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Facebook Declared War on Apple, and It Just May Signal the End of Facebook

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141–150 of 195 posts

Re: Facebook Declared War on Apple, and It Just May Signal the End of Facebook

#141
post #4

The idea of doing a public campaign over this is so myopic that I cannot fathom the thinking about it. Who’s going to rally for Facebook? Did they really expected Apple to change this? The ad should scare investors much more than Apple’s move.

They can’t hire people with good ideas anymore because as we know money isn’t a great motivator (and besides, there are more ethical companies within 10 miles paying as much or more than Facebook). They can’t hire good people anymore because their mission is naive and their reputation precedes them.

> They can’t hire people with good ideas anymore because as we know money isn’t a great motivator

I know tens of people from my past who currently work in Facebook. When I knew then, they were all decent people with long careers in the tech industry. Yet, they chose to work for FB.

A fresh grad son of my ex-Boss is starting his career with FB.

Unfortunately FB's brand is not as tainted, yet, as it should be or as some of us in the HN echo-chamber like to believe.

Re: Facebook Declared War on Apple, and It Just May Signal the End of Facebook

#142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The market can stay irrational longer than you can stay solvent.

Isn't that a market failure then? If the founder and CEO of the company says the company is over-valued, there should be someone in a position to capitalize on that information.

Sure, but then so is pretty much every aspect of the stock market, IMHO. It's a tool with all sorts of terrible flaws when it comes to capital allocation. A single company being overvalued without a safe way to bet against mass delusion of the public isn't that large of a flaw compared to the systematic over valuations and under valuations, IMHO.

This isn't to say that it's not without its uses, but we should be aware that it has huge problems even if we don't know of a way to fix them yet.

Re: Facebook Declared War on Apple, and It Just May Signal the End of Facebook

#143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I've asked five (5!) times to be taken off their list and added to a blacklist for candidates and I still get emails, calls, and LinkedIn messages. This is like complaining to the person who called you about your vehicle warranty or any other spam auto-dialer. Recruiting is a numbers game so sending you an email with thousands of others requires no effort on their part.

Putting my # and email address on a blacklist in their CRM shouldn't be too difficult for a company with resources such as FB. If two-bit recruiting agencies can do it in the middle-of-nowhere Iowa then FB can do it. Sorry, not changing my opinion here.

If the facts are as you said, that you've repeatedly told them to stop calling you, it may be worth talking to a TCPA Lawyer.

Re: Facebook Declared War on Apple, and It Just May Signal the End of Facebook

#144
post #4

The idea of doing a public campaign over this is so myopic that I cannot fathom the thinking about it. Who’s going to rally for Facebook? Did they really expected Apple to change this? The ad should scare investors much more than Apple’s move.

I'm fascinated by the decision too. But I'm guessing it isn't driven by stupidity. This campaign seems very unlikely it will change public opinion or make Apple change their position. Perhaps the campaign helps to build a position in terms anti-trust legal proceedings? As the least vertically integrated of the big tech companies, it helps build a case that they are the victim, not the perpetrator - Apple is using its…

But I don’t see them having a decent argument. Apple will (rightfully) say this gives their customers (who pay $$$ to get on their platform) a choice. They’ll also argue that “opt-in” is the right way to go for this kind of choice.

Facebook’s argument is “but it isn’t in our customer’s interests”, and they may add “if Apple adds such a feature, it should be opt-out”.

That first argument doesn’t have any value. Why would any third party have to accommodate Facebook’s advertising business? The second one is extremely weak, as ‘the world’ is moving towards, or already arrived at “opt-in is the only good choice”.

They also publicly stated that Apple’s opt-in doesn’t apply to Apple’s own adverts. _If_ that’s correct, they have a good point, but I think that’s a very, very big _if_.

Re: Facebook Declared War on Apple, and It Just May Signal the End of Facebook

#145
post #4

The idea of doing a public campaign over this is so myopic that I cannot fathom the thinking about it. Who’s going to rally for Facebook? Did they really expected Apple to change this? The ad should scare investors much more than Apple’s move.

