Zuck Goes To The Mattresses
July 26, 2022 3:01 PM Subscribe
Based on a company meeting recording and other leaks from Meta employees, The Verge reports that the company and its head, secure in his position thanks to his holdings, are putting pressure on the employees to perform leaner as a number of challenges threaten Meta.
They also increased the price of the Quest 2 VR headset by $100 (33%), which doesn't bode well for future plans of wide VR adoption for the "metaverse".
posted by meowzilla at 3:07 PM on July 26, 2022 [3 favorites]
posted by meowzilla at 3:07 PM on July 26, 2022 [3 favorites]
I wonder if he truly believes that employees not working hard enough is the primary reason for the company's problems, or if it's just a convenient way to cut some costs and shift some blame.
posted by primethyme at 3:13 PM on July 26, 2022 [8 favorites]
posted by primethyme at 3:13 PM on July 26, 2022 [8 favorites]
“perform leaner” makes me deeply unhappy.
posted by curious nu at 3:18 PM on July 26, 2022 [64 favorites]
posted by curious nu at 3:18 PM on July 26, 2022 [64 favorites]
I wonder if he truly believes that employees not working hard enough is the primary reason for the company's problems, or if it's just a convenient way to cut some costs and shift some blame.
Por que no los dos?
Because while I'm sure he's using this to cut costs, I'm also certain that Mark Zuckerberg, a man who has never worked a day in his life, does genuinely believe that his employees have gotten fat and lazy and that's the problem with Facebook (and not his scummy behavior.)
posted by NoxAeternum at 3:20 PM on July 26, 2022 [27 favorites]
Por que no los dos?
Because while I'm sure he's using this to cut costs, I'm also certain that Mark Zuckerberg, a man who has never worked a day in his life, does genuinely believe that his employees have gotten fat and lazy and that's the problem with Facebook (and not his scummy behavior.)
posted by NoxAeternum at 3:20 PM on July 26, 2022 [27 favorites]
I think every web-based software company founder has a moment where they look at their company and they're like "why is everything taking so long?? Remember when we were a startup and we could shit out terrible code and debug in production??? What happened to those days??" Some founders have several such moments (cough, Google literally just told their 200,000 employees like last week that in the hiring freeze they're going to need to be "more entrepreneurial" HAHAHAHA). And they do all kinds of weird flailing trying to recapture that feeling of breakneck pace, not realizing that pace naturally slows once people start depending on you and the products you make.
Very excited to watch this round of Zuckerberg flailing. Couldn't have happened to a nicer guy.
posted by potrzebie at 3:43 PM on July 26, 2022 [52 favorites]
Very excited to watch this round of Zuckerberg flailing. Couldn't have happened to a nicer guy.
posted by potrzebie at 3:43 PM on July 26, 2022 [52 favorites]
Mark Zuckerberg, a man who has never worked a day in his life
Nonsense, he once helicoptered in to Burning Man to serve grilled cheeses for an afternoon. If that's not honest work, I don't know what is. He even helped pitch his own tent!
posted by treepour at 3:44 PM on July 26, 2022 [12 favorites]
Nonsense, he once helicoptered in to Burning Man to serve grilled cheeses for an afternoon. If that's not honest work, I don't know what is. He even helped pitch his own tent!
posted by treepour at 3:44 PM on July 26, 2022 [12 favorites]
Yep. Like NoxAeternum sez. The guy knows very little about what it means to work in the ways his employees work. He’s never had a boss, he’s never really had to manage and balance his workload in against the challenge and expense of non-work obligations, and he’s always had the luxury of working under the premise that his efforts have a high chance of an insanely high payoff. He doesn’t understand the rank and file, and never will, which is why he’s so inept at just running an allhands.
It is no wonder he desperately wants Virtual Reality. He’s got such little practice with Actual Reality, and i’ll bet the lack of knowledge and capability that comes from living Real Life, scares the shit out of him.
Like almost every startup that is long-term successful , it’s time for the founders to move on and let seasoned executives do the things the founders are clueless about. Such as, NOT SHITTING ON YOUR OWN EMPLOYEES.
posted by armoir from antproof case at 3:51 PM on July 26, 2022 [37 favorites]
It is no wonder he desperately wants Virtual Reality. He’s got such little practice with Actual Reality, and i’ll bet the lack of knowledge and capability that comes from living Real Life, scares the shit out of him.
Like almost every startup that is long-term successful , it’s time for the founders to move on and let seasoned executives do the things the founders are clueless about. Such as, NOT SHITTING ON YOUR OWN EMPLOYEES.
posted by armoir from antproof case at 3:51 PM on July 26, 2022 [37 favorites]
They also increased the price of the Quest 2 VR headset by $100 (33%),
This is such a weird choice right now that I assumed that it was a psychological trick to offload Quest 2 units prior to the announcement of a Quest 3 (people are incentivized to buy it now while it is still "cheap"). But if that was true, they would have slated the price increase for like September to give the units a chance to sell.
Instead it just looks like another corp taking advantage of the "inflation".
posted by pol at 4:11 PM on July 26, 2022 [5 favorites]
This is such a weird choice right now that I assumed that it was a psychological trick to offload Quest 2 units prior to the announcement of a Quest 3 (people are incentivized to buy it now while it is still "cheap"). But if that was true, they would have slated the price increase for like September to give the units a chance to sell.
Instead it just looks like another corp taking advantage of the "inflation".
posted by pol at 4:11 PM on July 26, 2022 [5 favorites]
Fortunately, the egos of the founders won't let them step down, and their holdings mean they can't be forced out. I'll watch with glee as the whole thing catches fire and burns.
posted by seanmpuckett at 4:12 PM on July 26, 2022 [4 favorites]
posted by seanmpuckett at 4:12 PM on July 26, 2022 [4 favorites]
This is not just FB, it's endemic to Silicon Valley. A recruiter at Intel in the early 80s told me the loved hiring NCGs (new college grads) because they had no family or social life and would work longer hours.
The culture at a startup i worked for made you feel like you weren't "part of the team" if you weren't in the building on Saturday, whether you had any important work to do or not.
posted by CheeseDigestsAll at 4:22 PM on July 26, 2022 [9 favorites]
The culture at a startup i worked for made you feel like you weren't "part of the team" if you weren't in the building on Saturday, whether you had any important work to do or not.
posted by CheeseDigestsAll at 4:22 PM on July 26, 2022 [9 favorites]
Yeah Zuck, It's your lazy employees' fault and not the fact that you've turned your main product into a cesspit of spam and white supremacy or that you'd alienated Instagram's userbase by turning it into yet another TikTok clone.
posted by octothorpe at 4:41 PM on July 26, 2022 [36 favorites]
posted by octothorpe at 4:41 PM on July 26, 2022 [36 favorites]
Swirling the drain.
When an employee asks you if you're committed to perks in the downturn as opposed to when things are good, you say yes. Even if that's a goddamned lie.
When you try to take back perks under the notion that your employees are somehow greedy, it shows you for the fair-weather boss you are. They see you trying to cut expenses, and jump ship.
