Meta falter
October 31, 2022 10:09 PM Subscribe
Facebook’s Monopoly Is Imploding Before Our Eyes. Competition, miscalculations, and regulatory scrutiny have all but killed the advertising giant's dreams of diversifying its business and rolling up the digital world into its platform.
What a shame...
posted by Windopaene at 10:23 PM on October 31, 2022 [5 favorites]
posted by Windopaene at 10:23 PM on October 31, 2022 [5 favorites]
Earlier this week, Apple announced yet another change that would also hit Facebook. Apple said it would consider buying ads within the Facebook app to be a "digital purchase" subject to the App Store's 30 percent commission.
On first pass, I’m on team Facebook’s side here. Seems bad.
posted by Going To Maine at 10:29 PM on October 31, 2022 [15 favorites]
On first pass, I’m on team Facebook’s side here. Seems bad.
posted by Going To Maine at 10:29 PM on October 31, 2022 [15 favorites]
You wonder which edgy anti-democracy oligarch is going to buy Facebook when it drops below 50.
posted by credulous at 10:33 PM on October 31, 2022 [37 favorites]
posted by credulous at 10:33 PM on October 31, 2022 [37 favorites]
Apple said it would consider buying ads within the Facebook app to be a "digital purchase" subject to the App Store's 30 percent commission.
I didn’t understand this part of the article. Does “buying ads” mean placing ads on Facebook? I’ve never seen the advertiser-facing side of the app.
posted by mr_roboto at 10:38 PM on October 31, 2022 [2 favorites]
I didn’t understand this part of the article. Does “buying ads” mean placing ads on Facebook? I’ve never seen the advertiser-facing side of the app.
posted by mr_roboto at 10:38 PM on October 31, 2022 [2 favorites]
On first pass, I’m on team Facebook’s side here. Seems bad.
My iPhone is not obliged to deliver Facebook ads to my eyeballs, or am I missing something?
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 10:45 PM on October 31, 2022 [5 favorites]
My iPhone is not obliged to deliver Facebook ads to my eyeballs, or am I missing something?
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 10:45 PM on October 31, 2022 [5 favorites]
Bezos buys Facebook. Amazon reviews are now FB comments from Friends, FB recommends friends based on consumer preferences. Goodreads is merged with Facebook. Facebook comments on author and book pages start to appear in Kindle highlights. Metaverse property now purchasable via Amazon. Any physical items purchased from amazon can be upsold to virtual representations in MV. Your can feed prime video and music into the Metaverse. Prime Video begins to offer immersive VR films and television shows using technology pioneered by the porn industry. Meta Quest 2 is a prime day deal next year. Meta Quest 3 has Alexa built in and Alexa will have VR avatar that you can interact with in the MV. New World 2 is launched alongside the Meta Quest 4 and is the first AAA VRMMORPG.
posted by forbiddencabinet at 10:46 PM on October 31, 2022 [23 favorites]
posted by forbiddencabinet at 10:46 PM on October 31, 2022 [23 favorites]
credulous I'll put my money down on Rupert Murdoch. Facebook and Fox fully converge to the same useful outrage machine, different media channels. Even synergize on the pool of advertisers. I think there's a business model here, sadly.
(This is probably several years after Elon tumblrs Twitter to the bonesaw asshole.)
posted by away for regrooving at 10:46 PM on October 31, 2022 [12 favorites]
(This is probably several years after Elon tumblrs Twitter to the bonesaw asshole.)
posted by away for regrooving at 10:46 PM on October 31, 2022 [12 favorites]
My iPhone is not obliged to deliver Facebook ads to my eyeballs, or am I missing something?
Quoting The CNBC article linked by Vice:
posted by Going To Maine at 10:51 PM on October 31, 2022 [18 favorites]
Quoting The CNBC article linked by Vice:
The new rule, introduced Monday, says that companies like Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram, can offer apps that allow people to buy and manage advertising campaigns in dedicated apps without using Apple’s payment system, but it considers buying an ad in a social media app to be a digital purchase, from which Apple takes a 30% cut.I don’t know how sales in iOS apps or the App Store work in general, but this seems to mostly be about Apple wanting a cut of anything an app developer sells within their app. It has nothing to do with Facebook serving you ads.
posted by Going To Maine at 10:51 PM on October 31, 2022 [18 favorites]
Normally I’m against Apple Tax, but in this case, in this battle between behemoths…
Pivot to oblivion, fuckers.
posted by Artw at 11:01 PM on October 31, 2022 [11 favorites]
Pivot to oblivion, fuckers.
posted by Artw at 11:01 PM on October 31, 2022 [11 favorites]
I didn’t understand this part of the article. Does “buying ads” mean placing ads on Facebook? I’ve never seen the advertiser-facing side of the app.
Facebook allows its users to create pages, and it used to be the case that if other users subscribed to your page they would see the new content that you post to your page in their timeline. Some time ago Facebook said something like "now only a small portion of your subscribers will see your posts, and if you want more of them to see your post you have to purchase a 'boost'". They sold these "boosts" on their web site as well as in another of their apps (called "Meta Ad Manager") that is also used to buy the more conventional Facebook ads. More recently Facebook started selling these "boosts" inside of the main Facebook app.
As part of the developer agreement for Apple's iOS platform (iPhone, iPad, etc), developers agree to pay Apple 30% of the purchase price for digital content delivered in the app if the purchase was initiated in that app. If you sell physical goods in your app Apple doesn't ask for that 30% and they also have a some other exceptions, but their exceptions do not include ads. Facebook previously was selling digital goods (i.e. boosts) without paying the 30% commission because they were selling the boosts in one app (i.e. "Meta Ad Manager") and delivering them in another (i.e. the main Facebook app), and Apple was willing to let them do this since this wasn't against their rules.
Apple is now telling Facebook that if they want to sell boosts in the main Facebook app, they will have to pay the 30% since they consider the "boosts" to be digital content and they are being delivered in the same app.
posted by RichardP at 11:07 PM on October 31, 2022 [46 favorites]
Facebook allows its users to create pages, and it used to be the case that if other users subscribed to your page they would see the new content that you post to your page in their timeline. Some time ago Facebook said something like "now only a small portion of your subscribers will see your posts, and if you want more of them to see your post you have to purchase a 'boost'". They sold these "boosts" on their web site as well as in another of their apps (called "Meta Ad Manager") that is also used to buy the more conventional Facebook ads. More recently Facebook started selling these "boosts" inside of the main Facebook app.
As part of the developer agreement for Apple's iOS platform (iPhone, iPad, etc), developers agree to pay Apple 30% of the purchase price for digital content delivered in the app if the purchase was initiated in that app. If you sell physical goods in your app Apple doesn't ask for that 30% and they also have a some other exceptions, but their exceptions do not include ads. Facebook previously was selling digital goods (i.e. boosts) without paying the 30% commission because they were selling the boosts in one app (i.e. "Meta Ad Manager") and delivering them in another (i.e. the main Facebook app), and Apple was willing to let them do this since this wasn't against their rules.
Apple is now telling Facebook that if they want to sell boosts in the main Facebook app, they will have to pay the 30% since they consider the "boosts" to be digital content and they are being delivered in the same app.
posted by RichardP at 11:07 PM on October 31, 2022 [46 favorites]
Are you posting from the future, forbiddencabinet? That sounds entirely too plausible.
posted by TurnKey at 11:12 PM on October 31, 2022 [3 favorites]
posted by TurnKey at 11:12 PM on October 31, 2022 [3 favorites]
So Google gets about $200 billion a year in ad revenue, and Facebook gets about $100 billion a year?
That's an insane amount of money.
(It's especially insane if you think that ad money could be serving a social purpose by supporting high-quality journalism instead of supporting a firehose of all the world's bullshit.)
posted by clawsoon at 11:43 PM on October 31, 2022 [50 favorites]
That's an insane amount of money.
(It's especially insane if you think that ad money could be serving a social purpose by supporting high-quality journalism instead of supporting a firehose of all the world's bullshit.)
posted by clawsoon at 11:43 PM on October 31, 2022 [50 favorites]
On first pass, I’m on team Facebook’s side here. Seems bad.
Let's not forget that Facebook has made a practice of flagrantly violating platforms' privacy rules, ignoring basically every iOS policy on datamining users' phones or tracking them across apps, because it knows its apps are too popular for even Apple to ban. It more-or-less strip-searches its users, going to extravagant lengths like creating fake user profiles for phone contacts of yours who don't have Facebook profiles, then tracking those profiles across the web as if they'd agreed to use Facebook in the first place?
(Does a single Facebook user have your number in their phone? Congratulations: you're a Facebook user, whether you want to be or not. Do multiple users have your number or your email address saved? Your digital movements are almost certainly being tracked.)
Apple has spent half a decade building increasingly sane restrictions around users' rights to privacy. Facebook has spent half a decade flaunting those same regulations, often resorting to insanely gross hacks that amount to malware. So, yes: on one level, this is absolutely a targeted "fuck you" from Apple to Facebook. But it's a "fuck you" in a way that reflects a legitimate grievance, not just corporate greed.
Basically, Apple sucks in a regular big-companies-suck-ass way, whereas Facebook has consistently broken new ground in the realm of sucking ass. I don't want to say it would be impossible at this point for a company to fuck Facebook over in a way that makes me think that Facebook's in the right, but I can't immediately imagine what that would look like.
posted by Tom Hanks Cannot Be Trusted at 11:44 PM on October 31, 2022 [124 favorites]
Let's not forget that Facebook has made a practice of flagrantly violating platforms' privacy rules, ignoring basically every iOS policy on datamining users' phones or tracking them across apps, because it knows its apps are too popular for even Apple to ban. It more-or-less strip-searches its users, going to extravagant lengths like creating fake user profiles for phone contacts of yours who don't have Facebook profiles, then tracking those profiles across the web as if they'd agreed to use Facebook in the first place?
(Does a single Facebook user have your number in their phone? Congratulations: you're a Facebook user, whether you want to be or not. Do multiple users have your number or your email address saved? Your digital movements are almost certainly being tracked.)
Apple has spent half a decade building increasingly sane restrictions around users' rights to privacy. Facebook has spent half a decade flaunting those same regulations, often resorting to insanely gross hacks that amount to malware. So, yes: on one level, this is absolutely a targeted "fuck you" from Apple to Facebook. But it's a "fuck you" in a way that reflects a legitimate grievance, not just corporate greed.
Basically, Apple sucks in a regular big-companies-suck-ass way, whereas Facebook has consistently broken new ground in the realm of sucking ass. I don't want to say it would be impossible at this point for a company to fuck Facebook over in a way that makes me think that Facebook's in the right, but I can't immediately imagine what that would look like.
posted by Tom Hanks Cannot Be Trusted at 11:44 PM on October 31, 2022 [124 favorites]
At first, despite how much I despise FB (as a company - fuck their re-branding - and as an app / website / platform), and most digital advertising generally - and agreeing with all complaints about Apple's new "hey try this app!" bullshit ads on the App Store - I'm mostly inclined to agree with Going to Maine above (no disrespect to them, seems most of us - myself included - in this thread don't know all the nuances of weird Big Tech battles) because it sounded like Apple was suddenly changing course on a previous agreement.
That said, if this is the reality of the situation :
Apple is now telling Facebook that if they want to sell boosts in the main Facebook app, they will have to pay the 30% since they consider the "boosts" to be digital content and they are being delivered in the same app.
... then it sounds like FB is, yet again, trying to skirt the rules on iOS. That's something they've done time and time again (and, well, again and again if you wanna google it).
If Apple & FB (and maybe other companies? I don't know) had agreements in place that it was okay to use an app to buy things unrelated to that app - like, say, eBay and Amazon (and a million other e-commerce) apps don't owe Apple diddly squat if I buy whatever weird stuff I want sent to my house - then it's FB who is being difficult here and, as usual, hoping no one notices.
That said, my probably-not-a-hot-take prediction isn't that they slowly die to "lost relevance" - they still have the cash to buy up a ton of relevant companies, and those that may become relevant - but that Zuck wants to sink SO MUCH MONEY into his deeply-misguided belief both about the relevance of "The Metaverse" and any reason anyone would have to use it in the first place.
Two recent videos on the topic I enjoyed :
The Metaverse is the World's Deepest Money Pit
Who Cares About the Metaverse?
(Marques Brownlee is uniquely qualified to discuss this, and actually has and has used their latest insanely-price $1500 headset)
posted by revmitcz at 11:49 PM on October 31, 2022 [5 favorites]
That said, if this is the reality of the situation :
Apple is now telling Facebook that if they want to sell boosts in the main Facebook app, they will have to pay the 30% since they consider the "boosts" to be digital content and they are being delivered in the same app.
... then it sounds like FB is, yet again, trying to skirt the rules on iOS. That's something they've done time and time again (and, well, again and again if you wanna google it).
If Apple & FB (and maybe other companies? I don't know) had agreements in place that it was okay to use an app to buy things unrelated to that app - like, say, eBay and Amazon (and a million other e-commerce) apps don't owe Apple diddly squat if I buy whatever weird stuff I want sent to my house - then it's FB who is being difficult here and, as usual, hoping no one notices.
That said, my probably-not-a-hot-take prediction isn't that they slowly die to "lost relevance" - they still have the cash to buy up a ton of relevant companies, and those that may become relevant - but that Zuck wants to sink SO MUCH MONEY into his deeply-misguided belief both about the relevance of "The Metaverse" and any reason anyone would have to use it in the first place.
Two recent videos on the topic I enjoyed :
The Metaverse is the World's Deepest Money Pit
Who Cares About the Metaverse?
(Marques Brownlee is uniquely qualified to discuss this, and actually has and has used their latest insanely-price $1500 headset)
posted by revmitcz at 11:49 PM on October 31, 2022 [5 favorites]
it sounds like FB is, yet again, trying to skirt the rules on iOS
Facebook bought a de facto monopoly on VR via Oculus. They are an ad company, and the metaverse is window dressing for a hardware platform by which they can deliver ads without paying or negotiating with a third-party, be it Apple or whatever. It's nothing personal, just business.
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 12:13 AM on November 1, 2022 [5 favorites]
Facebook bought a de facto monopoly on VR via Oculus. They are an ad company, and the metaverse is window dressing for a hardware platform by which they can deliver ads without paying or negotiating with a third-party, be it Apple or whatever. It's nothing personal, just business.
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 12:13 AM on November 1, 2022 [5 favorites]
Can you imagine if Microsoft wanted 30% of everything you bought on Windows? I still don't understand why it's fine when it's Apple.
posted by Dysk at 12:14 AM on November 1, 2022 [31 favorites]
posted by Dysk at 12:14 AM on November 1, 2022 [31 favorites]
I'm also reminded of my biggest and oldest gripe with facebook as a platform has been. For YEARS I saw commercials, billboards, bus signs, you name it about "oh hey you wanna connect with a community - we've got that on Facebook!" and - more importantly for their side of the business - "make a page for your business, art, food truck, and so on so folks can interact and you can grow your reach!"
(digital sharecropping at its absolute worst)
And then, once they had us all making these pages for things like a comedian growing an audience, or an indie artist making prints of their digital work on an inkjet, or a small neighborhood taco stand, they adjusted their algorithm for Page posts to literally only show if the owner of that page paid money to have them appear on folks' feeds, and decimated Groups to only show the posts that got the most diversity of reaction comments (hello 2016 election season and beyond!).
I followed comedians, artists, local businesses, hell even one or two larger businesses because they were doing that "like this post and 1 in 50 gets a free Taco Bell [insert weird thing Taco Bell introduced that month]" and all but the giant corporations who could afford to throw money at an angry algorithm would ever show in my feed.
As for Groups? I became glad last time I used FB that I could just browse Group subscription posts as its own tab, since what showed in my feed was always the most contentious of what used to be a good community.
posted by revmitcz at 12:19 AM on November 1, 2022 [15 favorites]
(digital sharecropping at its absolute worst)
And then, once they had us all making these pages for things like a comedian growing an audience, or an indie artist making prints of their digital work on an inkjet, or a small neighborhood taco stand, they adjusted their algorithm for Page posts to literally only show if the owner of that page paid money to have them appear on folks' feeds, and decimated Groups to only show the posts that got the most diversity of reaction comments (hello 2016 election season and beyond!).
I followed comedians, artists, local businesses, hell even one or two larger businesses because they were doing that "like this post and 1 in 50 gets a free Taco Bell [insert weird thing Taco Bell introduced that month]" and all but the giant corporations who could afford to throw money at an angry algorithm would ever show in my feed.