They can’t hire people with good ideas anymore because as we know money isn’t a great motivator (and besides, there are more ethical companies within 10 miles paying as much or more than Facebook). They can’t hire good people anymore because their mission is naive and their reputation precedes them.

When their internal memo about "connecting people" was leaked to the public, some FB employees wanted to actively select for loyalty in their hiring process:

> Leakers, please resign instead of sabotaging the company

> How fucking terrible that some irresponsible jerk decided he or she had some god complex that jeopardizes our inner culture and something that makes Facebook great?

> Although we all subconsciously look for signal on integrity in interviews, should we consider whether this needs to be formalized in the interview process?

> This is so disappointing, wonder if there is a way to hire for integrity. We are probably focusing on the intelligence part and getting smart people here who lack a moral compass and loyalty.

https://www.theverge.com/2018/3/30/17179100/facebook-memo-le...

Re: Facebook Declared War on Apple, and It Just May Signal the End of Facebook

#146
post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Working for Facebook doesn't have quit the social capital it used to. Besides there's a such thing as enjoying my and believing the work you do is valuable. If ultimately you can only trave your effort back to ad clicks, that's not very enticing.

A person would have to drink an awful lot of kool aid to think their work at Facebook is valuable to anyone but the Facebook shareholders.

Hey if your work on OSS infrastructure, it's not really that bad.

Re: Facebook Declared War on Apple, and It Just May Signal the End of Facebook

#147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is it not feasible to short Tesla?

The market can stay irrational longer than you can stay solvent.

Also, long and short positions aren't symmetric, because there is no non-margin way to enter a short position. This makes the ability of the market to stay irrational more likely to go bite you in a short position than a long one, ceteris paribus.

Re: Facebook Declared War on Apple, and It Just May Signal the End of Facebook

#148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The market can stay irrational longer than you can stay solvent.

Isn't that a market failure then? If the founder and CEO of the company says the company is over-valued, there should be someone in a position to capitalize on that information.

> Isn't that a market failure then?

By definition, every non-ideal behavior of real markets is a “market failure”.

Real markets, as opposed to Econ 101 idealized ones, are full of market failures, both due to structures that Econ 101-level analysis ignores about basic market structures and human irrationality.

Re: Facebook Declared War on Apple, and It Just May Signal the End of Facebook

#149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anecdotal, but I’ve seen several folks get offers from FB and other big tech, and I’ve seen FB throw much more money at people. They also have better perks. I think they know they need to use money to overcome their reputation.

Sure, but it's still not enough. FB recruiters are super aggressive and I have zero qualms unloading on them for their BS behavior, every. time. I've asked five (5!) times to be taken off their list and added to a blacklist for candidates and I still get emails, calls, and LinkedIn messages. The first two "buzz-off" messages were polite, but now I'm just downright rude and respond with my actual opinion on their empl…

I gave up telling them they were wasting their time, and now my spam filter takes care of FB headhunter spam for me, as it should.

FTR, I do think that's a bit unfair. Judging other peoples' circumstances is a perilous pursuit.

But I will say FB is parasitic on and dangerous to society and is run by amoral shitbags, I don't believe anyone with a sense of ethics or self-respect should work there.

Re: Facebook Declared War on Apple, and It Just May Signal the End of Facebook

#150
post #115
post #4

The idea of doing a public campaign over this is so myopic that I cannot fathom the thinking about it. Who’s going to rally for Facebook? Did they really expected Apple to change this? The ad should scare investors much more than Apple’s move.

FB signaling is not targeted at you or me, Grandma, or most of the rest of the public. It is to show a credible commitment to Apple's other adversaries, in an attempt to rally enough power to take them down a peg and (more importantly) win some control over the Iphone platform.

Given the wording, I still don't see how this works. A more long term, indirect approach would probably work better.

If Facebook had a continuous, long term, PR campaign, where they reasonably established themselves as helping small businesses, and then they did this. I would get it.

But like this? In isolation, it feels more like a knee jerk reaction and not a thought out messaging campaign.

My guess is that the root cause is one of internal perception vs external perception. They see the threat and honestly believe they're in the right. That's how they rationalize it, but the rest of the world assumes more nefarious intent (which is also exaggerated, the truth is likely somewhere in the middle).

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