This sort of shit should be business 101, but bosses are always so high on their own supply.
posted by explosion at 4:42 PM on July 26, 2022 [29 favorites]
When an employee asks you if you're committed to perks in the downturn as opposed to when things are good, you say yes. Even if that's a goddamned lie.
When you try to take back perks under the notion that your employees are somehow greedy, it shows you for the fair-weather boss you are. They see you trying to cut expenses, and jump ship.
This sort of shit should be business 101, but bosses are always so high on their own supply.
posted by explosion at 4:42 PM on July 26, 2022 [29 favorites]
They also increased the price of the Quest 2 VR headset by $100 (33%),
What!!?!??
I saw some news about a Quest price change and assumed it was going down since nobody really wants this product… what the heck is going on??
You have the assume that a company that grew that much that quickly by throwing money at people will have a bunch of less than ideal hires but that just seems like sure fire way to signal to your skilled employees to GTFO now because things aren’t going great (I guess that unless you still have a big windfall left to verse that’s still worth it).
I mean slacking off on Zuck’s dime is probably the mora thing to do anyway :)
posted by WaterAndPixels at 4:58 PM on July 26, 2022 [2 favorites]
What!!?!??
I saw some news about a Quest price change and assumed it was going down since nobody really wants this product… what the heck is going on??
You have the assume that a company that grew that much that quickly by throwing money at people will have a bunch of less than ideal hires but that just seems like sure fire way to signal to your skilled employees to GTFO now because things aren’t going great (I guess that unless you still have a big windfall left to verse that’s still worth it).
I mean slacking off on Zuck’s dime is probably the mora thing to do anyway :)
posted by WaterAndPixels at 4:58 PM on July 26, 2022 [2 favorites]
While there is no shortage of schadenfreude in seeing Zuckerberg flail about after capitulating to and elevating the voices of the radical right, there are people whose livelihoods will be greatly impacted by the internal politics that fall out from this -- so I'm not feeling gleeful about it even though the temptation is there. Admittedly, many of these are well-off people but there are also tons of poorly-paid non-tech workers that are going to lose jobs all based on Zuckerberg having a slow-motion public meltdown. Same goes for what seems to be starting to happen in Musk land.
posted by treepour at 5:52 PM on July 26, 2022 [5 favorites]
posted by treepour at 5:52 PM on July 26, 2022 [5 favorites]
On one hand: I consider Facebook/Meta to be an inherently immoral company that's accelerating the dissolution of democracies worldwide, so I'm not going to bother being worried about those "metamates."
With that said, from a purely abstract perspective growing your workforce by 65% over 18 months is a lot and (to quote Douglas Coupland's Microserfs) they can't all have been gems. I daresay most tech companies I'm familiar with have had some fat-cutting after such aggressive hiring periods.
But managing such culls is tricky and requires a better leader than Zuck to avoid trashing morale.
posted by microscone at 5:59 PM on July 26, 2022 [15 favorites]
With that said, from a purely abstract perspective growing your workforce by 65% over 18 months is a lot and (to quote Douglas Coupland's Microserfs) they can't all have been gems. I daresay most tech companies I'm familiar with have had some fat-cutting after such aggressive hiring periods.
But managing such culls is tricky and requires a better leader than Zuck to avoid trashing morale.
posted by microscone at 5:59 PM on July 26, 2022 [15 favorites]
Why do people put themselves in these soul crushing environments? I know, money. But it's so not worth it. I can't fathom this life. Loyalty to a company? They don't care about you!
posted by tiny frying pan at 6:07 PM on July 26, 2022 [5 favorites]
posted by tiny frying pan at 6:07 PM on July 26, 2022 [5 favorites]
I interned there over a decade ago now and honestly it was the same shit back then. I remember Zuck reprimanding all the employees one week at the all company meeting bc not enough people were around working for dinner on *Sunday* (this was when he was freaked out about Google Plus, remember that???)
posted by internet of pillows at 6:10 PM on July 26, 2022 [30 favorites]
posted by internet of pillows at 6:10 PM on July 26, 2022 [30 favorites]
"We have bad performers and we need to make this a worse place to work to weed them out!"
And this will work because...? And the most talented employees are not going to see any writing on the wall and start updating their resumes and calling recruiters?
All they're going to do is watch their best employees walk out the front door. Penny wise, pound foolish stupidity.
posted by Your Childhood Pet Rock at 6:23 PM on July 26, 2022 [13 favorites]
And this will work because...? And the most talented employees are not going to see any writing on the wall and start updating their resumes and calling recruiters?
All they're going to do is watch their best employees walk out the front door. Penny wise, pound foolish stupidity.
posted by Your Childhood Pet Rock at 6:23 PM on July 26, 2022 [13 favorites]
I think every web-based software company founder has a moment where they look at their company and they're like "why is everything taking so long?? Remember when we were a startup and we could shit out terrible code and debug in production??? What happened to those days??" Some founders have several such moments (cough, Google literally just told their 200,000 employees like last week that in the hiring freeze they're going to need to be "more entrepreneurial" HAHAHAHA). And they do all kinds of weird flailing trying to recapture that feeling of breakneck pace, not realizing that pace naturally slows once people start depending on you and the products you make.
Oh, that's not even limited to the founders. That's a feeling that hits individual contributors, middle managers -- anyone who tries to get anything done at a big company that still has recent memories of being a small startup.
When I worked at one, I called it the "the middle aged parent with two kids and a mortgage desperately wishing they were single again" phase of maturity. The best thing you can do for everyone involved if you're feeling that is to quit and work at a smaller, younger company. You can try all kinds of "internal startup within a bigger company" / "stealth mode skunkworks" / "innovation lab" gambits, but at the end of the day, a big public company has big public shareholders to please and a big public set of regulations to abide by and big office politics to navigate, and that's going to get in the way of anything scrappy getting its way into the market.
I remember being invited to a Engineering Manager Shop Talk night at one of Facebook's European offices a few years ago. It was recruiting honeypot dressed up as an opportunity for fellow managers to meet and talk about shared problems, and I swear every Facebook manager had a horror story about how debt ridden their infrastructure was. You come in and you start working on some feature that's using some A/B testing logic that's horribly old and busted, and you think to yourself that you can fix some of the bugs, but you realize that the bugs lead to more bugs, and maybe it's worth introducing a new open source testing framework that's more modern and well supported. You campaign to get it adopted, and have a few other teams on board, and you start to roll it out, but then you run into other teams or bugs that complicate the rollout. So your project stalls out and slows down. And now the A/B testing code is this horribly stillborn thing that's part legacy code, and part your new idea. Then someone else comes up with a competing idea, and they start getting buy in from other teams, and now you've got three competing standards. That exists in every layer of the FB application stack and every manager has a story about that.