As for Groups? I became glad last time I used FB that I could just browse Group subscription posts as its own tab, since what showed in my feed was always the most contentious of what used to be a good community.
posted by revmitcz at 12:19 AM on November 1, 2022 [15 favorites]
Is Facebook the only big tech company that actually bought into the crypto nonsense? Other companies were fine with selling crypto ads, willing to sell blockchain-like services, or sell meaningless avatars; but they were not foolish enough to actually spend their own money. Except for Facebook.
posted by meowzilla at 12:38 AM on November 1, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by meowzilla at 12:38 AM on November 1, 2022 [1 favorite]
Apple is now telling Facebook that if they want to sell boosts in the main Facebook app, they will have to pay the 30%
Wait, so Apple gave Facebook special treatment to deliver horrible privacy intruding ads? Meanwhile, other companies offering useful services have been paying the whole time? That's despicable.
posted by UN at 12:57 AM on November 1, 2022 [1 favorite]
Wait, so Apple gave Facebook special treatment to deliver horrible privacy intruding ads? Meanwhile, other companies offering useful services have been paying the whole time? That's despicable.
posted by UN at 12:57 AM on November 1, 2022 [1 favorite]
Wait, so Apple gave Facebook special treatment to deliver horrible privacy intruding ads?
No, as far as I know (which is just the information that is in the public agreements and the information disclosed in the various app store lawsuits) Apple has never given Facebook special treatment with regards to ads.
posted by RichardP at 1:03 AM on November 1, 2022 [2 favorites]
No, as far as I know (which is just the information that is in the public agreements and the information disclosed in the various app store lawsuits) Apple has never given Facebook special treatment with regards to ads.
posted by RichardP at 1:03 AM on November 1, 2022 [2 favorites]
They've spent $31 billion on VR? From the videos we've seen, $31 million would be a waste.
posted by zompist at 1:04 AM on November 1, 2022 [13 favorites]
posted by zompist at 1:04 AM on November 1, 2022 [13 favorites]
Apple has never given Facebook special treatment with regards to ads.
There’s a duopoly in the digital advertising market: you can go with Facebook or Google. Apple not charging for ad purchases is a gift to those two companies. Apple needs to be sued for overcharging and anti-trust violations more often.
posted by UN at 1:15 AM on November 1, 2022 [2 favorites]
There’s a duopoly in the digital advertising market: you can go with Facebook or Google. Apple not charging for ad purchases is a gift to those two companies. Apple needs to be sued for overcharging and anti-trust violations more often.
posted by UN at 1:15 AM on November 1, 2022 [2 favorites]
Wait, so Apple gave Facebook special treatment to deliver horrible privacy intruding ads? Meanwhile, other companies offering useful services have been paying the whole time? That's despicable.
No special treatment per se.
Apple's basic stance is that if you sell something in the app store, you use their payment system and they get a 30% cut. So if you sell a $9 app, $3 of that goes to Apple, to pay for the processing, app delivery bandwidth, development of the platform etc. Apple handles the card processing too, so the app seller doesn't get any payment details of the buyer.
So if it's a free app - apple gets 30% of 0, i.e. nothing. So they extended the requirement to also cover in-app purchases. You are only allowed to use Apple's payment system, and give them their 30% cut of any such purchases, or you get kicked off the App Store. You are not allowed to charge more for iOS than by any other method, or use or even link to any alternative method of payment. So for a free game with an option to buy more levels or get rid of ads, etc, same effect as if they just charged for the app up front.
Where this gets a bit less fair is when the product is not app specific, but a product the vendor already sells elsewhere, but also now wishes to make available in their iOS app. First example obviously would be physical goods; if you buy something from a clothing shop, that amounts to a 30% card processing fee instead of the 0.5% you'd pay a decent payment processor, with Apple doing nothing else. So physical goods are exempt from this rule.
If you buy a digital subscription, then Apple also gets its cut. Which for an annual sub for a service - such as music, or audio books - you can access from many types of devices, and the iOS app is just one of those, is also pretty steep when again, Apple does nothing but be a card processor. So most such apps do not allow you to subscribe on iOS, nor were they able to even notify you that you could sign up on the website etc.
This rule also applied to, for example, buying an ad campaign in an iOS app, intended for an entirely different platform. So if you used an iPad to manage your companies ad spending for your website, instead of say, a laptop, 30% would have to go to Apple, despite that advertising having nothing to do with iOS or the the iOS app.
As a result of legal pressure, including lawsuits and legislation in South Korea to greatly weaken the 'must use Apple for in-app purchasing or get kicked out', Apple has started to bend on these requirements slightly. (Google is under similar pressure now as they have tightened their restrictions on Android). Epic tried to sue to end the process entirely in the US and lost, but the judge did decide that Apple couldn't block developers from telling users about alternative payment methods.
So some subscription apps - e.g. Netflix - are recently allowed to have a sign-up button to link to their website. And ad management apps are allowed to not use Apple's in-app payment method, as long the advertising is not for the use on the app itself. So in facebook's case, spending on your facebook campaigns in a separate ad-management app doesn't require paying apple a cut (or using their card processing), but if you do it in the app that the ads apply to - e.g. 'boosts', in the main facebook app - then you do have to still pay 30% like every other in-app purchase on Apple. I believe very small app developers get an initial rate of 15% now, also.
Other closed platforms like games consoles have similar policies, and Google is now guilty of similar practises on android. But the idea that control of the platform means you also gain control of most purchasing ON that platform, regardless of what for, runs counter to our usual experience of general computing, and is definitely starting to run into opposition as that reach extends way beyond the platform and the apps that are specific to it now phones and tablets are being used as full-on general computing devices.
Note - facebook crashing and burning is GREAT. And I absolutely understand where Apple is screwing over Facebook, people are fine with that (I'm fine with that, if I'm honest!). But the bigger picture - that Apple and Google should be able to mandate a 30% or whatever cut on everything we buy, just because they own the platform, needs to die.
posted by Absolutely No You-Know-What at 4:35 AM on November 1, 2022 [42 favorites]
No special treatment per se.
Apple's basic stance is that if you sell something in the app store, you use their payment system and they get a 30% cut. So if you sell a $9 app, $3 of that goes to Apple, to pay for the processing, app delivery bandwidth, development of the platform etc. Apple handles the card processing too, so the app seller doesn't get any payment details of the buyer.
So if it's a free app - apple gets 30% of 0, i.e. nothing. So they extended the requirement to also cover in-app purchases. You are only allowed to use Apple's payment system, and give them their 30% cut of any such purchases, or you get kicked off the App Store. You are not allowed to charge more for iOS than by any other method, or use or even link to any alternative method of payment. So for a free game with an option to buy more levels or get rid of ads, etc, same effect as if they just charged for the app up front.
Where this gets a bit less fair is when the product is not app specific, but a product the vendor already sells elsewhere, but also now wishes to make available in their iOS app. First example obviously would be physical goods; if you buy something from a clothing shop, that amounts to a 30% card processing fee instead of the 0.5% you'd pay a decent payment processor, with Apple doing nothing else. So physical goods are exempt from this rule.
If you buy a digital subscription, then Apple also gets its cut. Which for an annual sub for a service - such as music, or audio books - you can access from many types of devices, and the iOS app is just one of those, is also pretty steep when again, Apple does nothing but be a card processor. So most such apps do not allow you to subscribe on iOS, nor were they able to even notify you that you could sign up on the website etc.
This rule also applied to, for example, buying an ad campaign in an iOS app, intended for an entirely different platform. So if you used an iPad to manage your companies ad spending for your website, instead of say, a laptop, 30% would have to go to Apple, despite that advertising having nothing to do with iOS or the the iOS app.
As a result of legal pressure, including lawsuits and legislation in South Korea to greatly weaken the 'must use Apple for in-app purchasing or get kicked out', Apple has started to bend on these requirements slightly. (Google is under similar pressure now as they have tightened their restrictions on Android). Epic tried to sue to end the process entirely in the US and lost, but the judge did decide that Apple couldn't block developers from telling users about alternative payment methods.
So some subscription apps - e.g. Netflix - are recently allowed to have a sign-up button to link to their website. And ad management apps are allowed to not use Apple's in-app payment method, as long the advertising is not for the use on the app itself. So in facebook's case, spending on your facebook campaigns in a separate ad-management app doesn't require paying apple a cut (or using their card processing), but if you do it in the app that the ads apply to - e.g. 'boosts', in the main facebook app - then you do have to still pay 30% like every other in-app purchase on Apple. I believe very small app developers get an initial rate of 15% now, also.
Other closed platforms like games consoles have similar policies, and Google is now guilty of similar practises on android. But the idea that control of the platform means you also gain control of most purchasing ON that platform, regardless of what for, runs counter to our usual experience of general computing, and is definitely starting to run into opposition as that reach extends way beyond the platform and the apps that are specific to it now phones and tablets are being used as full-on general computing devices.
Note - facebook crashing and burning is GREAT. And I absolutely understand where Apple is screwing over Facebook, people are fine with that (I'm fine with that, if I'm honest!). But the bigger picture - that Apple and Google should be able to mandate a 30% or whatever cut on everything we buy, just because they own the platform, needs to die.
posted by Absolutely No You-Know-What at 4:35 AM on November 1, 2022 [42 favorites]
I'm kinda-sorta "very online" (I used to be more so) and I still don't have a real idea of what this VR Meta thing is even supposed to be, let alone what it's supposed to evolve into.
As far as I can tell, it's kind of like a 2nd generation "Second Life"... a 3D chat room - slash - video game that users "help" create? You put on goggles and headphones and interact with friend-contacts in a virtual world I've been hearing about since the 1990s? With lots of ads?
I rarely check Facebook these days. My family and friends still use it quite a bit, and my D&D group (I'm on a hiatus) uses Messenger to help organize online games via Roll20. I do like to see various pics from my adult nephews and nieces and their kids/babies. The ads I get are mostly for goofy startup Urban Woodsman type apparel... technical pants, specialty socks, expensive, rugged "work shirts" for people who work in cubes. I never got into politics with FB, just used it in the past to share funny or interesting links with friends and co workers. Sometimes pictures.
I find FB repellent and literally check it about once per month to look at family and friend photos. I do not plan to wear goggles and headphones to do this any time soon.
posted by SoberHighland at 4:42 AM on November 1, 2022 [3 favorites]
As far as I can tell, it's kind of like a 2nd generation "Second Life"... a 3D chat room - slash - video game that users "help" create? You put on goggles and headphones and interact with friend-contacts in a virtual world I've been hearing about since the 1990s? With lots of ads?
I rarely check Facebook these days. My family and friends still use it quite a bit, and my D&D group (I'm on a hiatus) uses Messenger to help organize online games via Roll20. I do like to see various pics from my adult nephews and nieces and their kids/babies. The ads I get are mostly for goofy startup Urban Woodsman type apparel... technical pants, specialty socks, expensive, rugged "work shirts" for people who work in cubes. I never got into politics with FB, just used it in the past to share funny or interesting links with friends and co workers. Sometimes pictures.
I find FB repellent and literally check it about once per month to look at family and friend photos. I do not plan to wear goggles and headphones to do this any time soon.
posted by SoberHighland at 4:42 AM on November 1, 2022 [3 favorites]
I do have to admit that I'm enjoying watching the tech giants turning on each other after decades of collusion and shitty business practices. Once they've gnawed all the meat off each other's bones, we'll finally experience the year of desktop Linux. Or possibly the year of the Depend Adult Undergarment; I'm not sure which dystopian hellscape we're living in.
posted by Mayor West at 4:53 AM on November 1, 2022 [25 favorites]
posted by Mayor West at 4:53 AM on November 1, 2022 [25 favorites]
I feel like this is just part of the established lifecycle of tech giants at this point: they're founded, they grow their core business until it has a dominant market position and throws off huge cashflows, then when time and technological and social change begin to threaten that market position, they spend those huge cashflows to try to build or buy their way back to a dominant market position, which mostly doesn't work. A few manage to stabilize their legacy businesses and build new lines of business and turn into "normal" big businesses (e.g. Microsoft) most of them gradually break up and end up as husks of their former selves whose assets get passed around by private equity firms and their former competitors (e.g. AOL, Yahoo, Myspace, too many others to mention). I'd argue that only Apple has really managed to avoid this arc, and even there I might argue that it makes more sense to think of Apple as an iPhone company that grew out of an older computer company in the 2000s, rather than a single continuous tech entity.
If this is the trajectory Facebook/Meta is on, they're doing better than most. Their acquisitions of Instagram, WhatsApp and Oculus have done better than any of AOL or Yahoo's acquisitions back in the day. But with regulatory and competitive pressures, and audiences and creators aging and pushing back against attempts to monetize them, their core businesses seem to be succumbing to the same entropy so many others have before.
I think this provides the frame you need to understand the frankly ludicrous amount of money Zuckerberg and Meta is shoveling into the Metaverse. For Zuckerberg, he's already reached the level of wealth where he could never spend all the money he has on himself. (Sure, you can buy a twentieth house and a fifth private jet and a third private island, but when would you find the time to use them?) No matter what happens with Meta, he will always have the option of retiring in unimaginable luxury. So the stakes for him are not really about money, per se, but rather whether he gets to continue to be the sort of world-bestriding colossus he was in the 2010s, or if he just ends up being another billionaire. From that perspective, it doesn't matter whether he spends $10 billion or $100 billion on his metaverse gamble. If the gamble succeeds he becomes the metaverse monopolist and gets to spend the next decade or more maintaining his position as a master of the universe. If it doesn't, he gets the same luxurious retirement he was going to get anyways.
posted by firechicago at 4:59 AM on November 1, 2022 [17 favorites]
If this is the trajectory Facebook/Meta is on, they're doing better than most. Their acquisitions of Instagram, WhatsApp and Oculus have done better than any of AOL or Yahoo's acquisitions back in the day. But with regulatory and competitive pressures, and audiences and creators aging and pushing back against attempts to monetize them, their core businesses seem to be succumbing to the same entropy so many others have before.
I think this provides the frame you need to understand the frankly ludicrous amount of money Zuckerberg and Meta is shoveling into the Metaverse. For Zuckerberg, he's already reached the level of wealth where he could never spend all the money he has on himself. (Sure, you can buy a twentieth house and a fifth private jet and a third private island, but when would you find the time to use them?) No matter what happens with Meta, he will always have the option of retiring in unimaginable luxury. So the stakes for him are not really about money, per se, but rather whether he gets to continue to be the sort of world-bestriding colossus he was in the 2010s, or if he just ends up being another billionaire. From that perspective, it doesn't matter whether he spends $10 billion or $100 billion on his metaverse gamble. If the gamble succeeds he becomes the metaverse monopolist and gets to spend the next decade or more maintaining his position as a master of the universe. If it doesn't, he gets the same luxurious retirement he was going to get anyways.
posted by firechicago at 4:59 AM on November 1, 2022 [17 favorites]
On people ragging Metaverse for graphics quality: I mean, the character look is heavily stylized, you might not like it, but it's a legitimate choice. The video revmitcz linked seems to think that Mii characters are bad too, when they're not, that's cartoon stylization, the video falls into the usual trap of assuming everything has to be photorealistic, when it doesn't suit lots of purposes, and arguably 3D virtual worlds are one of those purposes.
But it's beyond absurd that Meta has spent fifteen billion on it. Where did all that money go? It feels like someone must be skimming.
posted by JHarris at 5:18 AM on November 1, 2022 [11 favorites]
But it's beyond absurd that Meta has spent fifteen billion on it. Where did all that money go? It feels like someone must be skimming.
posted by JHarris at 5:18 AM on November 1, 2022 [11 favorites]
even there I might argue that it makes more sense to think of Apple as an iPhone company that grew out of an older computer company in the 2000s, rather than a single continuous tech entity
I would probably put the start date back a little further, at 1997, when NeXT acquired Apple. Oh, sure, technically Apple acquired NeXT, but the candy iMacs were just NeXT machines at affordable prices that were appealing to own and use, and MacBooks were portable iMacs, and the iPhone was an iMac crossed with an iPod.
The video revmitcz linked seems to think that Mii characters are bad too, when they're not, that's cartoon stylization, the video falls into the usual trap of assuming everything has to be photorealistic
It is popular to point out that, even if you acknowledge that Second Life is a little bit too arcane and filled with penises to be a general computing environment, most of the things that people describe doing in the metaverse are already possible in MMORPGs. People have gotten married in any MMO of moderate size. I've heard of people doing meetings in both World of Warcraft and Final Fantasy 14. And then there's VRChat, which also looks goofy, but in a fun way. What the hell are Facebook doing with their time?
posted by Merus at 5:20 AM on November 1, 2022 [5 favorites]
I would probably put the start date back a little further, at 1997, when NeXT acquired Apple. Oh, sure, technically Apple acquired NeXT, but the candy iMacs were just NeXT machines at affordable prices that were appealing to own and use, and MacBooks were portable iMacs, and the iPhone was an iMac crossed with an iPod.
