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Facebook shares shoot up after strong Q4 earnings despite data breach

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Re: Facebook shares shoot up after strong Q4 earnings despite data breach

#121

Post by techslave »

rock_hard wrote: post #66
giancarlostoro wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its not that they dont care about privacy a number of people do as others have said their bedroom windows likely have curtains. They likely close their bathroom / bedroom doors for privacy. The issue is they either dont truly understand the technical implications or they have already been so invested into Facebook personally and with no alternative to migrate to in sight (they bought Intagram which could of been one)…

Starting from a point of view that people are dumb never lead to great results! But it’s of course a easy way to defend ones point of view :)

have you talked to an average person on the street? high schoolers aside (who don’t use fb?) yeah people are dumb

Re: Facebook shares shoot up after strong Q4 earnings despite data breach

#122

Post by chillacy »

felix_nagaand wrote: post #118
mevile wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fair enough, but it's up to each individual to learn about these details and then make a decision if they still want to use Facebook. The media is doing their job reporting on this, and everyone else can learn from this and decide that hey, maybe using Facebook products are not worth the harm. Or maybe they are fine with it and like the relevant ads and continue to use Facebook. If social media makes you unhappy just…

Just like how it's up to each individual to decide whether they want to be a heroin a addict.

If you attribute so little agency to people that becoming a heroin addict becomes someone else's responsibility (barring physical addiction in the womb or being shot up at gunpoint repeatedly) then there's little in this world that we can control anyways.

Re: Facebook shares shoot up after strong Q4 earnings despite data breach

#123

Post by jjeaff »

adventured wrote: post #83
ham_sandwich wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Always mind boggling to see those margins on that sort of volume. It’s no question FB is one of the greatest money-printing machines ever built. Where does the growth come next though? Do they need to diversify their revenue streams away from advertising? Do they just start paying out dividends or can they really reinvest earnings at a sufficient return to satisfy shareholders?

Facebook's forward growth is going to come from persistently leveraging the userbase with a continued, gradual slowdown in growth. They don't need to diversify their revenue stream, they're growing sales at 30% and are larger than Oracle. Their social monopoly is going to make it very difficult for them to do meaningful acquisitions freely (unless they're well outside social). They couldn't easily buy the next YouTub…

That's assuming that anyone considers "social media" a monopoly category. Are they a social media company, or an online ad company? Which would give them several legitimate competitors. Or maybe they are just an advertising company, which makes them a medium sized fish in an ocean of advertising companies.

Re: Facebook shares shoot up after strong Q4 earnings despite data breach

#124

Post by dkrich »

jseliger wrote: post #113
pavlov wrote: post #44

Facebook is a weird mass-market product because the average American tech industry pundit has very little visibility into how it’s actually used around the world. Take Facebook Watch. Ask a journalist or HN commenter, and they’ll tell you that it’s a content wasteland, a flop, a waste of investment. Here’s what Zuckerberg said about Watch on the earnings call: "There are now 400 million people who use it every month,…

In reality, it appears that there is a media scapegoating crisis, not an actual crisis, at or with Facebook: https://jakeseliger.com/2018/11/14/is-there-an-actual-facebo...

Wow, that’s the best take on this entire thing I’ve read. I’ve been saying much of this for months and I’m also not an active Facebook user.

The market’s had a hard time deciding what to make of all the “scandals” but the past few headlines have had less and less of an effect on the stock. The TC article that came out yesterday had absolutely zero effect which surprised me a little and the news that they might receive a record fine a week or two ago knocked the stock down for literally twelve minutes before it sprang back up (I was following it that day). I think the market is finally ready to move past all of this and focus on what moves Facebook is going to make going forward because it’s quite obvious users and advertisers don’t care about any of this.

I think there are two camps out to get Facebook for reasons that go beyond privacy- media outlets threatened by its existence and Twitter users who have amassed a large following and view it as an “us versus them” dynamic because they’ve come to rely on Twitter as a communication mechanism. To view Twitter as any better is completely illogical but media outlets are happy to choose favorites if it suits them.