Then I got a call two days later from a recruiter asking if I enjoyed that talk and if I was interested in talking about a job there, and I just had to laugh and say that I did enjoy the conversation, but oh my god, nobody there seems to actually be happy.
posted by bl1nk at 7:47 PM on July 26, 2022 [46 favorites]
not enough people were around working for dinner on *Sunday* (this was when he was freaked out about Google Plus, remember that???)Saw this earlier, from 2016, re: Faecbuk's crushing (?) of G+:
The contest for users, he told us, would now be direct and zero-sum. Google had launched a competing product; whatever was gained by one side would be lost by the other. It was up to all of us to up our game while the world conducted live tests of Facebook versus Google’s version of Facebook and decided which it liked more. He hinted vaguely at product changes we would consider in light of this new competitor.How Mark Zuckerberg Led Facebook’s War to Crush Google Plus [ archive link ]
The real point, however, was to have everyone aspire to a higher bar of reliability, user experience, and site performance
posted by slater at 8:04 PM on July 26, 2022
I wonder if Facebook's war against Google+ was as effective as Google's war against Google+?
I suspect not.
posted by thatwhichfalls at 8:10 PM on July 26, 2022 [56 favorites]
I suspect not.
posted by thatwhichfalls at 8:10 PM on July 26, 2022 [56 favorites]
Uh-huh. How big a pay cut is he giving himself?
Yeah, that's what I thought.
posted by kyrademon at 8:12 PM on July 26, 2022 [27 favorites]
Yeah, that's what I thought.
posted by kyrademon at 8:12 PM on July 26, 2022 [27 favorites]
I wonder if Facebook's war against Google+ was as effective as Google's war against Google+?
Yeah, Google would've discontinued G+ regardless, as they are wont to do with everything.
yes, I'm still salty about Google Reader. >:[
posted by slater at 8:17 PM on July 26, 2022 [32 favorites]
Yeah, Google would've discontinued G+ regardless, as they are wont to do with everything.
yes, I'm still salty about Google Reader. >:[
posted by slater at 8:17 PM on July 26, 2022 [32 favorites]
Where is the new hotshot with the new, better, usable, open source Facebook that we can finally make use of. It used to be a nice way to share photos with family & friends. It still is, despite all the crap (that I've totally shut out of my feed). Anyway hurry up we need something new & something sustainable.
posted by bleep at 8:38 PM on July 26, 2022 [4 favorites]
posted by bleep at 8:38 PM on July 26, 2022 [4 favorites]
mastodon...? i got nothing :(
posted by slater at 9:00 PM on July 26, 2022 [2 favorites]
posted by slater at 9:00 PM on July 26, 2022 [2 favorites]
There's been a few threads on the blue and green about open source social media stuff. Mastodon, Diaspora, etc. Many of them are even linked loosely via shared protocols and federated design, called the Fediverse. Some are pretty old (Freenet), new ones are rolling out recently: Friendica, HumHub.
Afaict they are all reasonably good and better than FB/Twitter/whatever they are aping, but you'll not be able to share photos with your mom and niece and neighbor and work friend there, anymore than you would have on Usenet in the 90s. Remember back when the whole internet was very niche, and it was mostly computer hobbyists, nerds, outcasts etc? That's how alternative social media is now, except it's super fractured, so worse.
Idk, I've only poked around minimally, maybe we should have another thread about it?
posted by SaltySalticid at 9:06 PM on July 26, 2022 [10 favorites]
Afaict they are all reasonably good and better than FB/Twitter/whatever they are aping, but you'll not be able to share photos with your mom and niece and neighbor and work friend there, anymore than you would have on Usenet in the 90s. Remember back when the whole internet was very niche, and it was mostly computer hobbyists, nerds, outcasts etc? That's how alternative social media is now, except it's super fractured, so worse.
Idk, I've only poked around minimally, maybe we should have another thread about it?
posted by SaltySalticid at 9:06 PM on July 26, 2022 [10 favorites]
These captains of technology, greatest and most powerful in the modern age, and their plan of record is... "Y'all need to work harder"?
The mask of "meritocracy" is definitely wearing thin.
posted by SunSnork at 9:34 PM on July 26, 2022 [6 favorites]
The mask of "meritocracy" is definitely wearing thin.
posted by SunSnork at 9:34 PM on July 26, 2022 [6 favorites]
Rare photo of Zuck being reflective
posted by Television Name at 10:32 PM on July 26, 2022 [10 favorites]
posted by Television Name at 10:32 PM on July 26, 2022 [10 favorites]
Why do people put themselves in these soul crushing environments? I know, money. But it's so not worth it. I can't fathom this life. Loyalty to a company? They don't care about you!
It's not only the money. For a lot of people, especially earlier in their careers, it's the name recognition and prestige. You tell people you're working at Facebook and people look impressed: you must be smart to have been hired there, you must be earning a lot, you're clearly successful. Parents can brag about it to their friends and their friends will honestly say "wow". That's a different situation than "I'm working at a small startup that's going to make it big, maybe", which is still different than "I'm working for a software company that makes important, valuable systems that some useful part of society depends on, but it's not sexy and you've never heard of it and it's not disrupting anything and it's probably never going to IPO or get bought for a billion".
And there's the perception of a fast track, whether justified or not: if you work for a company like Facebook all doors are open to you for your next job, while if you work at Small Local Software Company it's going to be harder to ever get a foot in the door at one of the big players. (Whether justified or not that seems to be a deciding factor for many people I've talked with who are choosing between bigger names and smaller players.)
It is crazy that working for companies that are literally doing massive global harm, or for companies whose products exist purely to produce profits rather than anything actually useful, gets you more prestige and social status than working for companies that are actually making things people need, but that's the self-reinforcing state of things.
posted by trig at 11:42 PM on July 26, 2022 [23 favorites]
It's not only the money. For a lot of people, especially earlier in their careers, it's the name recognition and prestige. You tell people you're working at Facebook and people look impressed: you must be smart to have been hired there, you must be earning a lot, you're clearly successful. Parents can brag about it to their friends and their friends will honestly say "wow". That's a different situation than "I'm working at a small startup that's going to make it big, maybe", which is still different than "I'm working for a software company that makes important, valuable systems that some useful part of society depends on, but it's not sexy and you've never heard of it and it's not disrupting anything and it's probably never going to IPO or get bought for a billion".
And there's the perception of a fast track, whether justified or not: if you work for a company like Facebook all doors are open to you for your next job, while if you work at Small Local Software Company it's going to be harder to ever get a foot in the door at one of the big players. (Whether justified or not that seems to be a deciding factor for many people I've talked with who are choosing between bigger names and smaller players.)
It is crazy that working for companies that are literally doing massive global harm, or for companies whose products exist purely to produce profits rather than anything actually useful, gets you more prestige and social status than working for companies that are actually making things people need, but that's the self-reinforcing state of things.
posted by trig at 11:42 PM on July 26, 2022 [23 favorites]
Television Name: "Rare photo of Zuck being reflective"
I thought for sure that was going to link to a picture of the T1000 in his liquid metal form.
posted by Bugbread at 12:11 AM on July 27, 2022 [24 favorites]
I thought for sure that was going to link to a picture of the T1000 in his liquid metal form.
posted by Bugbread at 12:11 AM on July 27, 2022 [24 favorites]
> Where is the new hotshot with the new, better, usable, open source Facebook that we can finally make use of. It used to be a nice way to share photos with family & friends.