The video revmitcz linked seems to think that Mii characters are bad too, when they're not, that's cartoon stylization, the video falls into the usual trap of assuming everything has to be photorealistic
It is popular to point out that, even if you acknowledge that Second Life is a little bit too arcane and filled with penises to be a general computing environment, most of the things that people describe doing in the metaverse are already possible in MMORPGs. People have gotten married in any MMO of moderate size. I've heard of people doing meetings in both World of Warcraft and Final Fantasy 14. And then there's VRChat, which also looks goofy, but in a fun way. What the hell are Facebook doing with their time?
posted by Merus at 5:20 AM on November 1, 2022 [5 favorites]
I'd argue that only Apple has really managed to avoid this arc
Maybe too soon to say, but I think Amazon and Google have been pretty successful with the 'stabilize their legacy businesses and build new lines of business' model, and I could argue that this is what Apple is trying to do too.
They were a computer company, then they were a phone company, and now they're trying very hard to do phone accessories (I mean things like earphones and smartwatches, though they're also happy to sell you (by which I mean me), at a premium price, every kind of case and charger under the sun) and subscriptions (TV, News, Arcade, Fitness, etc.)
posted by box at 5:25 AM on November 1, 2022 [3 favorites]
Maybe too soon to say, but I think Amazon and Google have been pretty successful with the 'stabilize their legacy businesses and build new lines of business' model, and I could argue that this is what Apple is trying to do too.
They were a computer company, then they were a phone company, and now they're trying very hard to do phone accessories (I mean things like earphones and smartwatches, though they're also happy to sell you (by which I mean me), at a premium price, every kind of case and charger under the sun) and subscriptions (TV, News, Arcade, Fitness, etc.)
posted by box at 5:25 AM on November 1, 2022 [3 favorites]
MetaverseFilter: I do not plan to wear goggles and headphones to do this any time soon.
posted by wenestvedt at 5:43 AM on November 1, 2022 [9 favorites]
posted by wenestvedt at 5:43 AM on November 1, 2022 [9 favorites]
Does it seem to anyone else like we are in the early days of the Fall of Tech?
Between this and the Twitter shitshow, it feels like all these tech billionaire worldfuckers are massively overleveraged and gambling on bullshit in a desperate bid to stay on top. I'm getting 90s dot-com bubble vibes.
posted by mrjohnmuller at 5:46 AM on November 1, 2022 [20 favorites]
Between this and the Twitter shitshow, it feels like all these tech billionaire worldfuckers are massively overleveraged and gambling on bullshit in a desperate bid to stay on top. I'm getting 90s dot-com bubble vibes.
posted by mrjohnmuller at 5:46 AM on November 1, 2022 [20 favorites]
Honestly it’s worth the 30% up charge to me to know that SOMEONE has done the bare minimum to vet the apps I’m installing on my mobile devices. Really. If the app developer bumps the cost 30% to keep the same income, fine, I’ll pay the extra.
Why? Because in absence of someone forcing rules on the app developers, you get screwed by the company providing the app. Look at the shitty shenanigans Facebook pulls DESPITE the rules Apple has in place. Now imagine what they’d do if they didn’t have to abide by these rules at all. This is the future the “every platform should be 100% open” people are creating for us. The intent is noble, but I know for damn sure that companies like Facebook are going to ignore the noble intent and go straight for invading as much privacy as they can possibly manage.
posted by caution live frogs at 5:57 AM on November 1, 2022 [27 favorites]
Why? Because in absence of someone forcing rules on the app developers, you get screwed by the company providing the app. Look at the shitty shenanigans Facebook pulls DESPITE the rules Apple has in place. Now imagine what they’d do if they didn’t have to abide by these rules at all. This is the future the “every platform should be 100% open” people are creating for us. The intent is noble, but I know for damn sure that companies like Facebook are going to ignore the noble intent and go straight for invading as much privacy as they can possibly manage.
posted by caution live frogs at 5:57 AM on November 1, 2022 [27 favorites]
Many, many founders assume they're smart when the fact is they're just lucky. Some founders are smart, though, which makes it even easier for the idiots to think they also are smart.
posted by seanmpuckett at 6:10 AM on November 1, 2022 [10 favorites]
posted by seanmpuckett at 6:10 AM on November 1, 2022 [10 favorites]
Can you imagine if Microsoft wanted 30% of everything you bought on Windows?
I think they do want that, although they're realistic about who they can skim from. I was helping someone with a Windows 11S problem the other day and was startled to discover the "S" means I couldn't install anything except software downloaded from the Microsoft Store, which does take a cut of purchase price. Not as exclusive as Apple, and easy enough to get around, but a low-walled garden nonetheless.
posted by mittens at 6:14 AM on November 1, 2022 [3 favorites]
I think they do want that, although they're realistic about who they can skim from. I was helping someone with a Windows 11S problem the other day and was startled to discover the "S" means I couldn't install anything except software downloaded from the Microsoft Store, which does take a cut of purchase price. Not as exclusive as Apple, and easy enough to get around, but a low-walled garden nonetheless.
posted by mittens at 6:14 AM on November 1, 2022 [3 favorites]
I'm kinda-sorta "very online" (I used to be more so) and I still don't have a real idea of what this VR Meta thing is even supposed to be, let alone what it's supposed to evolve into.
Just you wait; VR Meta is gonna do for the internet what the Segway did for the physical world!
posted by heatherlogan at 6:17 AM on November 1, 2022 [11 favorites]
Just you wait; VR Meta is gonna do for the internet what the Segway did for the physical world!
posted by heatherlogan at 6:17 AM on November 1, 2022 [11 favorites]
The initial logic behind the 30% payment tax was something like:
In-app purchases were initially touted as a similar very-useful innovation. Among other things, it let developers offer trial editions of their apps (which screwed up users' abilities to find actually-free apps); it made it possible to offer basic and deluxe versions of apps (which introduced microtransactions to game designs and turned gaming as a medium more casinolike); it offered subscriptions as a possible profit model and ensured that users had a foolproof way to cancel said subscriptions (at the cost of 30% for every developer initiative, now and forever).
In other words, the reasoning was both complicated and dated. I remember 30% being praised early on, because it felt generous compared to the sort of publisher contracts that offered creators (musicians, authors, etc) "royalties" of 5-10% total, versus a flat 70%. It's felt pretty apparent that, at some point, Apple's going to have to shrink their cut substantially; 15% gets thrown out a lot, but I suspect it'll dwindle to even less than that over time. Of course, they're dragging their feet over this, in that way that big companies with cash cows do.
There still is a lot of good to this arrangement, though. I love the in-app subscription system: it's a little byzantine to figure out where, exactly, your subscription data lives, but after that you have a one-page place to see everything you're paying for on a monthly basis, and can cancel anything you want without fear that you've somehow clicked the wrong five boxes in their twenty-five-box cancellation workflow and have, in fact, agreed to pay double for the same service. And I like that I can (mostly) keep a log of every app I've ever downloaded, and re-download them all with ease. It's a flawed model, but there's a lot of good to it for all the flaws.
I do think that we should move beyond 2008 at some point. It's a literally different world, (also-)literally thanks in large part to Apple and the App Store specifically. But I get why change is slow. Baby, bathwater, baby is also made out of solid gold, etc.
posted by Tom Hanks Cannot Be Trusted at 6:18 AM on November 1, 2022 [17 favorites]
- You don't have to host your own software; Apple hosts it for you.
- You don't have to worry about designing or maintaining some kind of landing page; all apps will appear in the same well-designed* space and have the same basic discoverability.
- Apple maintains payment systems and users' card information; this makes it far easier for users to buy software than in the days where you'd have to manually enter all your info just to make a $10 app purchase.
- Apple maintains security standards for users, through the app-vetting process that mostly ensures there are no literal viruses (which includes their choosing which APIs are and aren't permissible for third-party developers to use.
In-app purchases were initially touted as a similar very-useful innovation. Among other things, it let developers offer trial editions of their apps (which screwed up users' abilities to find actually-free apps); it made it possible to offer basic and deluxe versions of apps (which introduced microtransactions to game designs and turned gaming as a medium more casinolike); it offered subscriptions as a possible profit model and ensured that users had a foolproof way to cancel said subscriptions (at the cost of 30% for every developer initiative, now and forever).
In other words, the reasoning was both complicated and dated. I remember 30% being praised early on, because it felt generous compared to the sort of publisher contracts that offered creators (musicians, authors, etc) "royalties" of 5-10% total, versus a flat 70%. It's felt pretty apparent that, at some point, Apple's going to have to shrink their cut substantially; 15% gets thrown out a lot, but I suspect it'll dwindle to even less than that over time. Of course, they're dragging their feet over this, in that way that big companies with cash cows do.
There still is a lot of good to this arrangement, though. I love the in-app subscription system: it's a little byzantine to figure out where, exactly, your subscription data lives, but after that you have a one-page place to see everything you're paying for on a monthly basis, and can cancel anything you want without fear that you've somehow clicked the wrong five boxes in their twenty-five-box cancellation workflow and have, in fact, agreed to pay double for the same service. And I like that I can (mostly) keep a log of every app I've ever downloaded, and re-download them all with ease. It's a flawed model, but there's a lot of good to it for all the flaws.
I do think that we should move beyond 2008 at some point. It's a literally different world, (also-)literally thanks in large part to Apple and the App Store specifically. But I get why change is slow. Baby, bathwater, baby is also made out of solid gold, etc.
posted by Tom Hanks Cannot Be Trusted at 6:18 AM on November 1, 2022 [17 favorites]
The existence of Libra had dropped out of my mind, and it was interesting to see how that story ended. It is very frustrating that FB was one of the if not the only US tech companies with the reach to create a WeChat style payment app that would be universally used and replace our incredibly crappy credit card based system. Since the major problem that they had was regulatory, it does create the endgame that only countries who are willing to allow state captured monopoly entities will be able to succeed in these pretty critical applications.
Before, FB had been able to perpetuate itself by just buying new social media properties. The thing that changed was that ByteDance can’t/won’t sell and got too big for them.
posted by a robot made out of meat at 6:25 AM on November 1, 2022 [1 favorite]
Before, FB had been able to perpetuate itself by just buying new social media properties. The thing that changed was that ByteDance can’t/won’t sell and got too big for them.
posted by a robot made out of meat at 6:25 AM on November 1, 2022 [1 favorite]
Apple's 30% take has been modified a little. As mentioned upthread, South Korea issued a decision against Apple on in-app purchases. The Netherlands did too, so if you're subscribing to a Dutch dating app specifically, you can pay via a different method (although the way Apple complied with this ruling amounts to malicious compliance). Subscriptions to "player" apps like Netflix are 15%, or 15% after the first year, or something like that. I do agree that even 15% seems like rent seeking, and frankly Apple should offer more value for that money, in terms of policing copycat apps, improving app search, and the like. The recent addition of app ads in the App Store also feels especially tawdry (there were online-casino ads appearing on listings of apps for dealing with gambling addiction; Apple pulled the plug on that category of ads).
I don't know if Apple only just figured out that Facebook was selling ads through an iOS app, or if Facebook only recently started doing it, or Apple only recently decided this was a way they could extend their policy on the sale of digital goods—the CNBC article doesn't make that clear. On the face, it doesn't seem crazy to me, although, again, rent seeking, and it's hard for me to side with FB. Apple's already screwed FB harder by letting iOS users opt out of tracking, which FB says has cost them $10 billion.
posted by adamrice at 6:35 AM on November 1, 2022 [1 favorite]
I don't know if Apple only just figured out that Facebook was selling ads through an iOS app, or if Facebook only recently started doing it, or Apple only recently decided this was a way they could extend their policy on the sale of digital goods—the CNBC article doesn't make that clear. On the face, it doesn't seem crazy to me, although, again, rent seeking, and it's hard for me to side with FB. Apple's already screwed FB harder by letting iOS users opt out of tracking, which FB says has cost them $10 billion.
posted by adamrice at 6:35 AM on November 1, 2022 [1 favorite]
Honestly it’s worth the 30% up charge to me to know that SOMEONE has done the bare minimum to vet the apps I’m installing on my mobile devices. Really. If the app developer bumps the cost 30% to keep the same income, fine, I’ll pay the extra.
I have no issue with Apple having an app store that they police, and charge a cut for using. I have an issue with them trading w cut off everything when they disallow any other method of acquiring apps. And Apple's policies actually prevent developers from charging you the Apple premium (unless they charge it to everyone else everywhere as well, meaning that in practice, the price ends up a little higher everywhere to sort of average that overhead out, and everyone using a paid app on a not-OS device is subsidising those that do use iOS).
posted by Dysk at 7:08 AM on November 1, 2022 [7 favorites]
I have no issue with Apple having an app store that they police, and charge a cut for using. I have an issue with them trading w cut off everything when they disallow any other method of acquiring apps. And Apple's policies actually prevent developers from charging you the Apple premium (unless they charge it to everyone else everywhere as well, meaning that in practice, the price ends up a little higher everywhere to sort of average that overhead out, and everyone using a paid app on a not-OS device is subsidising those that do use iOS).
posted by Dysk at 7:08 AM on November 1, 2022 [7 favorites]
soon we'll be talking about quitting FB like quitting smoking or going to AA.
"It's been a year since I logged off FB, but 9 since I last smoked a cigarette."
posted by djseafood at 7:13 AM on November 1, 2022 [3 favorites]
"It's been a year since I logged off FB, but 9 since I last smoked a cigarette."
posted by djseafood at 7:13 AM on November 1, 2022 [3 favorites]
Framing this as an apple vs Facebook thing is… limiting, at best. It might appear to you, the end user, that this has something to do with the phone in your hand, but really it’s about returning value to the company. Of course, if you start asking questions like “why do the richest companies need to retain their value?”, you’re going to get some weird looks.
These companies have so much cash they can afford to make a completely unwanted VR environment, or a self-driving car that nobody ever saw. They don’t need to be richer, but because of the way markets work now they’re not allowed to act in a way that might be seen to remove value from the company - hence Apple has to act in a way that kicks FB in the face, and FB has to continue to pervert all privacy laws.
posted by The River Ivel at 7:18 AM on November 1, 2022 [4 favorites]
These companies have so much cash they can afford to make a completely unwanted VR environment, or a self-driving car that nobody ever saw. They don’t need to be richer, but because of the way markets work now they’re not allowed to act in a way that might be seen to remove value from the company - hence Apple has to act in a way that kicks FB in the face, and FB has to continue to pervert all privacy laws.
posted by The River Ivel at 7:18 AM on November 1, 2022 [4 favorites]
There used to be a time when AOL was king of the web. Millions of people only experienced the internet as it was curated by that company. Senior citizens everywhere thought AOL was the web. That wasn’t very long ago. Now they’re just a memory.
Yahoo went through a similar rise and fall. And though they are still around, a string of bad decisions has left them a shadow of their former self.
I’m looking forward to being able to say the same about Facebook and Twitter. Both are exploitative and damaging in different ways, and fortunately Zuck and Musk seem determined to bad-decision both of those companies into the ground.
But Amazon, I fear, is with us for a long, long time.
posted by darkstar at 7:19 AM on November 1, 2022 [13 favorites]
Yahoo went through a similar rise and fall. And though they are still around, a string of bad decisions has left them a shadow of their former self.
I’m looking forward to being able to say the same about Facebook and Twitter. Both are exploitative and damaging in different ways, and fortunately Zuck and Musk seem determined to bad-decision both of those companies into the ground.
But Amazon, I fear, is with us for a long, long time.
posted by darkstar at 7:19 AM on November 1, 2022 [13 favorites]
I think the reason people rag on the metaworld graphics is that Zuckerberg presents it like it will replace reality. So you're expecting this incredibly wealthy company to replace reality with something realistic, and instead you can be a balloon head with no legs going to goddamn meeting. I wasn't going to be putting on a VR headset anytime soon anyway, but now I also get to laugh at ol "pivot to video" for convincing themselves their crap isn't crap.
posted by Emmy Rae at 7:21 AM on November 1, 2022 [4 favorites]
posted by Emmy Rae at 7:21 AM on November 1, 2022 [4 favorites]
Can we start a different thread for hating Apple? I like to keep my hate for Facebook/Meta to be pure and undiluted.
posted by Ookseer at 7:40 AM on November 1, 2022 [26 favorites]
posted by Ookseer at 7:40 AM on November 1, 2022 [26 favorites]
I didn't understand facebooks VR take until I realized how many middle school students spend hours and hours and hours of their day hanging out with friends on Roblox or in Minecraft. It's not really the current gen of adults who will get on board with this trend.
posted by subdee at 7:57 AM on November 1, 2022 [6 favorites]
posted by subdee at 7:57 AM on November 1, 2022 [6 favorites]
But what comes with that is they are so much less good at it than Minecraft or Roblox. Because they are making a Very Important Business Thing, and what the kids do on Roblox and Minecraft is utterly not that.
