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Posted by domhudson 2 hours ago

It's time for Mark Zuckerberg to resign from Meta(www.theguardian.com)
46 points | 67 commentspage 2
dumberquestions 2 hours ago|
I wonder what's the net value Meta offers for the world today. I had a similar thought about Elon the other day, for all his billions, only several million people use Tesla or Starlink, and SpaceX is cool I guess, but value and wealth don't seem to be strongly coupled. How many Tesla investors have managed to cash out and how many of Facebook's advertisers managed to turn a profit?
ben_w 1 hour ago||
Aye.

> How many Tesla's investors have managed to cash out and how many of Facebook's advertisers managed to turn a profit?

It me. That said, I didn't buy TSLA because I was expecting to cash out a few years later when he started acting like a threat to democracy and his own judicial system; when I bought it I thought they had a good business model and I thought they were undervalued.

Now they're overvalued, have lots of visible competitors eating their lunch.

Worse, even if they succeed, given Musk has yet to pay out dividends on that stock and also enough control over the board to give him as many shares as he wants, I think even success would render the stock monopoly money.

alansaber 2 hours ago|||
We've rediscovered the need for academia from first principles
rapsey 1 hour ago||
Musk probably made more dollar millionaires than anyone in history. Facebook advertisers use it because it works and reaches a hell of a lot of people.
dumberquestions 48 minutes ago||
I don't think Facebook advertisers are being particularly irrational, it's just very interesting to point out how this ad business, despite leaving most of its users ultimately unsatisfied, can be so profitable.
bob1029 1 hour ago||
Meta could drop a new feature tomorrow and have the tech media in a shambles within 15 minutes. Their product family is used by 3.6 billion people every day. OAI and Anthropic are still measuring per month.
tristanj 1 hour ago||
This article is very shortsighted.

If you think Meta is bad now, just wait until Zuck is replaced by a soulless, profit-obsessed corporate CEO whose primary job is maximizing shareholder profit. Meta as a company can get far worse.

People should really be careful what they wish for.

gdiamos 2 hours ago||
we will look back on it as the big tobacco of our generation
alansaber 2 hours ago|
No, that will be the gambling endemic in every aspect of our society.
gdiamos 1 hour ago||
OxyContin, Enron, WorldCom, Super-size-me, Pets.com, Asbestos in the ceiling tiles...

It was always burning since the world's been turning

jstummbillig 1 hour ago||
WELL THEN, if Joan Donovan thinks so.
majorbugger 2 hours ago||
Honestly, the world has grown past the need for Meta. I would not cry if it completely shut down, problem is, what will fill the void? It would be nice to have something not controlled by Big American Corporation (or Chinese, or any, for that matter), but somehow I don't see it happening.
XorNot 2 hours ago||
Okay but like, you can make that happen. You can just stop using it.

Interestingly I did learn of a niche which is completely unserved except by Meta recently: child-locked messaging apps.

Messenger for Kids basically does everything you want it to - restricted functionality, restricted contact lists etc. I won't use it, but I only found out about it because I was hoping someone had built a Signal client which did exactly that.

herbst 2 hours ago|||
What void tho? The majority of people _I know_ below 40 don't use Facebook or any related service at all.
jmcgough 2 hours ago|||
The people you know aren't exactly representative of the whole country. Most people I know are on instagram.
herbst 1 hour ago||
When I open Instagram that is still connected to all my old friends, class mates, travel buddies and whatever I get 90% third party ads and 10% posts that might even be a few months old, and most of that is just "look at me" type of content.

So I have to assume it's dead

spunker540 2 hours ago||||
Do they use Instagram or WhatsApp?
herbst 1 hour ago||
> or any related services.

So nah, most don't. I know some do, but the main socialisation isn't happening there.

esskay 2 hours ago||||
I always find it surprising when I hear of someone younger using facebook. I associate it with retired/elderly folks who love posting cryptic messages about their health or how their day has gone wanting attention.
shreedx 2 hours ago||||
I think you're forgetting that Meta owns Instagram and WhatsApp.
herbst 1 hour ago||
I am not forgetting that no. Signal and Telegram are the main drivers and Instagram is just as dead as Facebook itself is.
tedggh 2 hours ago||||
Most people under 40, 30 and even 20 I know are on Instagram, and many under 40 and 30 are on Facebook. Maybe it varies with country, education level or some other factors.
herbst 1 hour ago||
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dmortin 2 hours ago||||
It's different by location. E. g. in Europe many people uses Facebook, many under 40s too.

In the US: 25–34 years: Around 25.7% to 25.9% (the largest single demographic group).

herbst 1 hour ago||
Central Europe here myself (Switzerland to be precise) signal and telegram are the dominant IM and Instagram is just as dead as Facebook, sure some might use it but nobody expects anyone else to to.
majorbugger 1 hour ago||||
It's still used for stuff like events or groups
0x70run 2 hours ago|||
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drstewart 2 hours ago||
Or European, for that matter. Don't fancy submitting my ID to get access.
thih9 2 hours ago||
So says The Guardian, while showing me an illegal “Reject and Subscribe” tracking banner. Mixed messages.
bluebarbet 1 hour ago||
Doubtful that it's illegal, they have lawyers. Hard to say it's unethical either given that there is a clear option to pay instead of be tracked (which is in any case trivially defeated by an ad-blocker). For centuries until yesterday people paid for journalism like they paid for any other service.
faryadz 2 hours ago||
We haven't see any meaningful improvement from Meta for years.
rich_sasha 2 hours ago|
Eh dunno. My impression is that from the PoV of his notional bosses - Meta shareholders - he’s doing everything ”right”. Revenue up, addiction/recurring revenue stable, keeping fines low.

I’d be happy to see Meta gone altogether, but unless I missed the memo, Meta isn’t particularly upset about what it’s been up to (beyond bland press releases).

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