For a lot of people, for a lot of use cases, it's turned out be group chats (and one on one chats).
posted by smelendez at 12:40 AM on July 27, 2022 [9 favorites]
For a lot of people, for a lot of use cases, it's turned out be group chats (and one on one chats).
posted by smelendez at 12:40 AM on July 27, 2022 [9 favorites]
For a long time, even maybe five or so years ago, Facebook and Instagram were two of the only services that really worked well on smartphones.
Other apps were full of annoying, disruptive ads, and lots of websites didn't render properly or were difficult to scroll through without accidentally tapping something. I think a lot of good sites got absolutely destroyed in this era because they couldn't get their mobile act together fast enough. Facebook almost had a monopoly on things you could idly look at on your phone while in the supermarket line or while waiting for the pasta water to boil, at least without wanting to throw your phone across the room in frustration.
But I don't think that's really the case anymore. Websites generally load fine on phones, and some sites and apps are full of annoying ads but there are plenty that aren't. TikTok has bite sized content, ebooks and podcasts are easy to get, your local newspaper site probably loads ok on your phone, and Reddit isn't just for dorks anymore.
posted by smelendez at 1:05 AM on July 27, 2022 [3 favorites]
Other apps were full of annoying, disruptive ads, and lots of websites didn't render properly or were difficult to scroll through without accidentally tapping something. I think a lot of good sites got absolutely destroyed in this era because they couldn't get their mobile act together fast enough. Facebook almost had a monopoly on things you could idly look at on your phone while in the supermarket line or while waiting for the pasta water to boil, at least without wanting to throw your phone across the room in frustration.
But I don't think that's really the case anymore. Websites generally load fine on phones, and some sites and apps are full of annoying ads but there are plenty that aren't. TikTok has bite sized content, ebooks and podcasts are easy to get, your local newspaper site probably loads ok on your phone, and Reddit isn't just for dorks anymore.
posted by smelendez at 1:05 AM on July 27, 2022 [3 favorites]
He even helped pitch his own tent!
Are we still not doing phrasing, or no? Because I bet he's had a lot of practice at that yet somehow he's still really bad at it.
posted by loquacious at 1:12 AM on July 27, 2022 [6 favorites]
Are we still not doing phrasing, or no? Because I bet he's had a lot of practice at that yet somehow he's still really bad at it.
posted by loquacious at 1:12 AM on July 27, 2022 [6 favorites]
I saw some news about a Quest price change and assumed it was going down since nobody really wants this product… what the heck is going on??
The Quest 2 has been incredibly successful - recent sales estimates are almost 15 million sold. For comparison, that's close to Playstation 5 numbers, and far more than the newest Xbox models combined. It's the one good thing to have come out of Facebook, I'd say.
posted by bakerybob at 1:37 AM on July 27, 2022 [1 favorite]
The Quest 2 has been incredibly successful - recent sales estimates are almost 15 million sold. For comparison, that's close to Playstation 5 numbers, and far more than the newest Xbox models combined. It's the one good thing to have come out of Facebook, I'd say.
posted by bakerybob at 1:37 AM on July 27, 2022 [1 favorite]
yeah it would be neat if I could feel like it was morally justifiable to want to buy an Oculus Quest, just on a personal level
like, I get that there's No Ethical Consumption under Capitalism, but actively financially supporting Facebook of all companies feels downright defeatist
posted by DoctorFedora at 2:13 AM on July 27, 2022 [5 favorites]
like, I get that there's No Ethical Consumption under Capitalism, but actively financially supporting Facebook of all companies feels downright defeatist
posted by DoctorFedora at 2:13 AM on July 27, 2022 [5 favorites]
Nobody under 25 uses Facebook because it's old people's social media. Facebook will become primarily focused on interest groups and small business presence. It's on a long, slow death spiral.
posted by GallonOfAlan at 2:26 AM on July 27, 2022 [13 favorites]
posted by GallonOfAlan at 2:26 AM on July 27, 2022 [13 favorites]
"It is crazy that working for companies that are literally doing massive global harm, or for companies whose products exist purely to produce profits rather than anything actually useful, gets you more prestige and social status than working for companies that are actually making things people need, but that's the self-reinforcing state of things."
It's also a company whose product just doesn't work very well.
posted by Nancy Lebovitz at 2:26 AM on July 27, 2022 [3 favorites]
It's also a company whose product just doesn't work very well.
posted by Nancy Lebovitz at 2:26 AM on July 27, 2022 [3 favorites]
Meanwhile, they're doubling down on trashing anything Instagram had going for it. More video, more Skinner-box algorithms, and let's see how thinly we can slice connection to your friends to keep you hooked and seeing ads.
posted by acb at 2:32 AM on July 27, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by acb at 2:32 AM on July 27, 2022 [1 favorite]
Nobody under 25 uses Facebook because it's old people's social media.
Heck, I think that's more like 30 now.
posted by octothorpe at 3:31 AM on July 27, 2022 [8 favorites]
Heck, I think that's more like 30 now.
posted by octothorpe at 3:31 AM on July 27, 2022 [8 favorites]
I am not a market analyst but it seems like open source social media will never be anything but a small niche market, unless it has some serious promotional power behind it. That would only seem attainable through public financing. The only truly "sustainable" social media is public social media, because neoliberal corporatism and civil society are fundamentally incompatible.
(I'm not just grandstanding, this has been amply demonstrated by the Trump/Brexit years. I'll skip my manifesto about why information pollution is just as toxic as environmental pollution -- just one quick example of how Meta loves authoritarians.)
Yeah Zuck, It's your lazy employees' fault and not the fact that you've turned your main product into a cesspit of spam and white supremacy or that you'd alienated Instagram's userbase by turning it into yet another TikTok clone.
To be fair, Insta is also chock full of alt right and general nationalist identity politics toxic content. Of course I just got banned from there by a right wing troll who abused the report function so I can't comment on whether it's improved in the past week.
I used to think Reddit's dysfunctional toxic techbro partnership with YouTube was the absolute worst of social media but they just can't seem to match Meta's global reach for its toxic information pollution.
posted by viborg at 5:01 AM on July 27, 2022 [3 favorites]
(I'm not just grandstanding, this has been amply demonstrated by the Trump/Brexit years. I'll skip my manifesto about why information pollution is just as toxic as environmental pollution -- just one quick example of how Meta loves authoritarians.)
Yeah Zuck, It's your lazy employees' fault and not the fact that you've turned your main product into a cesspit of spam and white supremacy or that you'd alienated Instagram's userbase by turning it into yet another TikTok clone.
To be fair, Insta is also chock full of alt right and general nationalist identity politics toxic content. Of course I just got banned from there by a right wing troll who abused the report function so I can't comment on whether it's improved in the past week.