Also nobody ever insisted you had to wear a silly hat to play Roblox.
posted by Artw at 8:03 AM on November 1, 2022 [12 favorites]
Also nobody ever insisted you had to wear a silly hat to play Roblox.
posted by Artw at 8:03 AM on November 1, 2022 [12 favorites]
Does it seem to anyone else like we are in the early days of the Fall of Tech?
It's not a "fall" but a change in perspective. For a long time the tech industry has held that "the internet" exists in a world apart from "real life". But as it's come forth that the internet is in fact just another way we mediate with real life, that's changed the priors that tech is built on, and the tech industry has not been ready for the shift.
On top of that, tech has been addicted to Great Man Theory from the beginning, and that's been collapsing under them. One of the biggest problems for Facebook is that Zuckerberg is unaccountable to anyone, so if he decides to jart Facebook, there's little anyone can do about it.
posted by NoxAeternum at 8:16 AM on November 1, 2022 [7 favorites]
It's not a "fall" but a change in perspective. For a long time the tech industry has held that "the internet" exists in a world apart from "real life". But as it's come forth that the internet is in fact just another way we mediate with real life, that's changed the priors that tech is built on, and the tech industry has not been ready for the shift.
On top of that, tech has been addicted to Great Man Theory from the beginning, and that's been collapsing under them. One of the biggest problems for Facebook is that Zuckerberg is unaccountable to anyone, so if he decides to jart Facebook, there's little anyone can do about it.
posted by NoxAeternum at 8:16 AM on November 1, 2022 [7 favorites]
Because of reading the article and this thread I finally checked out the Metaverse. Now, I didn't do this by actually getting the headset, because I kinda didn't grow to enjoy bone scans and MRI's despite having several of them, and I don't particularly want to be back in a machine that controls where I can look and won't work properly if I move. All I did was type Metaverse into my search engine, and then made it an image search.
... wait, what? Their alternate reality is a place of death. Seriously. It has pretty colours but there is nothing alive in it. No trees, no birds, no flowing water, no meadows, no potted plants - nothing. It reminds me of nothing so much as the Blade Runner world. It's a dystopia! "Warning, this is not a place of honor..."
It feels like it is dated before it even has a chance to become common, the way the trend for shiny black kitchen appliances made me settle down to wait patiently for it to end, starting the day I first saw one. Didn't Meta's marketing department do any research before they started developing, maybe like comparing what background screen images and wallpapers get the most downloads? The NASA nebula look does get plenty of downloads - but if more than 10% of users like glowing purple galaxies enough to be willing to spend time looking at it I will be mighty surprised.
I'm not saying it isn't pretty but the part that is pretty is not interesting. It's just blobs and arcs and light. And the part that isn't pretty, the threateningly epic city skylines and tiled floors look uncomfortable, cold, austere, corporate.... The only thing I can imagine doing there is agreeing smugly to destroy Tatooine, or hearing with horror that this is what my overlords are planning, and that I am powerless to prevent it.
And then, on top of everything, they have found the only possible way in the world to make it worse: inescapable interrupting video ads.
Wow. Just wow.
posted by Jane the Brown at 8:21 AM on November 1, 2022 [24 favorites]
... wait, what? Their alternate reality is a place of death. Seriously. It has pretty colours but there is nothing alive in it. No trees, no birds, no flowing water, no meadows, no potted plants - nothing. It reminds me of nothing so much as the Blade Runner world. It's a dystopia! "Warning, this is not a place of honor..."
It feels like it is dated before it even has a chance to become common, the way the trend for shiny black kitchen appliances made me settle down to wait patiently for it to end, starting the day I first saw one. Didn't Meta's marketing department do any research before they started developing, maybe like comparing what background screen images and wallpapers get the most downloads? The NASA nebula look does get plenty of downloads - but if more than 10% of users like glowing purple galaxies enough to be willing to spend time looking at it I will be mighty surprised.
I'm not saying it isn't pretty but the part that is pretty is not interesting. It's just blobs and arcs and light. And the part that isn't pretty, the threateningly epic city skylines and tiled floors look uncomfortable, cold, austere, corporate.... The only thing I can imagine doing there is agreeing smugly to destroy Tatooine, or hearing with horror that this is what my overlords are planning, and that I am powerless to prevent it.
And then, on top of everything, they have found the only possible way in the world to make it worse: inescapable interrupting video ads.
Wow. Just wow.
posted by Jane the Brown at 8:21 AM on November 1, 2022 [24 favorites]
I have never been into the FB version of the Metaverse, but the observation that it a designed Dead Space is interesting.
I know that 'Nobody wants the FB Metaverse' is a meme by now but FB/Zuck really want everyone to eventually use the Metaverse as a replacement for everything they do currently on the internet - if they've accidentally designed it like a bleak Bladerunner-esque cyberpunk landscape /aesthetic that is ironically fitting
posted by Faintdreams at 8:31 AM on November 1, 2022 [3 favorites]
I know that 'Nobody wants the FB Metaverse' is a meme by now but FB/Zuck really want everyone to eventually use the Metaverse as a replacement for everything they do currently on the internet - if they've accidentally designed it like a bleak Bladerunner-esque cyberpunk landscape /aesthetic that is ironically fitting
posted by Faintdreams at 8:31 AM on November 1, 2022 [3 favorites]
I see so many fake storefronts on Facebook selling obviously scam goods I don't know how they have a business model. I used to be a good netizen and report these scam advertisers and when I checked on my reports the stores would still be up weeks later.
posted by ShakeyJake at 8:31 AM on November 1, 2022 [5 favorites]
posted by ShakeyJake at 8:31 AM on November 1, 2022 [5 favorites]
I don't particularly want to be back in a machine that controls where I can look and won't work properly if I move
That is not how VR works. The letting you look around by moving thing is pretty fundamental to what these headsets do.
posted by Dysk at 8:44 AM on November 1, 2022 [6 favorites]
That is not how VR works. The letting you look around by moving thing is pretty fundamental to what these headsets do.
posted by Dysk at 8:44 AM on November 1, 2022 [6 favorites]
Somewhat tangentially, I was recently interviewed about my time as a "builder" on the Steve Jackson Games Metaverse MOO in the 90's. The only thing that might apply here is that apparently SJG still owns some of the rights to the term "Metaverse", at least according to the interviewer...
posted by jim in austin at 9:06 AM on November 1, 2022 [3 favorites]
posted by jim in austin at 9:06 AM on November 1, 2022 [3 favorites]
I don't particularly want to be back in a machine that controls where I can look and won't work properly if I move.
That is not how VR works. The letting you look around by moving thing is pretty fundamental to what these headsets do.
posted by Dysk
I don't think I can safely get up and pace while wearing it... And I am not sure I can glance away for a split instant without taking the head set off or hitting a switch or something. With my desk top computer I can even walk around the room and tidy up and make my bed while still looking at it. Can I do that with the VR headset? Can I match my rl socks and ball them while still being in the Metaverse?
posted by Jane the Brown at 9:14 AM on November 1, 2022 [3 favorites]
That is not how VR works. The letting you look around by moving thing is pretty fundamental to what these headsets do.
posted by Dysk
I don't think I can safely get up and pace while wearing it... And I am not sure I can glance away for a split instant without taking the head set off or hitting a switch or something. With my desk top computer I can even walk around the room and tidy up and make my bed while still looking at it. Can I do that with the VR headset? Can I match my rl socks and ball them while still being in the Metaverse?
posted by Jane the Brown at 9:14 AM on November 1, 2022 [3 favorites]
AR with camera pass-through being a major part of the selling point for the new headsets - yes, you can!
posted by Dysk at 9:20 AM on November 1, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by Dysk at 9:20 AM on November 1, 2022 [1 favorite]
Anyway I’ve shown the Quest to a number of olds (olders than me 70s and 80s) which is to say many parents and aunts and uncles of myself and my partner. Taken lots of videos. It absolutely blows peoples minds and these are folks who haven’t played a video game in decades possibly ever. (I can recall my mothers brief interest in marble madness about 30 years ago.)
On the other hand I don’t actually use mine. And none of these olds have ever used it after that initial shock. It’s ultimately a game machine right now. And I suppose you can take a lot of game machines and if they can avoid showing blood and/or killing in the first few moments you might be able to spread a similar bit of joy to a wide audience of folks who aren’t necessarily the core.
The way the AR pass through works is absolutely mind blowing. Parts of the product make me believe they have some incredible human factors people work at the company making things that surprise and delight. Then there’s the standard miserable experience of why is the battery dead and the updates so slow. So it’s a mixed bag. Gamers are used to consuming mixed bags though.
posted by Wood at 9:28 AM on November 1, 2022 [2 favorites]
On the other hand I don’t actually use mine. And none of these olds have ever used it after that initial shock. It’s ultimately a game machine right now. And I suppose you can take a lot of game machines and if they can avoid showing blood and/or killing in the first few moments you might be able to spread a similar bit of joy to a wide audience of folks who aren’t necessarily the core.
The way the AR pass through works is absolutely mind blowing. Parts of the product make me believe they have some incredible human factors people work at the company making things that surprise and delight. Then there’s the standard miserable experience of why is the battery dead and the updates so slow. So it’s a mixed bag. Gamers are used to consuming mixed bags though.
posted by Wood at 9:28 AM on November 1, 2022 [2 favorites]
But what comes with that is they are so much less good at it than Minecraft or Roblox.
Agreed, and that’s why I think the meta verse thing that takes off probably won’t actually come from one of the existing big-tech companies, it’ll be something like Minecraft or Fortnite that gets upcyled or repurposed. If Meta was really serious about the Metaverse they’d buy Epic, or something like that.
posted by Jon Mitchell at 9:40 AM on November 1, 2022 [4 favorites]
Agreed, and that’s why I think the meta verse thing that takes off probably won’t actually come from one of the existing big-tech companies, it’ll be something like Minecraft or Fortnite that gets upcyled or repurposed. If Meta was really serious about the Metaverse they’d buy Epic, or something like that.
posted by Jon Mitchell at 9:40 AM on November 1, 2022 [4 favorites]
Elon Musk Defends Controversial $20 Blue Checkmark Twitter Plan to Stephen King
posted by chavenet at 9:46 AM on November 1, 2022 [3 favorites]
posted by chavenet at 9:46 AM on November 1, 2022 [3 favorites]
From chavenet’s link above about a dubious floundering attempt to monetize the site:
FiveThirtyEight political guru Nate Silver similarly wrote to his 3.5 million followers: “I’m probably the perfect target for this, use Twitter a ton, can afford $20/mo, not particularly anti-Elon, but my reaction is that I’ve generated a ton of valuable free content for Twitter over the years and they can go fuck themselves.”posted by ricochet biscuit at 9:50 AM on November 1, 2022 [13 favorites]
I think that Facebook was very lucky that they were the first functional social media network, and network effects took off from there. They made billions being at the right place at the right time.
However, Facebook seems unlike most of the other big tech companies in that it seems to have much less of an innovative or entrepreneurial spirit. We joke about Google constantly creating products and shutting them down in a few years. Netflix has famously pivoted from mailing DVDs, to streaming videos, and now to actually creating shows. Amazon is less of a bookstore now and more of the company that runs huge parts of the internet. And Apple tries to create completely new product segments that complement its existing businesses.
Facebook though? Facebook purchased two of its major competitors (and their users), Instagram and WhatsApp. Instead of figuring out how to integrate the products, it just ran all of them simultaneously. The entire metaverse is based from the Oculus acquisition and not created from Facebook. The company has a good track record of wringing out profits from products, but not much creating them.
The metaverse seems to be Facebook trying to recreate that initial social media product so that it can rent-seek from anyone who uses it. But unlike social media in 2006, the metaverse doesn't sell itself. Without a compelling reason to use the product, there can be no network effects since there are no users. Facebook doesn't seem to have a long-term business strategy - witness that they've been making their VR products more expensive because they can't give up any short-term profits.
posted by meowzilla at 10:04 AM on November 1, 2022 [7 favorites]
However, Facebook seems unlike most of the other big tech companies in that it seems to have much less of an innovative or entrepreneurial spirit. We joke about Google constantly creating products and shutting them down in a few years. Netflix has famously pivoted from mailing DVDs, to streaming videos, and now to actually creating shows. Amazon is less of a bookstore now and more of the company that runs huge parts of the internet. And Apple tries to create completely new product segments that complement its existing businesses.
Facebook though? Facebook purchased two of its major competitors (and their users), Instagram and WhatsApp. Instead of figuring out how to integrate the products, it just ran all of them simultaneously. The entire metaverse is based from the Oculus acquisition and not created from Facebook. The company has a good track record of wringing out profits from products, but not much creating them.
The metaverse seems to be Facebook trying to recreate that initial social media product so that it can rent-seek from anyone who uses it. But unlike social media in 2006, the metaverse doesn't sell itself. Without a compelling reason to use the product, there can be no network effects since there are no users. Facebook doesn't seem to have a long-term business strategy - witness that they've been making their VR products more expensive because they can't give up any short-term profits.
posted by meowzilla at 10:04 AM on November 1, 2022 [7 favorites]
Facebook bought a de facto monopoly on VR via Oculus.
Not really. If the demand was there, the barrier to entry isn't that high for a big company. HP is dabbling in it with HTC IIRC. A few Chinese companies could easily make a go at it and corner that market if they wanted.
I just don't see any reason for another company to do so. One of my circle of friends is well off and tech toy centric - pretty much anyone in it could impulse buy an Oculus without having to think about it. Of the 50 or so people in it, 2 have had them for several years and most of the group has tried them at parties and enjoyed playing Beat Saber. But none of the others have run out to buy them for themselves. If they can only get 4% pickup in what's basically the target rich demographic, that says something. And even those two people don't use them all that often.
the character look is heavily stylized, you might not like it, but it's a legitimate choice.
It's a legitimate choice if it suits the need for a problem. The characters in Animal Crossing are kind of similarly styled and no one rags on that, because a whimsical cartoonish character is extremely appropriate for that type of game in a way that photorealistic zombies that drip blood would not be.
So the Meta choice has to be appropriate for the problem they're solving. Which is pretty ill defined but Mark seems to think that VR meetings are the way forward and it's a really bad choice for that. At most, I want to see people in video chat, preferably just a high quality audio bridge, and quite possibly even more preferably in a Slack et al chat or e-mail thread. I definitely don't want to interact with a cutesy avatar (now with legs!).
Instead of figuring out how to integrate the products, it just ran all of them simultaneously.
I honestly think that's the smart choice, as long as they have a unified view of users who use all of the services on the back end (which I would assume they do). When one brand starts to tank in popularity, such as when Facebook became known as the lame place for your parents to be, the others can stay strong.
posted by Candleman at 10:12 AM on November 1, 2022 [5 favorites]
Not really. If the demand was there, the barrier to entry isn't that high for a big company. HP is dabbling in it with HTC IIRC. A few Chinese companies could easily make a go at it and corner that market if they wanted.
I just don't see any reason for another company to do so. One of my circle of friends is well off and tech toy centric - pretty much anyone in it could impulse buy an Oculus without having to think about it. Of the 50 or so people in it, 2 have had them for several years and most of the group has tried them at parties and enjoyed playing Beat Saber. But none of the others have run out to buy them for themselves. If they can only get 4% pickup in what's basically the target rich demographic, that says something. And even those two people don't use them all that often.
the character look is heavily stylized, you might not like it, but it's a legitimate choice.
It's a legitimate choice if it suits the need for a problem. The characters in Animal Crossing are kind of similarly styled and no one rags on that, because a whimsical cartoonish character is extremely appropriate for that type of game in a way that photorealistic zombies that drip blood would not be.
So the Meta choice has to be appropriate for the problem they're solving. Which is pretty ill defined but Mark seems to think that VR meetings are the way forward and it's a really bad choice for that. At most, I want to see people in video chat, preferably just a high quality audio bridge, and quite possibly even more preferably in a Slack et al chat or e-mail thread. I definitely don't want to interact with a cutesy avatar (now with legs!).
Instead of figuring out how to integrate the products, it just ran all of them simultaneously.
I honestly think that's the smart choice, as long as they have a unified view of users who use all of the services on the back end (which I would assume they do). When one brand starts to tank in popularity, such as when Facebook became known as the lame place for your parents to be, the others can stay strong.
posted by Candleman at 10:12 AM on November 1, 2022 [5 favorites]
I like to flatter myself that quitting f’book over a year ago led straight to their woes.
