor care about how the system works are the ones most likely to click on targeted ads, share sensationalist slop and comment positively on AI videos of of Hegseth fighting Godzilla.

And even then, for ad buyers, the ROI is a complete crapshoot because of how purchase attribution works on every ads platform. Every ad platform puts their marketing pixel on your site, and they all try to take credit for every sale made on it.

...sometimes

as for the newsguidelines, I think it "gratifies one's intellectual curiosity" to think about what motivates tech ceos and talk about how they do things

They have released some good open source technology, but as the OP said, Meta hasn't much going for it apart from addictive apps for showing ads

You never heard of MySpace?

That’s not to take anything away from the success of early Facebook, but the idea of a social network was not created by fb.

My dude, no one in your reply thread is making that claim. We bristling at the claim that "Social networks didn't really exist before The Facebook". Unless you're saying FB's innovation is its business model and is what made it dominate, well, your original statement just didn't substantiate that.

IMO, the only thing I'd credit Zuck for is sticking (at least at the start) to his singular vision of what a social network should be; first it was just open for .edu emails, then when it was released more broadly their product roadmap stuck to fostering a social environment online.

And then he lost that vision. I'd say it was circa Cambridge Analytica when engagement---often ragebait because it gave them more and stronger of that sweet sweet monetizable ad signals---replaced fostering an online social environment. Others would say it's the algorithmic news feed. Either way, losing that vision started FB's demise.

IME, FB was best when it was a supplement and not a replacement for real life. FB had value to me because we could plan parties there and even keep in touch after, get that social buzz going for a little while longer. But it was _never_ the party.

But their recent efforts---Metaverse, all the AI crap---has all the hallmakrs of trying to replace real life. They now want to be the party but good luck with that. Judging by the blowback and lack of adoption consumers see what they're up to a mile away. Zuck has no idea how to stay relevant so now we have a platform more concerned with its market cap than having actual utility.

Seriously? Of course they did. An easy counter-example is MySpace, which launched several months before Facebook's very first appearance as a Hot Or Not mimic (which predates Zuck by 3 years), and had many millions more users for years (especially while FB was restricted to colleges).

Major competition and a lot of money was going into social media around then (and for a couple years prior), FB is just the eventual winner.

Social networks were all the rage. He executed the best of all and had the right strategy to build the user base.

I will ask though, has he been honest when he’s testified before Congress? At best, I think we can say he hasn’t been very transparent many of those times. If that’s not for power and/or financial gain, what is it? [0]

- [0] https://dispatch.techoversight.org/top-report-mark-zuckerber... - which was previously discussed on HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47060486

> “we're told to not like Facebook…”

I didn’t have to be “told” to not like Facebook or Meta. The company’s actions for well over a decade and those of its executives, including the CEO, allowed to form that opinion on our own. I’d be willing to bet that experience is not unique to me.