I used to think Reddit's dysfunctional toxic techbro partnership with YouTube was the absolute worst of social media but they just can't seem to match Meta's global reach for its toxic information pollution.
posted by viborg at 5:01 AM on July 27, 2022 [3 favorites]
If FB makes instagram bad, expecting to pick up on VR later, they’re going to be in for a rude surprise. But this is the company that already managed to poison its first golden egg by pivoting to video (and far right propaganda). Let’s see if they can do it again
posted by The River Ivel at 5:02 AM on July 27, 2022 [3 favorites]
posted by The River Ivel at 5:02 AM on July 27, 2022 [3 favorites]
It's pretty clear Zuck sees the alt right etc toxicity as a feature not a bug. Like just about every other rent-seeker benefitting from externalizing his costs onto the public in our dystopian economy, he is able to reap significant personal gain.
posted by viborg at 5:07 AM on July 27, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by viborg at 5:07 AM on July 27, 2022 [1 favorite]
One last brain fart then I'm done: been re-reading Will & Ariel Durant's excellent history of the Enlightenment etc, and it's remarkable how classical liberalism and rationalism managed to completely screw everything up in terms of the actual material conditions. "Greed is good" was such a dumb idea.
posted by viborg at 5:15 AM on July 27, 2022
posted by viborg at 5:15 AM on July 27, 2022
To the question of alternative platforms: years ago I was on Livejournal and loved it (got there via the Straight Dope Message Board at the Chicago Reader website, which was my first online presence of any stripe and have been haardvark or hearthpig ever since). I really liked livejournal, met a lot of people, interacted with a lot of friends, and could (within some limits at the time) post photos and sound clips. In my memory it seemed to functionally provide a lot of what facebook does, admittedly with a clunkier interface, and there were a couple of sensible stabs at monetization (extra photos, extra icons) to keep the ship afloat.
Then the russians bought LJ and it all went to poop pretty quickly, and almost all my friends migrated to facebook. That was probably 10 years ago and most of us are still there, but from that core LJ refugee crowd there are frequent comments about "how do we get back to that" and "how do we get away from facebook".
The codebase for LJ had been open source for a time and a fork was formed called dreamwidth. I have a dreamwidth account because I migrated all my lj stuff over there for posterity, and i tried to keep using it but with little success and very little external engagement. but if FB (which I still find more useful than not) manages to flush itself, the first thing I will probably try is to reinvigorate DW in my circle of friends.
posted by hearthpig at 5:47 AM on July 27, 2022 [7 favorites]
Then the russians bought LJ and it all went to poop pretty quickly, and almost all my friends migrated to facebook. That was probably 10 years ago and most of us are still there, but from that core LJ refugee crowd there are frequent comments about "how do we get back to that" and "how do we get away from facebook".
The codebase for LJ had been open source for a time and a fork was formed called dreamwidth. I have a dreamwidth account because I migrated all my lj stuff over there for posterity, and i tried to keep using it but with little success and very little external engagement. but if FB (which I still find more useful than not) manages to flush itself, the first thing I will probably try is to reinvigorate DW in my circle of friends.
posted by hearthpig at 5:47 AM on July 27, 2022 [7 favorites]
Parents can brag about it to their friends and their friends will honestly say "wow".
Yeah, this is real. I was doing my standard online-security-and-privacy stuff at a rural public library. I advocated strongly for DuckDuckGo over Google, with lots of sharp words for Google's mendacity... only to find out that the son of a lovely elderly lady in the room worked at Google.
Oopsie. Guess I won't be welcome in that town ever again.
posted by humbug at 5:47 AM on July 27, 2022 [3 favorites]
Yeah, this is real. I was doing my standard online-security-and-privacy stuff at a rural public library. I advocated strongly for DuckDuckGo over Google, with lots of sharp words for Google's mendacity... only to find out that the son of a lovely elderly lady in the room worked at Google.
Oopsie. Guess I won't be welcome in that town ever again.
posted by humbug at 5:47 AM on July 27, 2022 [3 favorites]
trig:...if you work for a company like Facebook all doors are open to you for your next job, while if you work at Small Local Software Company it's going to be harder to ever get a foot in the door at one of the big players.
My son is in college, and just wrapping up a programming internship at a "small, local software company." It kind of sucks, from what he told me: they used him like an off-shoring vendor.
But anyway, he talked yesterday to two kids from our town. One is a Meta intern and one works there full-time -- and he was agog at the benefits and opportunities. High pay, yes, but also a manager who talks to you. Imagine!
posted by wenestvedt at 6:19 AM on July 27, 2022 [1 favorite]
My son is in college, and just wrapping up a programming internship at a "small, local software company." It kind of sucks, from what he told me: they used him like an off-shoring vendor.
But anyway, he talked yesterday to two kids from our town. One is a Meta intern and one works there full-time -- and he was agog at the benefits and opportunities. High pay, yes, but also a manager who talks to you. Imagine!
posted by wenestvedt at 6:19 AM on July 27, 2022 [1 favorite]
A cool thing I have at work is a contract that defines a disciplinary process that prohibits my employer for firing me without cause... Just a thing you can win if you unionize with your fellow workers...
posted by latkes at 6:29 AM on July 27, 2022 [9 favorites]
posted by latkes at 6:29 AM on July 27, 2022 [9 favorites]
“Realistically, there are probably a bunch of people at the company who shouldn’t be here,” Zuckerberg said on the June 30th call, according to a recording obtained by The Verge. “And part of my hope by raising expectations and having more aggressive goals, and just kind of turning up the heat a little bit, is that I think some of you might just say that this place isn’t for you. And that self-selection is okay with me.”
I had a professor like that. He decided the class was too full so he set some policies that were intended to incentivize people to drop. He miscalibrated and got his empty classroom out of it, which I guess is fine if you're tenured. It might not work out so well for a for-profit company.
posted by The Monster at the End of this Thread at 6:38 AM on July 27, 2022 [9 favorites]
I had a professor like that. He decided the class was too full so he set some policies that were intended to incentivize people to drop. He miscalibrated and got his empty classroom out of it, which I guess is fine if you're tenured. It might not work out so well for a for-profit company.
posted by The Monster at the End of this Thread at 6:38 AM on July 27, 2022 [9 favorites]
Meanwhile: A study of volunteers who spent a working week in a virtual-reality environment [pdf] (using an Oculus Quest 2) "found concerning levels of simulator sickness, below average usability ratings and two participants dropped out on the first day using VR, due to migraine, nausea and anxiety." It also found that VR resulted in lower engagement, lower productivity, higher frustration, lower sense of wellbeing, higher physical fatigue, taking longer breaks from work, and slower typing speeds.
Putting people in isolation helmets didn't work in the 1920s, and it doesn't work with VR.
posted by jedicus at 7:47 AM on July 27, 2022 [17 favorites]
Putting people in isolation helmets didn't work in the 1920s, and it doesn't work with VR.
posted by jedicus at 7:47 AM on July 27, 2022 [17 favorites]
Why do people put themselves in these soul crushing environments? I know, money. But it's so not worth it. I can't fathom this life. Loyalty to a company? They don't care about you!