Do not disabuse me of this fact.
posted by BostonTerrier at 10:15 AM on November 1, 2022 [6 favorites]
Do not disabuse me of this fact.
posted by BostonTerrier at 10:15 AM on November 1, 2022 [6 favorites]
the candy iMacs were just NeXT machines at affordable prices
There wasn’t much NeXT about them in 1997, but sure, that is where they were going, it just took 4+ years to pull off
and yeah Apple is a little unique in having been well into the “husk of itself” category before managing a comeback.
posted by atoxyl at 10:41 AM on November 1, 2022 [1 favorite]
There wasn’t much NeXT about them in 1997, but sure, that is where they were going, it just took 4+ years to pull off
and yeah Apple is a little unique in having been well into the “husk of itself” category before managing a comeback.
posted by atoxyl at 10:41 AM on November 1, 2022 [1 favorite]
chavenet: "Elon Musk Defends Controversial $20 Blue Checkmark Twitter Plan to Stephen King"
This is really interesting. I'm in favor of charging users money if it makes them into customers, instead of products who pay for the privilege of being products. But it conflates the problem of user identity with the problem of making Twitter a profitable business. Two different problems that aren't amenable to a single solution.
Furthermore, there are important reasons for people to be anonymous (whistleblowers, activists, etc), as well as goofy-but-legitimate reasons (weird performance art). And at the same time, there are probably lots of bad actors who would say "$20/mo to have my account blessed by His Muskiness? Sign me up!"
I'm not saying I have the solutions to these problems, but I am sure Elon doesn't either.
posted by adamrice at 10:50 AM on November 1, 2022 [3 favorites]
This is really interesting. I'm in favor of charging users money if it makes them into customers, instead of products who pay for the privilege of being products. But it conflates the problem of user identity with the problem of making Twitter a profitable business. Two different problems that aren't amenable to a single solution.
Furthermore, there are important reasons for people to be anonymous (whistleblowers, activists, etc), as well as goofy-but-legitimate reasons (weird performance art). And at the same time, there are probably lots of bad actors who would say "$20/mo to have my account blessed by His Muskiness? Sign me up!"
I'm not saying I have the solutions to these problems, but I am sure Elon doesn't either.
posted by adamrice at 10:50 AM on November 1, 2022 [3 favorites]
In my world Facebooks big innovation is putting React out into the world, I’ve no idea how much they consume that themselves.
And ad tech of course. So much ad tech.
posted by Artw at 10:54 AM on November 1, 2022 [3 favorites]
And ad tech of course. So much ad tech.
posted by Artw at 10:54 AM on November 1, 2022 [3 favorites]
the candy iMacs were just NeXT machines at affordable prices that were appealing to own and use
As if those were trivial things.
posted by Halloween Jack at 10:59 AM on November 1, 2022 [8 favorites]
As if those were trivial things.
posted by Halloween Jack at 10:59 AM on November 1, 2022 [8 favorites]
As I said the first generation was System 8 era so not even really incorporating the technology acquired from NeXT. It was just a novel, attractive, competitively-priced machine that put them back on the map for the time it took to get their shit together and actually build the next generation OS (which had a longer road to consumer-readiness than they wanted, but unlike the pre-NeXT attempts did get there in the end).
posted by atoxyl at 11:39 AM on November 1, 2022 [3 favorites]
posted by atoxyl at 11:39 AM on November 1, 2022 [3 favorites]
Let's not forget about the gamble Facebook's taking on generating educational materials for K-12 students in the Metaverse. If Facebook can create a Meta-based, standardized educational curriculum and secure a contract with the federal government to provide VR headsets to all school-aged children in the US in perpetuity, this ALONE could guarantee the company locks in generations of new users/income.
Y'all, it creeps me right out to think that Google (via Chromebooks) and Facebook (via VR educational materials) are fighting to create yet another duopoly -- only this time, it's supplying materials for federally subsidized public schools nationwide.
I'm not particularly hopeful that America's antitrust laws can do anything to stop Facebook, Amazon or Google from forcing their way into our lives, even if we don't consciously choose to purchase/use their products or services.
posted by Unicorn on the cob at 11:43 AM on November 1, 2022 [7 favorites]
Y'all, it creeps me right out to think that Google (via Chromebooks) and Facebook (via VR educational materials) are fighting to create yet another duopoly -- only this time, it's supplying materials for federally subsidized public schools nationwide.
I'm not particularly hopeful that America's antitrust laws can do anything to stop Facebook, Amazon or Google from forcing their way into our lives, even if we don't consciously choose to purchase/use their products or services.
posted by Unicorn on the cob at 11:43 AM on November 1, 2022 [7 favorites]
Having watched my friend’s kid go from virtual kindergarten via zoom thanks to Covid, to now being in a real class with real people, the idea of kids wearing self-enclosed helmets to learn nearly anything makes me sick. Ad based education, folks.
Think of it this way, if your existence is based on both hardware and software provided by a profit based corporation that considers you to be basically its product to sell to other corporations than you might as well just give up. That is not real human existence. It’s not much better than being a chicken in a mechanized egg factory.
posted by njohnson23 at 11:57 AM on November 1, 2022 [8 favorites]
Think of it this way, if your existence is based on both hardware and software provided by a profit based corporation that considers you to be basically its product to sell to other corporations than you might as well just give up. That is not real human existence. It’s not much better than being a chicken in a mechanized egg factory.
posted by njohnson23 at 11:57 AM on November 1, 2022 [8 favorites]
If Facebook can create a Meta-based, standardized educational curriculum and secure a contract with the federal government to provide VR headsets to all school-aged children in the US in perpetuity, this ALONE could guarantee the company locks in generations of new users/income.
Good thing that it's literally impossible to do without heavy restructuring of the American education system.
posted by NoxAeternum at 12:02 PM on November 1, 2022 [7 favorites]
Good thing that it's literally impossible to do without heavy restructuring of the American education system.
posted by NoxAeternum at 12:02 PM on November 1, 2022 [7 favorites]
Does a single Facebook user have your number in their phone? Congratulations: you're a Facebook user, whether you want to be or not. Do multiple users have your number or your email address saved? Your digital movements are almost certainly being tracked.
They've been doing this for like 10-15 years now, going all the way back to harvesting emails from the contact lists of new users to force them to "invite" new people.
And I've been ranting about it for almost as long, and in the earlier days people generally treated me like I was being crazy or paranoid about Facebook.
This was personally problematic for me because I was getting invites - and implied associated social connections - from members of art and music related email lists that involved people that I absolutely did not want to be politically associated with. People that I wouldn't want to associate with, at all, where the only real link was that we posted to the same art/music discussion lists and had never met in person or had any real connection.
But because Facebook was just blindly hoovering up any and all contact lists and using that to build their web of lies now I have some tenuous link to people I definitely wouldn't want to be associated if they ended up in legal trouble or being investigated for criminal activity.
I kept harassing and abusing Facebook's support trying to get them to permanently block my email address, delete any information they had on me and cease storing any information about me. Which, of course, didn't work. Because Facebook.
What happened instead is that now whenever signs up for Facebook using my email and then verifying in the app is that I can no longer remove my email from any of those accounts because my email address is only partially blocked and somehow broken in their overall system as invalid, and I can no longer contact FB support to try to rectify it. So now there are dozens of FB accounts from basically every continent except Antarctica associated with my email address.
That company and their whole platform and business model has been bad news from the beginning, and now it's the 800 pound gorilla with a shotgun in the room that has successfully poisoned public discourse, degraded health and safety during the pandemic and has been instrumental in eroding democracy and politics.
I am generally appalled and dismayed an organization like the EFF or anyone at all hasn't started a class action lawsuit against Facebook. I get it, they can afford way more lawyers than anyone else, but it's absolutely disturbing they haven't been called to the carpet and held accountable.
And about the only thing I can personally do is beg people to stop using Facebook. Which also hasn't worked.
Facebook has been toxic from the very beginning when it was still called "The Facebook" and it was mainly limited to rich, pretty and privileged college students and basically Hot or Not 2.0 for the Ivy League.
Please, please stop using Facebook.
posted by loquacious at 12:25 PM on November 1, 2022 [8 favorites]
They've been doing this for like 10-15 years now, going all the way back to harvesting emails from the contact lists of new users to force them to "invite" new people.
And I've been ranting about it for almost as long, and in the earlier days people generally treated me like I was being crazy or paranoid about Facebook.
This was personally problematic for me because I was getting invites - and implied associated social connections - from members of art and music related email lists that involved people that I absolutely did not want to be politically associated with. People that I wouldn't want to associate with, at all, where the only real link was that we posted to the same art/music discussion lists and had never met in person or had any real connection.
But because Facebook was just blindly hoovering up any and all contact lists and using that to build their web of lies now I have some tenuous link to people I definitely wouldn't want to be associated if they ended up in legal trouble or being investigated for criminal activity.
I kept harassing and abusing Facebook's support trying to get them to permanently block my email address, delete any information they had on me and cease storing any information about me. Which, of course, didn't work. Because Facebook.
What happened instead is that now whenever signs up for Facebook using my email and then verifying in the app is that I can no longer remove my email from any of those accounts because my email address is only partially blocked and somehow broken in their overall system as invalid, and I can no longer contact FB support to try to rectify it. So now there are dozens of FB accounts from basically every continent except Antarctica associated with my email address.
That company and their whole platform and business model has been bad news from the beginning, and now it's the 800 pound gorilla with a shotgun in the room that has successfully poisoned public discourse, degraded health and safety during the pandemic and has been instrumental in eroding democracy and politics.
I am generally appalled and dismayed an organization like the EFF or anyone at all hasn't started a class action lawsuit against Facebook. I get it, they can afford way more lawyers than anyone else, but it's absolutely disturbing they haven't been called to the carpet and held accountable.
And about the only thing I can personally do is beg people to stop using Facebook. Which also hasn't worked.
Facebook has been toxic from the very beginning when it was still called "The Facebook" and it was mainly limited to rich, pretty and privileged college students and basically Hot or Not 2.0 for the Ivy League.
Please, please stop using Facebook.
posted by loquacious at 12:25 PM on November 1, 2022 [8 favorites]
instead of products who pay for the privilege of being products.
It's even worse. You're paying Twitter to solve their problem for them. Before the check mark, Twitter was being sued for allowing impersonators to scam people. So why should you pay Twitter for the privilege of not being impersonated?
posted by CheeseDigestsAll at 12:25 PM on November 1, 2022 [6 favorites]
It's even worse. You're paying Twitter to solve their problem for them. Before the check mark, Twitter was being sued for allowing impersonators to scam people. So why should you pay Twitter for the privilege of not being impersonated?
posted by CheeseDigestsAll at 12:25 PM on November 1, 2022 [6 favorites]
The thing that relentlessly astounds me is that the advertiser interface of Facebook gets SO much worse and less usable with every iteration. It's honestly like the apocryphal infinite monkeys are just headbutting keyboards and their head spewage is being spilled onto the page.
I work for a non-profit that has two fairly busy pages and has taken out a handful of ads/boosts in the past to try and get more eyes on campaigns. The ads had very little effect and their billing process was totally opaque, but worst of all is that as a result of being a 'business' customer, we now get increasingly shunted into the horrific Meta Business Suite for our interactions with fb.
As of this week, even the notifications I get telling me someone has commented on a post on our page, direct me cheerily to "Respond to the comment in Meta Business Suite" and give me a link to the incomprehensibly messy horror show of the Business Suite to see the conversation. No! I just want to click through to see the comment under the post on my page! This used to work nicely, why do you insist on making it worse?
Each time they introduce a new iteration of a previous feature, the old version will still be there somewhere, but you can only get it through a weird, inconvenient route. "We've introduced new analytics! They don't measure the same things as our old analytics so you can't compare them with your previous stats! They look different and you can't find anything! What's that? You want the old format back? Well, it just so happens that if you go to the analytics widget hidden half way down the left column of your page and click on the link in the top right, that'll take you to the old analytics page, because we haven't worked out how to retire the widget yet. But we won't tell you that, we'll just leave you to stumble upon it, if you're lucky and you haven't joined the bloody monkeys in just beating your head repeatedly against the keyboard."
How do they still exist?
posted by penguin pie at 12:47 PM on November 1, 2022 [5 favorites]
I work for a non-profit that has two fairly busy pages and has taken out a handful of ads/boosts in the past to try and get more eyes on campaigns. The ads had very little effect and their billing process was totally opaque, but worst of all is that as a result of being a 'business' customer, we now get increasingly shunted into the horrific Meta Business Suite for our interactions with fb.
As of this week, even the notifications I get telling me someone has commented on a post on our page, direct me cheerily to "Respond to the comment in Meta Business Suite" and give me a link to the incomprehensibly messy horror show of the Business Suite to see the conversation. No! I just want to click through to see the comment under the post on my page! This used to work nicely, why do you insist on making it worse?
Each time they introduce a new iteration of a previous feature, the old version will still be there somewhere, but you can only get it through a weird, inconvenient route. "We've introduced new analytics! They don't measure the same things as our old analytics so you can't compare them with your previous stats! They look different and you can't find anything! What's that? You want the old format back? Well, it just so happens that if you go to the analytics widget hidden half way down the left column of your page and click on the link in the top right, that'll take you to the old analytics page, because we haven't worked out how to retire the widget yet. But we won't tell you that, we'll just leave you to stumble upon it, if you're lucky and you haven't joined the bloody monkeys in just beating your head repeatedly against the keyboard."
How do they still exist?
posted by penguin pie at 12:47 PM on November 1, 2022 [5 favorites]
Their alternate reality is a place of death. Seriously. It has pretty colours but there is nothing alive in it.I keep coming back to the fact that the real Metaverse (i.e., the one from Neal Stephenson’s 1992 novel Snow Crash) would have failed if not for Juanita, the undervalued outsider, who actually paid attention to how real people interact:
She was the face department, because nobody thought that faces were all that important—they were just flesh-toned busts on top of the avatars. She was just in the process of proving them all desperately wrong. But at this phase, the all-male society of bitheads that made up the power structure of Black Sun Systems said that the face problem was trivial and superficial. It was, of course, nothing more than sexism, the especially virulent type espoused by male techies who sincerely believe that they are too smart to be sexists.
And once they got done counting their money, marketing the spinoffs, soaking up the adulation of others in the hacker community, they all came to the realization that what made this place a success was not the collision-avoidance algorithms or the bounce daemons or any of that other stuff. It was Juanita’s faces.
But Juanita never comes to The Black Sun anymore. Partly, she’s pissed at Da5id and the other hackers who never appreciated her work. But she has also decided that the whole thing is bogus. That no matter how good it is, the Metaverse is distorting the way people talk to each each other, and she wants no such distortion in her relationships.Thirty years later, the same bitheads are still trying to build the Metaverse and still wondering why they keep failing.
posted by mbrubeck at 1:23 PM on November 1, 2022 [25 favorites]
It was hard to imagine, at the time, that Zuckerberg would shift from being a weirdo obsessed with dominating social media to become a weirdo obsessed with lighting cash on fire in pursuit of becoming the premiere place to play virtual ping pong with a heavy computer strapped to your face.
What great writing.
posted by Melismata at 2:20 PM on November 1, 2022 [9 favorites]
What great writing.
posted by Melismata at 2:20 PM on November 1, 2022 [9 favorites]
spot on, mbrubeck ...and fair to say the metaverse Zuckerberg is building is definitely distorting the way people talk to each other
posted by caution live frogs at 2:34 PM on November 1, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by caution live frogs at 2:34 PM on November 1, 2022 [1 favorite]
The cheap money times were great to try out new businesses with other people's money. Now that money's getting expensive we'll find out what businesses can actually sustain themselves and at what level. I'm hoping that Facebook and social media in general collapse but I have no idea if that will ever happen.
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 2:38 PM on November 1, 2022
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 2:38 PM on November 1, 2022
People have gotten married in any MMO of moderate size
Much earlier. Way way back around 1993 or so I was a member of an online virtual world called WorldsAway (okay, technically, "Dreamscape," one of a number of worlds they made, but Dreamscape was the flagship), and people got married in it. I wouldn't be surprised to hear that people did that in MUDs too. Remember MUDs? I'M OLD.
I was helping someone with a Windows 11S problem the other day and was startled to discover the "S" means I couldn't install anything except software downloaded from the Microsoft Store
This is off the topic and there was nothing in the comment to suggest that the writer didn't already know this, but just in case: S mode can be disabled to turn your machine into a normal usable computer. It's a one-way trip, but honestly I wouldn't consider a computer usable without doing it. Here's how.
I think that Facebook was very lucky that they were the first functional social media network, and network effects took off from there. They made billions being at the right place at the right time.
Facebook was not the first usable social media network. There were multiple at the time. Everyone was remarking at the time that whichever basically similar social media site got to critical mass first would become gigantic and really hard to unseat. That site was Facebook, and when it happened the results were as predicted. Livejournal and MySpace could easily have been where Facebook is now.
posted by JHarris at 2:58 PM on November 1, 2022 [8 favorites]
Much earlier. Way way back around 1993 or so I was a member of an online virtual world called WorldsAway (okay, technically, "Dreamscape," one of a number of worlds they made, but Dreamscape was the flagship), and people got married in it. I wouldn't be surprised to hear that people did that in MUDs too. Remember MUDs? I'M OLD.