Re: Facebook shares shoot up after strong Q4 earnings despite data breach

#125

Post by chillacy »

mbell wrote: post #38
chillacy wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, if it were that tangential, investors wouldn't be reporting it and using it to make buying / selling decisions.

I think you overestimate how deep investors dig. I did find this from a few years ago which contains a bunch of rather fuzzy language: https://www.adweek.com/digital/monthly-active-users-definiti... My interpretation of that would be that if, prior to that change, you logged to spotify with facebook and didn't uncheck the 'share' button you would have been counted, but after you would not have been. I do find it rath…

True, numbers can be gamed.

But at the end of the day there's one number that matters: people click ads and buy products -> companies buy ads and pay fees. And it's been going up steadily for the past decade.

If you strongly believe that you've found an inefficiency in the market please feel free to short FB.

Re: Facebook shares shoot up after strong Q4 earnings despite data breach

#126

Post by kurtisc »

pavlov wrote: post #44

Facebook is a weird mass-market product because the average American tech industry pundit has very little visibility into how it’s actually used around the world. Take Facebook Watch. Ask a journalist or HN commenter, and they’ll tell you that it’s a content wasteland, a flop, a waste of investment. Here’s what Zuckerberg said about Watch on the earnings call: "There are now 400 million people who use it every month,…

-Facebook is a closed system

-Anyone who feels strongly against Facebook will have stopped using it

If both of these are true, the typical person commenting about its evils will have a poor idea of how it's actually used. So someone telling me it's damaging my mental health because of social gratification - I haven't posted anything real-life in years - falls about as flat as someone saying Reddit is a website for sharing weight loss pictures.

There are important points to be made about Facebook but they're lost in the noise.

Re: Facebook shares shoot up after strong Q4 earnings despite data breach

#127

Post by seattle_spring »

nerdface wrote: post #53
Panini_Jones wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

.. Are you serious?

Do you not look at facts backed by data? The whole market is up as of today. Heck, read the news: https://www.wsj.com/articles/global-stocks-waver-ahead-of-th... The stock increase is not unique to Facebook today. ALL major tech stocks are up today.

> Heck, read the news

Will do!

https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/facebook-q4-...

Honest question: Why are you so extremely passionate about this?

Re: Facebook shares shoot up after strong Q4 earnings despite data breach

#128

Post by chillacy »

ProfessorLayton wrote: post #34

While a good quarter for FB despite all the scandals, reporters have pointed out that there's potentially a lot of lag between Ad spend and user growth: https://twitter.com/MikeIsaac/status/1090726978271903744

But then later in the thread:

https://twitter.com/EvanMcPhee/status/1090727957725818881

https://twitter.com/HenryInnis/status/1090730656009617408

Past success no guarantee of future returns of course.

Re: Facebook shares shoot up after strong Q4 earnings despite data breach

#129

Post by product50 »

m0zg wrote: post #60

I hope this will pierce the HN anti-FB bubble somewhat. It's dangerous to believe one's own BS. FB is here to stay, although I do believe it will wither in the long term (5+ years).

Thank you for calling this out.

The best way to think about Facebook is that it is a time filler. I don't know where I read it but an average FB session lasts around 75-90 seconds. People use it when they are in a line or when they are in an elevator. It is a great way to stay in touch with what your friends are doing or communicate with them. I find it very difficult to understand what is to hate about that. Sure there is data usage with which some people are upset but you can just go ahead and disable that in settings (assuming you are comfortable with less relevant ads).

Also, it is time to #undeleteFacebook. You know you are missing it!

Re: Facebook shares shoot up after strong Q4 earnings despite data breach

#130

Post by product50 »

el_benhameen wrote: post #86
m0zg wrote: post #60

I hope this will pierce the HN anti-FB bubble somewhat. It's dangerous to believe one's own BS. FB is here to stay, although I do believe it will wither in the long term (5+ years).

I think you can be anti-FB while still recognizing that it's a powerful force in the industry and the world. Hell, I'd say that many are anti-FB because it's too powerful a force in the industry and the world.

Well - are they anti Google or anti Amazon?
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