Because the CEO of a megacorp making waves about possible layoffs is far more disconnected than your direct manager saying "if you've got time to lean, you've got time to clean" or some other nonsense. So the attention paid to them is not at all the same. Also the risk is not at all the same - yes white collar workers do get laid off, but the white collar upper middle class unemployment rate is like 1/2 the blue collar/retail unemployment rate during recessions.
Also I don't know why people are questioning the "shouldn't be here " thing. If you have worked long enough, you'll know that some people have competing priorities vs getting their work done, whether it's a side hustle, thinking mostly about partying, general disinterest,refuse to learn new stuff, a serious health matter, or seeing if they can pull off an "Office Space", at least temporarily. If you are employed long enough, it will be you, at least temporarily. Calling that out is not offensive. Ignoring or acting like it doesn't exist is weird.
posted by The_Vegetables at 7:54 AM on July 27, 2022 [4 favorites]
Because the CEO of a megacorp making waves about possible layoffs is far more disconnected than your direct manager saying "if you've got time to lean, you've got time to clean" or some other nonsense. So the attention paid to them is not at all the same. Also the risk is not at all the same - yes white collar workers do get laid off, but the white collar upper middle class unemployment rate is like 1/2 the blue collar/retail unemployment rate during recessions.
Also I don't know why people are questioning the "shouldn't be here " thing. If you have worked long enough, you'll know that some people have competing priorities vs getting their work done, whether it's a side hustle, thinking mostly about partying, general disinterest,refuse to learn new stuff, a serious health matter, or seeing if they can pull off an "Office Space", at least temporarily. If you are employed long enough, it will be you, at least temporarily. Calling that out is not offensive. Ignoring or acting like it doesn't exist is weird.
posted by The_Vegetables at 7:54 AM on July 27, 2022 [4 favorites]
Personally I think it's wild because all of Facebook's issues are rotting from the head just like a fish. I'm sure FB has plenty of dead weight but that's not what it's actual biggest problem is.
posted by bleep at 7:57 AM on July 27, 2022 [8 favorites]
posted by bleep at 7:57 AM on July 27, 2022 [8 favorites]
I know, money. But it's so not worth it.
Eh, in many cases it probably is worth it -- it's nice to cover your rent for the month in less than a week.
Amusingly, people in the field suspected something was going to happen a couple of months ago, because Meta recruiters suddenly stopped haranguing everyone they could find. If literally every Monday you have to spend a moment or two politely declining a cold-contact email from a Meta person, when you suddenly stop having to do that it's noticeable. It's like seeing the ocean suddenly pull back from the shoreline -- if you've paid attention, and then you see that happen, you know something big is afoot in deeper waters and you should GTFO.
Parents can brag about it to their friends and their friends will honestly say "wow".
God this is such a thing in certain cultural diaspora WhatsApp groups! It's like carcinization -- every group, regardless of whether it was started to discuss cricket, share recipes, or help locate decent groceries, whether they be created by relatives, created by strangers, created by whomever, it all inevitably devolves into bragging about children in tech and the careful calibration of whether it's better to be a Director at Company XYZ, or Senior Principal Engineer at Company ABC.
posted by aramaic at 8:30 AM on July 27, 2022 [6 favorites]
Eh, in many cases it probably is worth it -- it's nice to cover your rent for the month in less than a week.
Amusingly, people in the field suspected something was going to happen a couple of months ago, because Meta recruiters suddenly stopped haranguing everyone they could find. If literally every Monday you have to spend a moment or two politely declining a cold-contact email from a Meta person, when you suddenly stop having to do that it's noticeable. It's like seeing the ocean suddenly pull back from the shoreline -- if you've paid attention, and then you see that happen, you know something big is afoot in deeper waters and you should GTFO.
Parents can brag about it to their friends and their friends will honestly say "wow".
God this is such a thing in certain cultural diaspora WhatsApp groups! It's like carcinization -- every group, regardless of whether it was started to discuss cricket, share recipes, or help locate decent groceries, whether they be created by relatives, created by strangers, created by whomever, it all inevitably devolves into bragging about children in tech and the careful calibration of whether it's better to be a Director at Company XYZ, or Senior Principal Engineer at Company ABC.
posted by aramaic at 8:30 AM on July 27, 2022 [6 favorites]
the consequences of his own actions coming back to bite him in the posterior
I'm not usually in favor of companies shitting on their employees, but come to think of it, there is this one guy at Meta who appears to be underperforming and might not belong there!
posted by evidenceofabsence at 8:52 AM on July 27, 2022 [7 favorites]
I'm not usually in favor of companies shitting on their employees, but come to think of it, there is this one guy at Meta who appears to be underperforming and might not belong there!
posted by evidenceofabsence at 8:52 AM on July 27, 2022 [7 favorites]
Also I don't know why people are questioning the "shouldn't be here " thing. If you have worked long enough, you'll know that some people have competing priorities vs getting their work done, whether it's a side hustle, thinking mostly about partying, general disinterest,refuse to learn new stuff, a serious health matter, or seeing if they can pull off an "Office Space", at least temporarily. If you are employed long enough, it will be you, at least temporarily. Calling that out is not offensive. Ignoring or acting like it doesn't exist is weird.I think it's because capitalism is completely broken, and late-stage capitalism is draining and destroying us all.
We seem to have more than enough resources for Fully Automated Luxury Gay Space Communism — where it wouldn't matter at all if some people want to have a side hustle or party or whatever — but instead we're stuck in some blinkered mercantile world view where everything someone else has is denying that thing to you. And even when we realize that there's not a finite amount of wealth in the world and more can be created, it gets concentrated in the Pentaverate, or whatever.
So yeah, I'm going to ignore the person next to me that's gold-bricking, because I'd rather eat the rich than hurt a comrade.
posted by cardioid at 9:25 AM on July 27, 2022 [21 favorites]
The only thing useful on the Oculus is Walkabout Mini-Golf. Everything with a social component is full of shitty unsupervised children. I'm not sure why Meta wants to sell you an expensive Lord of the Flies Daycare Simulator, but that's what it is right now.
posted by credulous at 9:45 AM on July 27, 2022 [12 favorites]
posted by credulous at 9:45 AM on July 27, 2022 [12 favorites]
I think it's because capitalism is completely broken, and late-stage capitalism is draining and destroying us all.
I could maybe argue that doing an hour of work a day and messing around on the internet or something else moderately close to your work setup while you are at home and earning close to 6 figures or higher is stage 1 of Fully Automated Luxury Gay Space Communism?
We will have the vestiges of a job to give us purpose, but have jettisoned the office, the 8 hours, and automated the mindless labor. The only thing left is the many meetings that we hang out in the back of, generally rarely speaking until we are really needed, and the fact that a corporation pays rather than the Feds.
Heck if Ipads could get a bit better, we may not even be tied to a desk in phase 2.
The biggest downside is it won't be more universal until like stage 53, so only a relatively tiny subset will get to experience it.
posted by The_Vegetables at 9:49 AM on July 27, 2022 [2 favorites]
I could maybe argue that doing an hour of work a day and messing around on the internet or something else moderately close to your work setup while you are at home and earning close to 6 figures or higher is stage 1 of Fully Automated Luxury Gay Space Communism?