I was helping someone with a Windows 11S problem the other day and was startled to discover the "S" means I couldn't install anything except software downloaded from the Microsoft Store
This is off the topic and there was nothing in the comment to suggest that the writer didn't already know this, but just in case: S mode can be disabled to turn your machine into a normal usable computer. It's a one-way trip, but honestly I wouldn't consider a computer usable without doing it. Here's how.
I think that Facebook was very lucky that they were the first functional social media network, and network effects took off from there. They made billions being at the right place at the right time.
Facebook was not the first usable social media network. There were multiple at the time. Everyone was remarking at the time that whichever basically similar social media site got to critical mass first would become gigantic and really hard to unseat. That site was Facebook, and when it happened the results were as predicted. Livejournal and MySpace could easily have been where Facebook is now.
posted by JHarris at 2:58 PM on November 1, 2022 [8 favorites]
Friendster, Tribes, Geocities…
posted by Artw at 3:04 PM on November 1, 2022 [4 favorites]
posted by Artw at 3:04 PM on November 1, 2022 [4 favorites]
I always thought Facebook succeeded because the person who invited you to join was from above you on the social scale. The person who invited you to all the other social networks was a dork just like you.
posted by clawsoon at 3:08 PM on November 1, 2022 [5 favorites]
posted by clawsoon at 3:08 PM on November 1, 2022 [5 favorites]
I always thought Facebook succeeded because the person who invited you to join was from above you on the social scale.
This isn't a thought that has ever crossed my mind. If anything it was a sign that someone wasn't aware that they were spamming their entire google or outlook contact list or whatever by allowing Facebook to harvest all of that data and then let Facebook do the automated invites, and if anything put them further down any sort of ranked social scale if I thought about it in terms like that at all.
Granted, I probably see this kind of thing differently than most and I've been irritated by Facebook for so long that I really can't remember what it was like to not be irritated by Facebook. It feels like a hundred years ago, back when Google was still new and manually indexed search engines like Alta Vista still worked.
Getting personalized invites to something like Oink (RIP) or curated private groups was different, but I don't ever really remember thinking about that in terms of a social scale because that's just weird and foreign to my anarchic brain.
posted by loquacious at 3:31 PM on November 1, 2022
This isn't a thought that has ever crossed my mind. If anything it was a sign that someone wasn't aware that they were spamming their entire google or outlook contact list or whatever by allowing Facebook to harvest all of that data and then let Facebook do the automated invites, and if anything put them further down any sort of ranked social scale if I thought about it in terms like that at all.
Granted, I probably see this kind of thing differently than most and I've been irritated by Facebook for so long that I really can't remember what it was like to not be irritated by Facebook. It feels like a hundred years ago, back when Google was still new and manually indexed search engines like Alta Vista still worked.
Getting personalized invites to something like Oink (RIP) or curated private groups was different, but I don't ever really remember thinking about that in terms of a social scale because that's just weird and foreign to my anarchic brain.
posted by loquacious at 3:31 PM on November 1, 2022
> JHarris: "Livejournal and MySpace could easily have been where Facebook is now."
I would like to push back a little on the idea that either of these could have "easily" gotten to where FB is now (even if FB didn't exist). Back during the relatively brief period when MySpace and FB were simultaneously viable social networks, it was extremely easy to see that the populations on these two networks were somewhat different. In broad, high school movie stereotypes, MySpace was for emos and burnouts from the wrong side of the tracks while Facebook was for preppies and jocks from good families. Facebook's initial seed population -- first Harvard undergrads, later expanded to the whole Ivy League, and then even later to everyone with .edu email addresses, which were largely allocated to 4-year universities -- made sure that the scions of the existing power structures (who would, of course, disproportionately constitute future power structures) were locked in.
I knew the game was over once I heard one of the big, mainstream media entities like CNN or NPR say something like "Find us on Facebook". By that point, it was quite difficult for me to imagine a similar entity saying "Check us out on MySpace". Maybe without FB, MySpace would have reached that level of mainstream acceptance. But I think it's equally possibly that without FB, no social network would have reached the levels of universal adoption that FB did, and we'd be in a kind of fragmented, pre-FB world of a zillion message boards. Or perhaps it was inevitable that a universally adopted social network would eventually exist, even if it weren't FB, and that it would just have been a matter of time.
posted by mhum at 3:40 PM on November 1, 2022 [13 favorites]
I would like to push back a little on the idea that either of these could have "easily" gotten to where FB is now (even if FB didn't exist). Back during the relatively brief period when MySpace and FB were simultaneously viable social networks, it was extremely easy to see that the populations on these two networks were somewhat different. In broad, high school movie stereotypes, MySpace was for emos and burnouts from the wrong side of the tracks while Facebook was for preppies and jocks from good families. Facebook's initial seed population -- first Harvard undergrads, later expanded to the whole Ivy League, and then even later to everyone with .edu email addresses, which were largely allocated to 4-year universities -- made sure that the scions of the existing power structures (who would, of course, disproportionately constitute future power structures) were locked in.
I knew the game was over once I heard one of the big, mainstream media entities like CNN or NPR say something like "Find us on Facebook". By that point, it was quite difficult for me to imagine a similar entity saying "Check us out on MySpace". Maybe without FB, MySpace would have reached that level of mainstream acceptance. But I think it's equally possibly that without FB, no social network would have reached the levels of universal adoption that FB did, and we'd be in a kind of fragmented, pre-FB world of a zillion message boards. Or perhaps it was inevitable that a universally adopted social network would eventually exist, even if it weren't FB, and that it would just have been a matter of time.
posted by mhum at 3:40 PM on November 1, 2022 [13 favorites]
Thing is, for all its horrors, I love the very surface level of what facebook does. I have a community of friends, mostly on the other side of the world, but with some of us scattered in other places all over the globe. I love that I can see photos of what they're all up to, know that our several dozen other mutual friends have seen it too, and I can see what they're saying about it and join in the chat. And it works because everybody's there. That's not true of Flickr, or TikTok, or anything else.
I'd gladly pay for a service that did the same, but everyone would have to be there for it to work.
I'd miss it a lot for that reason if it disappeared.
(On the other hand, maybe I'd go back to writing emails to my friends and actually hearing more details about their lives one to one, which I did before facebook and have totally got out of the habit of doing).
posted by penguin pie at 3:43 PM on November 1, 2022 [5 favorites]
I'd gladly pay for a service that did the same, but everyone would have to be there for it to work.
I'd miss it a lot for that reason if it disappeared.
(On the other hand, maybe I'd go back to writing emails to my friends and actually hearing more details about their lives one to one, which I did before facebook and have totally got out of the habit of doing).
posted by penguin pie at 3:43 PM on November 1, 2022 [5 favorites]
What mhum said. That's how I should have said it. With facts and stuff.
posted by clawsoon at 3:55 PM on November 1, 2022
posted by clawsoon at 3:55 PM on November 1, 2022
Maybe I'm just remembering it differently. Most of the initial social media networks felt like bookmarks to your friends, where you clicked through and you were in "their home page". Myspace was a good example where you went to a friend's page and you were subjected to their own quirky style. It was pretty similar to the "web blog networks" during that time, where your blog had a carousel at the top that linked to other people's blogs. And Friendster just didn't load anything after six months.
Facebook removed all this personalization, which resulted in the obvious Feed, so you didn't have to go to other people's pages to see their updates. And you can draw a direct line from this simple chronological feed, then features like "only show important updates" and "show less updates from this friend", to today's ad-ridden Feed where you have to buy a boost or otherwise Facebook will hide your update from everyone.
posted by meowzilla at 4:28 PM on November 1, 2022 [1 favorite]
Facebook removed all this personalization, which resulted in the obvious Feed, so you didn't have to go to other people's pages to see their updates. And you can draw a direct line from this simple chronological feed, then features like "only show important updates" and "show less updates from this friend", to today's ad-ridden Feed where you have to buy a boost or otherwise Facebook will hide your update from everyone.
posted by meowzilla at 4:28 PM on November 1, 2022 [1 favorite]
Y'all, it creeps me right out to think that Google (via Chromebooks) and Facebook (via VR educational materials) are fighting to create yet another duopoly -- only this time, it's supplying materials for federally subsidized public schools nationwide.
Oh, Apple's in on this too. They'll give imacs away if you agree to teach your AP coding class in Swift.
It's not nearly as pervasive as what google is doing, though. When my students log into the desktops in my room, they don't know how to get to the internet because those computers have Bing on them, not Chrome. The concept of accessing the web through any web browser and that broswers are basically interchangeable (especially the modern ones) is foreign to them. They also rely on Chrome to store all their passwords so they don't know any passwords for any of the websites we use for class and always ask me to look up their login information for them.
posted by subdee at 5:35 PM on November 1, 2022 [8 favorites]
Oh, Apple's in on this too. They'll give imacs away if you agree to teach your AP coding class in Swift.
It's not nearly as pervasive as what google is doing, though. When my students log into the desktops in my room, they don't know how to get to the internet because those computers have Bing on them, not Chrome. The concept of accessing the web through any web browser and that broswers are basically interchangeable (especially the modern ones) is foreign to them. They also rely on Chrome to store all their passwords so they don't know any passwords for any of the websites we use for class and always ask me to look up their login information for them.
posted by subdee at 5:35 PM on November 1, 2022 [8 favorites]
These are high school students, by the way. But it is an urban district where the chromebooks from school are the only computers they use besides their smartphones.
posted by subdee at 5:42 PM on November 1, 2022 [3 favorites]
posted by subdee at 5:42 PM on November 1, 2022 [3 favorites]
Facebook does some innovative engineering but a lot of it has to do with their network speed, scale and reliability? My brother is an engineer at Facebook and he told me one of his recent projects has to do with predicting the effects of global climate change. The engineers need to know if two different database centers are likely to be hit by extreme weather events at the same time, so they can avoid setting those two data centers as backups for each other, and plan where to build the future backup centers. There's a part of the company that thinks very long term in terms of stuff like that, though the recent financial stresses are putting a burden on that kind of long-range planning.
posted by subdee at 5:46 PM on November 1, 2022 [5 favorites]
posted by subdee at 5:46 PM on November 1, 2022 [5 favorites]
> meowzilla: "Facebook removed all this personalization, which resulted in the obvious Feed,"
One small correction: While it was (as far as I recall) indeed the case that Facebook always had a uniform interface that didn't allow the kinds of webpage customizations that MySpace had, the News Feed was actually added later (some speculate that it was a reaction to Twitter). Prior to News Feed, FB was actually not that different from a sanitized and standardized MySpace. You can see some snapshots of pre-news feed FB in this article.
But the prior point about how 'initial social media networks felt like bookmarks to your friends, where you clicked through and you were in "their home page"' is spot on, imho. In fact, I would say the biggest opportunity for all the social media platforms right now is recognizing that a non-trivial user need that's not being met right now is, well, customizable homepages. Yes, people can fire up a Wordpress instance or whatever if they really wanted but let's be real here. If people could have even one-tenth of the customization options they had with MySpace on IG, fuggeddaboudit. Never mind Reels, Adam Mosseri. The people already have that. It's called TikTok. What they don't have is proper homepages. Heck, many people have resorted to Linktrees because most (all?) of these platforms don't allow you to put more than one URL in your profile bio.
posted by mhum at 5:53 PM on November 1, 2022 [2 favorites]
One small correction: While it was (as far as I recall) indeed the case that Facebook always had a uniform interface that didn't allow the kinds of webpage customizations that MySpace had, the News Feed was actually added later (some speculate that it was a reaction to Twitter). Prior to News Feed, FB was actually not that different from a sanitized and standardized MySpace. You can see some snapshots of pre-news feed FB in this article.
But the prior point about how 'initial social media networks felt like bookmarks to your friends, where you clicked through and you were in "their home page"' is spot on, imho. In fact, I would say the biggest opportunity for all the social media platforms right now is recognizing that a non-trivial user need that's not being met right now is, well, customizable homepages. Yes, people can fire up a Wordpress instance or whatever if they really wanted but let's be real here. If people could have even one-tenth of the customization options they had with MySpace on IG, fuggeddaboudit. Never mind Reels, Adam Mosseri. The people already have that. It's called TikTok. What they don't have is proper homepages. Heck, many people have resorted to Linktrees because most (all?) of these platforms don't allow you to put more than one URL in your profile bio.
posted by mhum at 5:53 PM on November 1, 2022 [2 favorites]
Myspace was a good example where you went to a friend's page and you were subjected to their own quirky style.
(Emphasis mine.)
I think you're on the money there, and have a large part of the reason for Facebook's success. If you weren't in MySpace's very narrow demographic niche, that customisation and, um, "quirky style" was not a selling point. Flashing text, garish colour combinations, auto-playing audio, animated GIFs of flaming text, etc, etc. Myspace was a usability nightmare (as well as an eyesore) for most people. Facebook's 'sanitising' a lot of that away was a selling point, not a shortcoming.
posted by Dysk at 7:28 PM on November 1, 2022 [5 favorites]
(Emphasis mine.)
I think you're on the money there, and have a large part of the reason for Facebook's success. If you weren't in MySpace's very narrow demographic niche, that customisation and, um, "quirky style" was not a selling point. Flashing text, garish colour combinations, auto-playing audio, animated GIFs of flaming text, etc, etc. Myspace was a usability nightmare (as well as an eyesore) for most people. Facebook's 'sanitising' a lot of that away was a selling point, not a shortcoming.
posted by Dysk at 7:28 PM on November 1, 2022 [5 favorites]
CSS for the thing was a maze of crap like “TD > TD > TD > SPAN”.
posted by Artw at 7:48 PM on November 1, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by Artw at 7:48 PM on November 1, 2022 [1 favorite]
CSS for the thing was a maze of crap like “TD > TD > TD > SPAN”.
Enough to make me long for the semantic elegance of my former employer's templating, which included the classic
Enough to make me long for the semantic elegance of my former employer's templating, which included the classic
<span class="h3">and the immortal
<div class="p">posted by mph at 7:54 PM on November 1, 2022 [13 favorites]
Ah yes DivSpanML, where every element is a div or a span because why not? Very common in the jQuery era.
posted by Artw at 8:01 PM on November 1, 2022 [6 favorites]
posted by Artw at 8:01 PM on November 1, 2022 [6 favorites]
I'm working on a project fixing code not written by me, and I have
posted by maxwelton at 8:39 PM on November 1, 2022 [9 favorites]
<h2 class="h3">type of stuff to deal with. Pays the rent, I guess.
posted by maxwelton at 8:39 PM on November 1, 2022 [9 favorites]
I remember Facebook during the initial Ivy League rollout, and I think that whole era is a huge part of why FB became successful, and also why it can't seem to (and is unlikely to) manage a repeat performance.
Facebook had a very clean UI, and it gave the user almost zero control over the display of 'their' page. It wasn't a "home page" like MySpace. It was a directory entry, a Rolodex card. Your Facebook page looked the same as everyone else's, except for the photo, demographic / relationship / contact info, and actual posts. No crazy animated backgrounds, no yellow-on-green text, no embedded MP3 files, none of that stuff.
Which also made getting on FB much easier. There wasn't any pressure to have a "cool" Facebook page, in the sense of something that you had to invest a bunch of time and effort into creating (by learning HTML or whatever). You just signed up with your .edu address, filled out a form with your info, and uploaded a picture. Done. That meant, at least where I was, Facebook had a much more diverse userbase basically from the beginning, because it didn't require you to be a nerd or even nerd-adjacent to use it. I'd be willing to bet that Facebook's conversion rate on invites was orders of magnitude higher than MySpace, too. I have an idea that this was more accident than grand strategy, but they really managed to have an impressively low-friction onboarding process.
Also, MySpace had been around for several years by the time Facebook rolled out to the Ivies and sub-Ivies; its growth had seemed to largely have plateaued. In my social circle at the time, MySpace was mostly for people promoting their bands. It didn't even aim for the problem Facebook initially solved, which was basically "how do I keep in touch with all my college friends over the summer / after graduation?"
posted by Kadin2048 at 9:02 PM on November 1, 2022 [6 favorites]
Facebook had a very clean UI, and it gave the user almost zero control over the display of 'their' page. It wasn't a "home page" like MySpace. It was a directory entry, a Rolodex card. Your Facebook page looked the same as everyone else's, except for the photo, demographic / relationship / contact info, and actual posts. No crazy animated backgrounds, no yellow-on-green text, no embedded MP3 files, none of that stuff.
Which also made getting on FB much easier. There wasn't any pressure to have a "cool" Facebook page, in the sense of something that you had to invest a bunch of time and effort into creating (by learning HTML or whatever). You just signed up with your .edu address, filled out a form with your info, and uploaded a picture. Done. That meant, at least where I was, Facebook had a much more diverse userbase basically from the beginning, because it didn't require you to be a nerd or even nerd-adjacent to use it. I'd be willing to bet that Facebook's conversion rate on invites was orders of magnitude higher than MySpace, too. I have an idea that this was more accident than grand strategy, but they really managed to have an impressively low-friction onboarding process.
Also, MySpace had been around for several years by the time Facebook rolled out to the Ivies and sub-Ivies; its growth had seemed to largely have plateaued. In my social circle at the time, MySpace was mostly for people promoting their bands. It didn't even aim for the problem Facebook initially solved, which was basically "how do I keep in touch with all my college friends over the summer / after graduation?"
posted by Kadin2048 at 9:02 PM on November 1, 2022 [6 favorites]
MySpace3D. That's Zuckerberg's metaverse, isn't it. It's the idea that I create a little place in the virtual world and anyone can come look at my neon glowing ⧼table⧽ and blinking ⧼chair⧽. Good thing avatars have legs because check out my new ⧼pants⧽. I'm a snow monkey with pants!
The idea is so silly not because it's so new and strange; it's just the old-school web but now in 3D!. MySpace (and GeoCities) were nice in their own ways, of course.
Zuckerberg isn't a futurist (as he wants to be seen), he's nostalgic.
posted by UN at 10:52 PM on November 1, 2022 [5 favorites]
The idea is so silly not because it's so new and strange; it's just the old-school web but now in 3D!. MySpace (and GeoCities) were nice in their own ways, of course.
Zuckerberg isn't a futurist (as he wants to be seen), he's nostalgic.
posted by UN at 10:52 PM on November 1, 2022 [5 favorites]
we'll finally experience the year of desktop Linux.
It will be perfect timing! Just as nobody will have desks anymore.
posted by srboisvert at 3:37 AM on November 2, 2022 [6 favorites]
It will be perfect timing! Just as nobody will have desks anymore.
posted by srboisvert at 3:37 AM on November 2, 2022 [6 favorites]
Livejournal and MySpace could easily have been where Facebook is now.
Yeah, I'm gonna push back against this too. Kadin2048 said some of it just above me, and I said some of it a couple of weeks ago, but I was literally working for a rival social network as Facebook was first debuting, one whose C-suite basically had the same "whichever gets big first wins" attitude. I spent literal months practically spamming them with write-ups that might as well have been the "🚨🚨🚨" emoji on repeat. Because using Facebook even a little made it clear that Facebook was a radically different beast than Livejournal, MySpace, and anything else remotely adjacent to the scene.
Zuckerberg understood that the future was semantic data. It's easy to look back and go, "Well, of course the future is data." But don't. You could point to what Google was doing and say, "Didn't we all know the big industry was information?" Don't do that either.
Working on a rival product to Facebook's and then using Facebook for the first time was almost dizzying. Because Facebook's entire design, from the ground up, consisted of a deep patterning of information into atomized units whose interactions mattered. When it took features that other social networks had, like MySpace's wall or photos, Facebook completely reinvented them. Its "wall-to-wall" feature comes to mind: a wall is a user-centric series of comments, centered on the individual whose profile you're on. Facebook introduced a way to seamlessly join two users' walls together, producing a conversation. In 2005, as a lifelong forum user, it was like magic: a tiny forum thread emerging out of nowhere, literally sewed together between two seemingly disparate sets of scattered posts.
Again, you can look back at that and call it obvious. But it wasn't obvious. I know it wasn't obvious, because if you look through old backlogs of AdWeek, you can find the column I used to write where, on a weekly basis, I'd do a deep dive on every new tweak to Facebook's design, and explain why it was a big deal and why it mattered. Nobody cared. Facebook was dismissed as a fad up until it was dismissed as a dystopian hellscape. I have memories of the meetings I took, and of the condescending ways that upper management and tech engineers alike found ways of saying: "I mean, none of that really matters." But it did.
Call Zuckerberg whatever demeaning autism-adjacent slanders you'd like (well, don't actually): he understood that data was potential, and that its ultimate potential was that you could craft entirely new user experiences, entirely new products, around it. Because data is the product. The more types of data you have, the more products you have. MySpace had maybe half a dozen: individual photos (not albums), wall posts (disjointed), "notes" (which were like blog posts minus any kind of blogging functionality), and then the biggies: the customizable profile and the Top 8. Facebook had a half a dozen data types involved with its status updates alone. By the time it unveiled its school-specific pages, all of its systems were these fantastic interlocking fractals that generated gorgeously-structured layouts out of three dozen different types of information at once.
This was also the kind of thinking, obviously, that turned Facebook into a global catastrophe and made its data mining so amazingly invasive. So I'm aware that my saying all of this is like when Ollivander referred to Voldemort as "Terrible, but great." But I think it's important, on some level, to understand that Facebook wasn't a fluke. It didn't just beat its competitors: Facebook had no competitors. I don't think it faced a serious threat until Snapchat, and that was six years into its existence. Even its major acquisitions were extremely savvy: not just Instagram, but lesser-knowns like Friendfeed, Push Pop Press, and Branch, all of which had approaches to data that weren't just interesting but actively expanded on the data concepts that Facebook was already using. (And while I miss Branch a lot, credit where credit is due: Facebook incorporated all of those sites' mechanics pretty directly into its design.)
Even today, after two decades' worth of supposedly-smart people trying to figure out exactly how Facebook did what it did, you rarely see anyone in tech go about it the right way. And the ones that do never do it in as sprawling a manner as Facebook did it. Ask the "experts," in fact, and they'll tell you that UX has to be tightly-focused and offer a singular mechanic and never deviate. They were saying that about Facebook in 2006, too. They had many very persuasive papers explaining just why Facebook would never catch on. Because they never understood that the visible interface was a byproduct of the real product, which was invisible and brilliant and did, in fact, have an elegant structure from the start. It's ironic and fitting that the people who most "get" it are the people who could give a shit about Facebook-as-product, because all they're concerned with is Facebook-as-profound-violation. I wish Facebook had wound up deserving better admirers than that, but clearly it doesn't.
It genuinely makes me gleeful to see Meta tank, because I've been dreading the possibility that Facebook would figure out what exactly it was trying to make VR do. I'm still not counting them out, incidentally: that little pit of dread in me remembers 2006, and how many people were convinced there was no "there" there.
But it really does look like the "Metaverse" is fucked. Like I said in the other thread, Facebook's genius (and Zuckerberg's) was understanding data, like, fractally; I don't think that that holds any relevance to VR, and I don't think it translates readily to the kinds of skills you need to make VR work. I've played with multiple generations of Oculus. They don't feel like they've made any meaningful progress since the early proto-Facebook alphas. The thing that made VR cool then is what makes it cool now; improvements in latency and tracking are nice but barely feel like they matter. They certainly don't feel like the next big wave of tech yet—because I'm pretty sure they aren't. At most, they're a big deal like wearables are a big deal: I love my smartwatch, but it's not exactly about to eat the world like smartphones or social networks did. And Meta doesn't seem to have a fucking clue. I'm glad they don't; the last time they had a clue, they very nearly destroyed the world with it.
posted by Tom Hanks Cannot Be Trusted at 3:42 AM on November 2, 2022 [39 favorites]
Yeah, I'm gonna push back against this too. Kadin2048 said some of it just above me, and I said some of it a couple of weeks ago, but I was literally working for a rival social network as Facebook was first debuting, one whose C-suite basically had the same "whichever gets big first wins" attitude. I spent literal months practically spamming them with write-ups that might as well have been the "🚨🚨🚨" emoji on repeat. Because using Facebook even a little made it clear that Facebook was a radically different beast than Livejournal, MySpace, and anything else remotely adjacent to the scene.
Zuckerberg understood that the future was semantic data. It's easy to look back and go, "Well, of course the future is data." But don't. You could point to what Google was doing and say, "Didn't we all know the big industry was information?" Don't do that either.
Working on a rival product to Facebook's and then using Facebook for the first time was almost dizzying. Because Facebook's entire design, from the ground up, consisted of a deep patterning of information into atomized units whose interactions mattered. When it took features that other social networks had, like MySpace's wall or photos, Facebook completely reinvented them. Its "wall-to-wall" feature comes to mind: a wall is a user-centric series of comments, centered on the individual whose profile you're on. Facebook introduced a way to seamlessly join two users' walls together, producing a conversation. In 2005, as a lifelong forum user, it was like magic: a tiny forum thread emerging out of nowhere, literally sewed together between two seemingly disparate sets of scattered posts.
Again, you can look back at that and call it obvious. But it wasn't obvious. I know it wasn't obvious, because if you look through old backlogs of AdWeek, you can find the column I used to write where, on a weekly basis, I'd do a deep dive on every new tweak to Facebook's design, and explain why it was a big deal and why it mattered. Nobody cared. Facebook was dismissed as a fad up until it was dismissed as a dystopian hellscape. I have memories of the meetings I took, and of the condescending ways that upper management and tech engineers alike found ways of saying: "I mean, none of that really matters." But it did.
Call Zuckerberg whatever demeaning autism-adjacent slanders you'd like (well, don't actually): he understood that data was potential, and that its ultimate potential was that you could craft entirely new user experiences, entirely new products, around it. Because data is the product. The more types of data you have, the more products you have. MySpace had maybe half a dozen: individual photos (not albums), wall posts (disjointed), "notes" (which were like blog posts minus any kind of blogging functionality), and then the biggies: the customizable profile and the Top 8. Facebook had a half a dozen data types involved with its status updates alone. By the time it unveiled its school-specific pages, all of its systems were these fantastic interlocking fractals that generated gorgeously-structured layouts out of three dozen different types of information at once.
This was also the kind of thinking, obviously, that turned Facebook into a global catastrophe and made its data mining so amazingly invasive. So I'm aware that my saying all of this is like when Ollivander referred to Voldemort as "Terrible, but great." But I think it's important, on some level, to understand that Facebook wasn't a fluke. It didn't just beat its competitors: Facebook had no competitors. I don't think it faced a serious threat until Snapchat, and that was six years into its existence. Even its major acquisitions were extremely savvy: not just Instagram, but lesser-knowns like Friendfeed, Push Pop Press, and Branch, all of which had approaches to data that weren't just interesting but actively expanded on the data concepts that Facebook was already using. (And while I miss Branch a lot, credit where credit is due: Facebook incorporated all of those sites' mechanics pretty directly into its design.)
Even today, after two decades' worth of supposedly-smart people trying to figure out exactly how Facebook did what it did, you rarely see anyone in tech go about it the right way. And the ones that do never do it in as sprawling a manner as Facebook did it. Ask the "experts," in fact, and they'll tell you that UX has to be tightly-focused and offer a singular mechanic and never deviate. They were saying that about Facebook in 2006, too. They had many very persuasive papers explaining just why Facebook would never catch on. Because they never understood that the visible interface was a byproduct of the real product, which was invisible and brilliant and did, in fact, have an elegant structure from the start. It's ironic and fitting that the people who most "get" it are the people who could give a shit about Facebook-as-product, because all they're concerned with is Facebook-as-profound-violation. I wish Facebook had wound up deserving better admirers than that, but clearly it doesn't.
It genuinely makes me gleeful to see Meta tank, because I've been dreading the possibility that Facebook would figure out what exactly it was trying to make VR do. I'm still not counting them out, incidentally: that little pit of dread in me remembers 2006, and how many people were convinced there was no "there" there.
But it really does look like the "Metaverse" is fucked. Like I said in the other thread, Facebook's genius (and Zuckerberg's) was understanding data, like, fractally; I don't think that that holds any relevance to VR, and I don't think it translates readily to the kinds of skills you need to make VR work. I've played with multiple generations of Oculus. They don't feel like they've made any meaningful progress since the early proto-Facebook alphas. The thing that made VR cool then is what makes it cool now; improvements in latency and tracking are nice but barely feel like they matter. They certainly don't feel like the next big wave of tech yet—because I'm pretty sure they aren't. At most, they're a big deal like wearables are a big deal: I love my smartwatch, but it's not exactly about to eat the world like smartphones or social networks did. And Meta doesn't seem to have a fucking clue. I'm glad they don't; the last time they had a clue, they very nearly destroyed the world with it.
posted by Tom Hanks Cannot Be Trusted at 3:42 AM on November 2, 2022 [39 favorites]
Zuckerberg isn't a futurist (as he wants to be seen), he's nostalgic.
Habbo Hotel Tried To Warn Us. I'll keep saying it.
posted by Tom Hanks Cannot Be Trusted at 3:43 AM on November 2, 2022 [4 favorites]
Habbo Hotel Tried To Warn Us. I'll keep saying it.
posted by Tom Hanks Cannot Be Trusted at 3:43 AM on November 2, 2022 [4 favorites]
Maybe too soon to say, but I think Amazon and Google have been pretty successful with the 'stabilize their legacy businesses and build new lines of business' model, and I could argue that this is what Apple is trying to do too.
Amazon's an interesting case, because in revenue terms, their core business definitely doesn't seem to be showing any signs of a terminal decline, but it's also never been wildly profitable. In fact, there are lots of recent quarterly reports where if you add up all of Amazon's retail, subscription and advertising businesses, you end up with a net operating loss for the whole thing. What is wildly profitable is Amazon Web Services, their business that amounts to renting out their server space and operations expertise to run about a third of the web.
In fact, I think one of the common characteristics of how companies avoid this cycle is their ability to build themselves into the infrastructure of the web, rather than trying to wall off and claim a section of it. Google also makes big profits selling ads, but they mostly do it to people on the way to find other things (i.e. search) or on web sites that they don't control at all (AdSense) with their own walled garden (YouTube) being a distant third in terms of revenue.
Which, again, shows that the metaverse bet makes a lot of sense in a structural way. If "The Metaverse" (whatever that actually means) is going to be an integral part of how people use the internet in the future, then being in on the ground floor give Meta the company a good chance of building the sort of evergreen business that those other tech giants enjoy. The problem, of course, remains the fact that it's not at all clear that there's really anything to convince the masses to build the Metaverse into their daily lives (the way they do Apple devices and Google Search) or convince businesses to build it into their daily operations (the way they do with Google AdSense or Amazon Web Services).
posted by firechicago at 6:10 AM on November 2, 2022 [4 favorites]
Amazon's an interesting case, because in revenue terms, their core business definitely doesn't seem to be showing any signs of a terminal decline, but it's also never been wildly profitable. In fact, there are lots of recent quarterly reports where if you add up all of Amazon's retail, subscription and advertising businesses, you end up with a net operating loss for the whole thing. What is wildly profitable is Amazon Web Services, their business that amounts to renting out their server space and operations expertise to run about a third of the web.
In fact, I think one of the common characteristics of how companies avoid this cycle is their ability to build themselves into the infrastructure of the web, rather than trying to wall off and claim a section of it. Google also makes big profits selling ads, but they mostly do it to people on the way to find other things (i.e. search) or on web sites that they don't control at all (AdSense) with their own walled garden (YouTube) being a distant third in terms of revenue.
Which, again, shows that the metaverse bet makes a lot of sense in a structural way. If "The Metaverse" (whatever that actually means) is going to be an integral part of how people use the internet in the future, then being in on the ground floor give Meta the company a good chance of building the sort of evergreen business that those other tech giants enjoy. The problem, of course, remains the fact that it's not at all clear that there's really anything to convince the masses to build the Metaverse into their daily lives (the way they do Apple devices and Google Search) or convince businesses to build it into their daily operations (the way they do with Google AdSense or Amazon Web Services).
posted by firechicago at 6:10 AM on November 2, 2022 [4 favorites]
I'm a little late to this thread, but some of the comments up above speaking to facbook tracking you by having your contact information placed in their systesm by other folk's contact record of you can be removed (I trust this about as far as I can throw it?), the tool is not widely published, but you can de-list your number and email address with this tool.
I'm sure there are plenty of other ways they can track you, but this may help.
posted by furnace.heart at 6:17 AM on November 2, 2022 [7 favorites]
I'm sure there are plenty of other ways they can track you, but this may help.
posted by furnace.heart at 6:17 AM on November 2, 2022 [7 favorites]
<h2 class="h3">
This is super special and I will treasure it.
posted by Artw at 7:55 AM on November 2, 2022 [8 favorites]
This is super special and I will treasure it.
posted by Artw at 7:55 AM on November 2, 2022 [8 favorites]
the tool is not widely published, but you can de-list your number and email address with this tool
Seems sketchy. I tried it out and was able to remove my phone number from Instagram. Tried again for Facebook, as well as to remove my email, but received error messages asking to "try again later". Ugh.
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 7:55 AM on November 2, 2022
Seems sketchy. I tried it out and was able to remove my phone number from Instagram. Tried again for Facebook, as well as to remove my email, but received error messages asking to "try again later". Ugh.