We will have the vestiges of a job to give us purpose, but have jettisoned the office, the 8 hours, and automated the mindless labor. The only thing left is the many meetings that we hang out in the back of, generally rarely speaking until we are really needed, and the fact that a corporation pays rather than the Feds.
Heck if Ipads could get a bit better, we may not even be tied to a desk in phase 2.
The biggest downside is it won't be more universal until like stage 53, so only a relatively tiny subset will get to experience it.
posted by The_Vegetables at 9:49 AM on July 27, 2022 [2 favorites]
Facebook culture is already extremely entrepreneurial. My brother works as an engineer there. When he was hired he was told there was no hierarchy, bosses' jobs were to help the engineers not manage them, and he wouldn't be assigned to a team or told what to do. It was his job in the first few weeks to find a project he liked and figure out how he could contribute.
Personally, to me this sounds like a total nightmare and I would hate it! But he's been there more than a decade. Maybe the management style has changed or maybe it only ever applied to certain departments. Facebook pays very very very well - but cost of living around Redwoord City is also very very very high - and then there's all the tech company perks on top of that, not just the free cafeteria food and snacks but a bike loan program, childcare assistance, etc etc etc.
I assumed the dark side of all this was that if you weren't productive, they would cut you. Google is completely ruthless about cutting non-productive employees, even the ones who've been there since the beginning of the company and contributed a lot over the years, and who are happy to work on whatever they're assigned (without going on to "find" more projects to work on). You work hard because everyone else works hard and it's part of the contract for being paid so well.
But yeah they always paid that well because they were flush with cash. Maybe now, not so much.
posted by subdee at 10:05 AM on July 27, 2022 [1 favorite]
Personally, to me this sounds like a total nightmare and I would hate it! But he's been there more than a decade. Maybe the management style has changed or maybe it only ever applied to certain departments. Facebook pays very very very well - but cost of living around Redwoord City is also very very very high - and then there's all the tech company perks on top of that, not just the free cafeteria food and snacks but a bike loan program, childcare assistance, etc etc etc.
I assumed the dark side of all this was that if you weren't productive, they would cut you. Google is completely ruthless about cutting non-productive employees, even the ones who've been there since the beginning of the company and contributed a lot over the years, and who are happy to work on whatever they're assigned (without going on to "find" more projects to work on). You work hard because everyone else works hard and it's part of the contract for being paid so well.
But yeah they always paid that well because they were flush with cash. Maybe now, not so much.
posted by subdee at 10:05 AM on July 27, 2022 [1 favorite]
Also I don't know why people are questioning the "shouldn't be here " thing.
Because it's stupid counterproductive class warfare bullshit, being said purely for investor storytime. I've been dealing with new hires at work, and one of the first things I tell them is that I have every confidence they can meet the expectations we have for them because we would not have hired them otherwise.
Beyond that, Facebook's problems stem from the performance of one man, who is in the position that he can't be removed by anyone barring the company's collapse. Which, if he keeps going the way he is, may be sooner than later.
posted by NoxAeternum at 10:07 AM on July 27, 2022 [9 favorites]
Because it's stupid counterproductive class warfare bullshit, being said purely for investor storytime. I've been dealing with new hires at work, and one of the first things I tell them is that I have every confidence they can meet the expectations we have for them because we would not have hired them otherwise.
Beyond that, Facebook's problems stem from the performance of one man, who is in the position that he can't be removed by anyone barring the company's collapse. Which, if he keeps going the way he is, may be sooner than later.
posted by NoxAeternum at 10:07 AM on July 27, 2022 [9 favorites]
Facebook culture is already extremely entrepreneurial. My brother works as an engineer there. When he was hired he was told there was no hierarchy, bosses' jobs were to help the engineers not manage them, and he wouldn't be assigned to a team or told what to do. It was his job in the first few weeks to find a project he liked and figure out how he could contribute.
And this is why Jo Freeman should be required reading - because "we have no hierarchy" actually means "we have a hierarchy, but instead of it being visible and held accountable, it's secret and hidden from oversight." Not to mention that "go find a team without any awareness of what the company plan just feels like asking for people to wind up on dead projects.
posted by NoxAeternum at 10:18 AM on July 27, 2022 [19 favorites]
And this is why Jo Freeman should be required reading - because "we have no hierarchy" actually means "we have a hierarchy, but instead of it being visible and held accountable, it's secret and hidden from oversight." Not to mention that "go find a team without any awareness of what the company plan just feels like asking for people to wind up on dead projects.
posted by NoxAeternum at 10:18 AM on July 27, 2022 [19 favorites]
I'm all in on the fact that Zuck is a douche, but I can also see the side that there's definitely room to cut some fat. I know a guy who got hired there recently, with about a 75% raise from what he was making previously at another big name company. His workload is now smaller and he probably works half of the hours he was working previously. Employees Robot drones are essentially forced to do their job and nothing but their job; it's very siloed.
No doubt this was designed as such from the top down. So yes, the blame on employees is misplaced, but can it be leaner? Yes indeed.
posted by hydra77 at 11:17 AM on July 27, 2022 [1 favorite]
No doubt this was designed as such from the top down. So yes, the blame on employees is misplaced, but can it be leaner? Yes indeed.
posted by hydra77 at 11:17 AM on July 27, 2022 [1 favorite]
So yes, the blame on employees is misplaced, but can it be leaner? Yes indeed.
Can it? Sure, I guess. Does it need to be? I'd have to say no, especially given that the "fat trimming" is being done to:
* Deal with the fallout of people now actively taking measures against Facebook's indiscriminate data harvesting,
* Chase trends by trying to compete with TikTok on its turf,
* Pay for Zuckerberg's "Metaverse" white whale/boat anchor, and
* Reassure investors after the massive contraction in user base (which given their growth in the Global South, where Facebook is the internet, is worse than we thought.)
The reality is the particular piece of fat that Meta should trim is protected from trimming thanks to his holdings.
posted by NoxAeternum at 11:27 AM on July 27, 2022 [2 favorites]
Can it? Sure, I guess. Does it need to be? I'd have to say no, especially given that the "fat trimming" is being done to:
* Deal with the fallout of people now actively taking measures against Facebook's indiscriminate data harvesting,
* Chase trends by trying to compete with TikTok on its turf,
* Pay for Zuckerberg's "Metaverse" white whale/boat anchor, and
* Reassure investors after the massive contraction in user base (which given their growth in the Global South, where Facebook is the internet, is worse than we thought.)
The reality is the particular piece of fat that Meta should trim is protected from trimming thanks to his holdings.
posted by NoxAeternum at 11:27 AM on July 27, 2022 [2 favorites]
NYT: F.T.C. Sues to Block Meta Virtual Reality Deal as It Confronts Big Tech
The Federal Trade Commission on Wednesday filed for an injunction to block Meta, the company formerly known as Facebook, from buying a virtual reality company called Within, potentially limiting the company’s push into the so-called metaverse and signaling a shift in how the agency is approaching tech deals.posted by gwint at 12:52 PM on July 27, 2022 [3 favorites]
The antitrust lawsuit is the first to be filed under Lina Khan, the commission’s chair and a leading progressive critic of corporate concentration, against one of the tech giants. Ms. Khan has argued that regulators must stop violations of competition and consumer protection laws when it comes to the bleeding edge of technology, including virtual and augmented reality, and not just in areas where the companies have already become behemoths.