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 7:55 AM on November 2, 2022
I remember when the posts always started with "$name is"... and I would include funny little answers to the prompt. It wasn't posting just anything. It was saying what you were doing (true or false) at that time. And I basically just did that even after posts became more generic. Then it got flooded with everyone and I'd hide things my family wouldn't wanna see so it became a matter of adjusting each post's privacy settings. Then it turned into nothing but pictures of my cousins' children and my actual friends showed up less and less. My mom, who is a Facebook addict, at times became the only person I would see. She'd post 30 times a day. It just didn't let me connect with my friends anymore. I didn't mind the site but the site showed me nothing I wanted. They did this to themselves. Zuck fucked it up.
posted by downtohisturtles at 10:00 AM on November 2, 2022 [3 favorites]
posted by downtohisturtles at 10:00 AM on November 2, 2022 [3 favorites]
Linux on the Desktop . . . possibly the year of the Depend Adult Undergarment; I'm not sure which dystopian hellscape we're living in.
Tux depends.
posted by aspersioncast at 10:18 AM on November 2, 2022 [2 favorites]
Tux depends.
posted by aspersioncast at 10:18 AM on November 2, 2022 [2 favorites]
I think the actual ur-Metaverse was found on the predecessor to AOL: Quantumlink.
They created a virtual environment called "Club Caribe" that was able to run on a Commodore 64 over a 300 baud connection.
Because you could buy new features in a vending machine (such as a new head), "heads" were removable. Like, you could pull your own head off and exchange it for another one. You could also pull your own head off and drop it. And other people could take it. Down into a series of dark tunnels under the club. Where they could leave it.
If the Metaverse doesn't have removable heads, it is a failure.
posted by mph at 10:43 AM on November 2, 2022 [13 favorites]
They created a virtual environment called "Club Caribe" that was able to run on a Commodore 64 over a 300 baud connection.
Because you could buy new features in a vending machine (such as a new head), "heads" were removable. Like, you could pull your own head off and exchange it for another one. You could also pull your own head off and drop it. And other people could take it. Down into a series of dark tunnels under the club. Where they could leave it.
If the Metaverse doesn't have removable heads, it is a failure.
posted by mph at 10:43 AM on November 2, 2022 [13 favorites]
If I visit Fb or any site, I do not want my hardware/OS(iphone) or software(browser) to interject itself into that interaction. I use Fb a lot and never buy stuff from ads, but still.
posted by theora55 at 11:23 AM on November 2, 2022
posted by theora55 at 11:23 AM on November 2, 2022
mph, I was volunteer staff at Club Caribe's successor WorldsAway. (I think I mentioned WA above?) You might want to check out Reno Project, which is trying to document and persevere information regarding those Habitat-style worlds.
posted by JHarris at 5:39 PM on November 2, 2022 [3 favorites]
posted by JHarris at 5:39 PM on November 2, 2022 [3 favorites]
Thanks, Tom Hanks Can't Be Trusted for that very insightful view into FB's tech advantage in those early days.
For the sake of completeness, I should also mention that I've spoken in the past (pre-2012 but post-death of MySpace) with two different FB people (both middle managers, not executives) where the topic of why FB beat MySpace came up. In both cases, the person mentioned that since FB enforced real names while MySpace didn't, the connections people established on FB were more real and hence more valuable and enjoyable. I'm pretty sure I've also heard this same thing in an interview with either Zuck or some other C-suite exec from FB. So, I suppose that must have been the internal party line and/or conventional wisdom. I also remember bringing up my seed population theory to at least one of my interlocutors but I don't think they were at all receptive.
posted by mhum at 5:52 PM on November 2, 2022 [1 favorite]
For the sake of completeness, I should also mention that I've spoken in the past (pre-2012 but post-death of MySpace) with two different FB people (both middle managers, not executives) where the topic of why FB beat MySpace came up. In both cases, the person mentioned that since FB enforced real names while MySpace didn't, the connections people established on FB were more real and hence more valuable and enjoyable. I'm pretty sure I've also heard this same thing in an interview with either Zuck or some other C-suite exec from FB. So, I suppose that must have been the internal party line and/or conventional wisdom. I also remember bringing up my seed population theory to at least one of my interlocutors but I don't think they were at all receptive.
posted by mhum at 5:52 PM on November 2, 2022 [1 favorite]
JHarris, that is amazing. I remember reading about Habitat and wanting to try it so badly, and being so excited when Club Caribe came along as a consolation prize even though I hated the theme and was wildly frustrated after dropping my head. I don't think I've ever talked to anyone else who remembered it in any form.
posted by mph at 10:03 PM on November 2, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by mph at 10:03 PM on November 2, 2022 [1 favorite]
the topic of why FB beat MySpace came up. In both cases, the person mentioned that since FB enforced real names while MySpace didn't, the connections people established on FB were more real and hence more valuable and enjoyable
Pretty sure they were eating MySpace's lunch long before their real name policy (or before they started enforcing it and anyone outside the company knew about it, which in practice is the same thing).
Doing some reading about it now, I can't find anyone talking about when Facebook introduced it - maybe it was always policy? I swear someone around 2009/2010 was when it first became a meaningful thing, with a big wave of account bans and it being the start of enforcement of said policy? Am I just going mad?
posted by Dysk at 11:35 PM on November 2, 2022 [2 favorites]
Pretty sure they were eating MySpace's lunch long before their real name policy (or before they started enforcing it and anyone outside the company knew about it, which in practice is the same thing).
Doing some reading about it now, I can't find anyone talking about when Facebook introduced it - maybe it was always policy? I swear someone around 2009/2010 was when it first became a meaningful thing, with a big wave of account bans and it being the start of enforcement of said policy? Am I just going mad?
posted by Dysk at 11:35 PM on November 2, 2022 [2 favorites]
> Dysk: "Pretty sure they were eating MySpace's lunch long before their real name policy [...] Doing some reading about it now, I can't find anyone talking about when Facebook introduced it - maybe it was always policy? "
Yeah, it's a little ambiguous because FB has been somewhat variable/inconsistent in their enforcement of their policy. From what I recall, it was more or less the dominant social norm on FB to sign up with your real first and last name from the very beginning which was a notable departure from the more customary username-based systems. And from the beginning, I'm fairly certain they really wanted to enforce a one-account-per-person policy. So things like sockpuppet accounts, names that looked gamertags (e.g.: xXxXx~HuN73R~xXxXx), fake or parody accounts (e.g.: pretending to be the Philly Phanatic or a sentient can of baked beans), or even things as benign as accounts for your pets were frowned upon on FB.
FB's real name policy became headline news once they attempted to strictly enforce their policy over a population that was much larger (and probably more diverse) than what they encountered back before they broke out of their 4-year university containment bubble and ended up suspending a bunch of drag performers, trans people who wouldn't switch back to their deadnames, people from parts of the world with naming conventions significantly different than traditional Western conventions (e.g.: Indonesia), etc... But I think that was mainly a continuation and intensification of their pre-existing policy (and underlying philosophy) regarding what was considered appropriate on FB. Begrudgingly, I think I have to give FB a tiny amount of credit in that they did seem to have accepted at least some of the public critique from this period and seemed to have evolved their real name policy to something a little less draconian.
posted by mhum at 12:09 PM on November 3, 2022 [3 favorites]
Yeah, it's a little ambiguous because FB has been somewhat variable/inconsistent in their enforcement of their policy. From what I recall, it was more or less the dominant social norm on FB to sign up with your real first and last name from the very beginning which was a notable departure from the more customary username-based systems. And from the beginning, I'm fairly certain they really wanted to enforce a one-account-per-person policy. So things like sockpuppet accounts, names that looked gamertags (e.g.: xXxXx~HuN73R~xXxXx), fake or parody accounts (e.g.: pretending to be the Philly Phanatic or a sentient can of baked beans), or even things as benign as accounts for your pets were frowned upon on FB.
FB's real name policy became headline news once they attempted to strictly enforce their policy over a population that was much larger (and probably more diverse) than what they encountered back before they broke out of their 4-year university containment bubble and ended up suspending a bunch of drag performers, trans people who wouldn't switch back to their deadnames, people from parts of the world with naming conventions significantly different than traditional Western conventions (e.g.: Indonesia), etc... But I think that was mainly a continuation and intensification of their pre-existing policy (and underlying philosophy) regarding what was considered appropriate on FB. Begrudgingly, I think I have to give FB a tiny amount of credit in that they did seem to have accepted at least some of the public critique from this period and seemed to have evolved their real name policy to something a little less draconian.
posted by mhum at 12:09 PM on November 3, 2022 [3 favorites]
Fantastic thread.
What I loathe about fb is probably stupid & unimportant.
But when in a gathering of friends in real life, someone might say "actually, I had a really hard time when my mother-in-law died falling off a cliff" - or a similar scenario - and someone else says "oh yes, I saw you mentioned that on fb" - that ends that conversation for everyone else.
As if real life conversations are but an index to stuff on facebook.
posted by Jody Tresidder at 12:45 PM on November 3, 2022 [5 favorites]
What I loathe about fb is probably stupid & unimportant.
But when in a gathering of friends in real life, someone might say "actually, I had a really hard time when my mother-in-law died falling off a cliff" - or a similar scenario - and someone else says "oh yes, I saw you mentioned that on fb" - that ends that conversation for everyone else.
As if real life conversations are but an index to stuff on facebook.
posted by Jody Tresidder at 12:45 PM on November 3, 2022 [5 favorites]
FB's real name policy became headline news once they attempted to strictly enforce their policy over a population that was much larger (and probably more diverse) than what they encountered back before they broke out of their 4-year university containment bubble
Ah, okay. Anecdotally, most everyone who I know who wound up with an issue (either clearly using a psuedonym, or a drag performer, or with a fictitious middle name) had been doing so for years without issue at that point, having been part of said containment bubble. I guess that's why I remember it as a new policy, because that's certainly how it felt in practice.
posted by Dysk at 1:13 PM on November 3, 2022 [2 favorites]
Ah, okay. Anecdotally, most everyone who I know who wound up with an issue (either clearly using a psuedonym, or a drag performer, or with a fictitious middle name) had been doing so for years without issue at that point, having been part of said containment bubble. I guess that's why I remember it as a new policy, because that's certainly how it felt in practice.
posted by Dysk at 1:13 PM on November 3, 2022 [2 favorites]
> Dysk: "I guess that's why I remember it as a new policy, because that's certainly how it felt in practice."
Indeed, this accords with my recollection as well (i.e.: relatively harmless but technically disallowed behavior that was largely given a pass earlier was being swept up in waves of later draconian crackdowns). In fact, rehashing this now makes me wonder if FB's zealous drive at that time to enforce their real name policy was in fact driven by a deeply-held (but likely mistaken) belief that this was a key part of their "secret sauce" that they couldn't afford to compromise on. I seem to recall that there may have also been some angst around increasing fake and/or deceptive profiles on FB around that time that may have also contributed to their unusual fanaticism.
posted by mhum at 2:30 PM on November 3, 2022
Indeed, this accords with my recollection as well (i.e.: relatively harmless but technically disallowed behavior that was largely given a pass earlier was being swept up in waves of later draconian crackdowns). In fact, rehashing this now makes me wonder if FB's zealous drive at that time to enforce their real name policy was in fact driven by a deeply-held (but likely mistaken) belief that this was a key part of their "secret sauce" that they couldn't afford to compromise on. I seem to recall that there may have also been some angst around increasing fake and/or deceptive profiles on FB around that time that may have also contributed to their unusual fanaticism.
posted by mhum at 2:30 PM on November 3, 2022
In fact, rehashing this now makes me wonder if FB's zealous drive at that time to enforce their real name policy was in fact driven by a deeply-held (but likely mistaken) belief that this was a key part of their "secret sauce" that they couldn't afford to compromise on.
Since we’re the product, stands to reason they would want accurate data profiles on us.
posted by jilloftrades at 11:59 AM on November 4, 2022 [2 favorites]
Since we’re the product, stands to reason they would want accurate data profiles on us.
posted by jilloftrades at 11:59 AM on November 4, 2022 [2 favorites]
> It genuinely makes me gleeful to see Meta tank, because I've been dreading the possibility that Facebook would figure out what exactly it was trying to make VR do. I'm still not counting them out, incidentally: that little pit of dread in me remembers 2006, and how many people were convinced there was no "there" there.
fwiw...
Meta Myths - "Meta, of course, is not standing still, either: SKAdNetwork 4 has seen Apple retreat from its most extreme positions with a new ad API that should help larger advertisers in particular; Meta is meanwhile working to move more conversions onto their own platform (which magically makes that data allowable as far as Apple is concerned, even though there is no meaningful difference for merchants beyond losing that much more control of their business)."
fwiw...
Meta Myths - "Meta, of course, is not standing still, either: SKAdNetwork 4 has seen Apple retreat from its most extreme positions with a new ad API that should help larger advertisers in particular; Meta is meanwhile working to move more conversions onto their own platform (which magically makes that data allowable as far as Apple is concerned, even though there is no meaningful difference for merchants beyond losing that much more control of their business)."
Meta’s capital expenditures are directly focused on both of the two main reasons for alarm: TikTok and ATT. That is because the answer to both challenges is more AI, and building up AI capacity requires a lot of capital investment...posted by kliuless at 4:16 AM on November 5, 2022 [2 favorites]
Meta has huge data centers, but those data centers are primarily about CPU compute, which is what is needed to power Meta’s services. CPU compute is also what was necessary to drive Meta’s deterministic ad model, and the algorithms it used to recommend content from your network.
The long-term solution to ATT, though, is to build probabilistic models that not only figure out who should be targeted (which, to be fair, Meta was already using machine learning for), but also understanding which ads converted and which didn’t. These probabilistic models will be built by massive fleets of GPUs, which, in the case of Nvidia’s A100 cards, cost in the five figures; that may have been too pricey in a world where deterministic ads worked better anyways, but Meta isn’t in that world any longer, and it would be foolish to not invest in better targeting and measurement.
Moreover, the same approach will be essential to Reels’ continued growth: it is massively more difficult to recommend content from across the entire network than only from your friends and family, particularly because Meta plans to recommend not just video but also media of all types, and intersperse it with content you care about. Here too AI models will be the key, and the equipment to build those models costs a lot of money... ATT hurt Meta more than any other company, because it already had by far the largest and most finely-tuned ad business, but in the long run it should deepen Meta’s moat... the Metaverse’s costs, which will exceed $10 billion this year and be even more next year, are, relative to Meta’s overall business and overall spending, fairly small.
"ATT" in that quote is Apple’s App Tracking Transparency, not American Telephone and Telegraph.
posted by achrise at 5:04 AM on November 5, 2022 [3 favorites]
posted by achrise at 5:04 AM on November 5, 2022 [3 favorites]
Late to the party, but I wanted to add this Vice article from earlier in the year which highlights just how ingrained FB's data collection problem is in regards to regulation.
“We’ve built systems with open borders. The result of these open systems and open culture is well described with an analogy: Imagine you hold a bottle of ink in your hand. This bottle of ink is a mixture of all kinds of user data (3PD, 1PD, SCD, Europe, etc.) You pour that ink into a lake of water (our open data systems; our open culture) … and it flows … everywhere,”
In the era of GDPR, this is a *huge* problem for them.
posted by Molesome at 8:54 AM on November 7, 2022 [2 favorites]
“We’ve built systems with open borders. The result of these open systems and open culture is well described with an analogy: Imagine you hold a bottle of ink in your hand. This bottle of ink is a mixture of all kinds of user data (3PD, 1PD, SCD, Europe, etc.) You pour that ink into a lake of water (our open data systems; our open culture) … and it flows … everywhere,”
In the era of GDPR, this is a *huge* problem for them.
posted by Molesome at 8:54 AM on November 7, 2022 [2 favorites]
Meta’s layoffs make it official: Facebook is ready to part ways with the news
posted by Artw at 8:00 AM on November 15, 2022
posted by Artw at 8:00 AM on November 15, 2022
Facebook fact-checkers will stop checking Trump after presidential bid announcement
posted by Artw at 10:23 PM on November 15, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by Artw at 10:23 PM on November 15, 2022 [1 favorite]
Facebook fact-checkers will stop checking Trump after presidential bid announcement
It will be hard for many people to decide whether they should believe Trump's lies on Facebook or Murdoch's lies on Fox News.
I wonder who will be the tie-breaker. Franklin Graham, maybe? Who do Evangelical preachers take their cues from nowadays?
posted by clawsoon at 8:29 AM on November 16, 2022
It will be hard for many people to decide whether they should believe Trump's lies on Facebook or Murdoch's lies on Fox News.
I wonder who will be the tie-breaker. Franklin Graham, maybe? Who do Evangelical preachers take their cues from nowadays?
posted by clawsoon at 8:29 AM on November 16, 2022
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posted by grobstein at 10:16 PM on October 31, 2022 [29 favorites]