The F.T.C.’s request for an injunction puts Ms. Khan on a collision course with Mark Zuckerberg, Meta’s chief executive, who is also named as a defendant in the request. He has poured billions of dollars into building products for virtual and augmented reality, betting that the immersive world of the metaverse is the next technology frontier. The lawsuit could crimp those ambitions.
This is not just FB, it's endemic to Silicon Valley. A recruiter at Intel in the early 80s told me the loved hiring NCGs (new college grads) because they had no family or social life and would work longer hours.
But anyway, he talked yesterday to two kids from our town. One is a Meta intern and one works there full-time -- and he was agog at the benefits and opportunities. High pay, yes, but also a manager who talks to you. Imagine!
I haven’t worked for FB/Meta myself but of the big guys they don’t have the worst reputation for working environment (predictably that’s probably Amazon). Not to imply that it’s good - definitely got the manufactured internal competition via performance review thing, and people working a lot of hours, but some people like the unstructured thing and they pay really well… if you’ll accept FB stock as payment.
posted by atoxyl at 1:06 PM on July 27, 2022
But anyway, he talked yesterday to two kids from our town. One is a Meta intern and one works there full-time -- and he was agog at the benefits and opportunities. High pay, yes, but also a manager who talks to you. Imagine!
I haven’t worked for FB/Meta myself but of the big guys they don’t have the worst reputation for working environment (predictably that’s probably Amazon). Not to imply that it’s good - definitely got the manufactured internal competition via performance review thing, and people working a lot of hours, but some people like the unstructured thing and they pay really well… if you’ll accept FB stock as payment.
posted by atoxyl at 1:06 PM on July 27, 2022
can it be leaner?
Well like the quote from the article says, who hired these people? It seems like pretty standard business roller coaster stuff - the market was hot, they spent several years hiring like crazy, now it’s cooled off and they’re just as quickly going to go “lean.” It makes sense for them to do, probably, but as a whole it’s not really the fault of the folks they hired and taking the attitude of “I guess some of you just aren’t good enough” is nasty and transparent.
posted by atoxyl at 1:15 PM on July 27, 2022 [3 favorites]
Well like the quote from the article says, who hired these people? It seems like pretty standard business roller coaster stuff - the market was hot, they spent several years hiring like crazy, now it’s cooled off and they’re just as quickly going to go “lean.” It makes sense for them to do, probably, but as a whole it’s not really the fault of the folks they hired and taking the attitude of “I guess some of you just aren’t good enough” is nasty and transparent.
posted by atoxyl at 1:15 PM on July 27, 2022 [3 favorites]
Many of those new hires are probably looking to jump ship anyway, after they hit their first year. The falling stock price means they've taken a "pay cut" of over six figures.
posted by meowzilla at 1:45 PM on July 27, 2022
posted by meowzilla at 1:45 PM on July 27, 2022
Who fucking cares if the employees are dicking around all day??? It's one of the richest and most damaging corporations on earth!! Fucking steal as much time and do as least harm as you can! My only beef is wanting more of them to organize their fellow workers. But their interests are not the bosses interest and however much they're paid it will never be in the same pay solar system of the executives. Fuck Zuckerberg, no one owes him shit!!
posted by latkes at 2:40 PM on July 27, 2022 [12 favorites]
posted by latkes at 2:40 PM on July 27, 2022 [12 favorites]
Meta announced their first ever decline in revenue today, which honestly shouldn't be a surprise since 2021 was a very strange year. Still, the stock is down 4.5% after hours.
Meta has also announced it's reinvestigating their policies around health misinformation, which might be code for "increase user engagement by no longer deleting insane opinions", right in time for back-to-school / holiday season.
posted by meowzilla at 3:13 PM on July 27, 2022
Meta has also announced it's reinvestigating their policies around health misinformation, which might be code for "increase user engagement by no longer deleting insane opinions", right in time for back-to-school / holiday season.
posted by meowzilla at 3:13 PM on July 27, 2022
which might be code
Nick Clegg is involved; I can pretty much guarantee it’s code for allowing much more profitable misinformation to proliferate.
posted by aramaic at 3:28 PM on July 27, 2022 [2 favorites]
Nick Clegg is involved; I can pretty much guarantee it’s code for allowing much more profitable misinformation to proliferate.
posted by aramaic at 3:28 PM on July 27, 2022 [2 favorites]
it's fucking hilarious to me that a seemingly innocuous iOS update - allowing users to do a single-click opt in or out of data collection/tracking/analysis by apps - single-handedly torpedoed $10 billion and counting in Facebook's ad revenue
posted by acb at 3:51 PM on July 27, 2022 [16 favorites]
posted by acb at 3:51 PM on July 27, 2022 [16 favorites]
I'm not sure what they mean by "a seemingly innocuous iOS update". At least here in Japan, they've been running big budget prime time TV ads about that update (well, not about the update per se, but about the function provided by the update). Given that the people appearing in the ads are all foreigners, I'm guessing it's not a local ad, but a global ad dubbed into local languages.
posted by Bugbread at 4:00 PM on July 27, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by Bugbread at 4:00 PM on July 27, 2022 [1 favorite]
Shoulda looked a bit harder before commenting.
Long English version of the above ad.
And another.
And another.
These (well, the localized versions) are all prime-time ads here. This isn't a "subtle little thing buried in the release notes," this is a highly-publicized and discussed feature rolled out through the iOS instead of being tied to new hardware.
posted by Bugbread at 4:07 PM on July 27, 2022 [2 favorites]
Long English version of the above ad.
And another.
And another.
These (well, the localized versions) are all prime-time ads here. This isn't a "subtle little thing buried in the release notes," this is a highly-publicized and discussed feature rolled out through the iOS instead of being tied to new hardware.
posted by Bugbread at 4:07 PM on July 27, 2022 [2 favorites]
I have a low enough opinion of Mark Zuckerberg’s stewardship of what we have all given him that I invented an entire branch of science to describe it. (CW my blog, long)
posted by bigbigdog at 4:35 PM on July 27, 2022
posted by bigbigdog at 4:35 PM on July 27, 2022
I think that $10 billion was an estimate given by Facebook when the change was first implemented, not actual data, though we can hope.
posted by snofoam at 5:52 PM on July 27, 2022
posted by snofoam at 5:52 PM on July 27, 2022
And in unsurprising yet disheartening news, Facebook is caught once again running pro-genocide ads, this time in Kenya.
posted by NoxAeternum at 10:54 AM on July 30, 2022
posted by NoxAeternum at 10:54 AM on July 30, 2022
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posted by NoxAeternum at 3:05 PM on July 26, 2022 [24 favorites]