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After spending $57M on Facebook ads, I was kicked off

jordan-shared.medium.com

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Re: After spending $57M on Facebook ads, I was kicked off

#111
post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I stand by what I posted. I'm allowed to be authoritative as I want in my opinions and what I deem to be a personal analysis of what is a subjective issue. If you aren't in agreement with my assertions, you are free to click the down arrow to the left of the post.

That's not actually what the down arrow is for.

Citation please.

Re: After spending $57M on Facebook ads, I was kicked off

#112
post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Facebook is absolutely full to the brim with “crap content”. Crap content happens to be what drives engagement, so hosting crap content is a large part of Facebook’s business model. You’re speaking with a pretty authoritative tone there as though you’re absolutely sure that Facebook has had a change of heart and only wants to host quality content, and there’s no other reason why the pages were removed. Do you have so…

I would go so far as to say that "crap content" is Facebook's entire business model.

Hey now, my friends dogs and kids are very interesting! Or were when they used to go outside...

Re: After spending $57M on Facebook ads, I was kicked off

#113
post #75

To maybe help clarify, the author mentions 57M spent over 14 years. My guess is that this was more front loaded given FB dynamics, but evenly distributed that's 300k a month, which might barely qualify you for a small business representative. The size and scale of FB are such that unless you're well over 1M a month you are a small business.

It's 1/10000th of their global revenues. And 1/3000th of their US revenues. Assuming a Zipf distribution for their clients spending, it easily place them in the top 1000 biggest spenders. I wouldn't call it small.

If they were spending 57M a year that would be different and they would like likely have an enterprise level team. 57M over 14 years doesn't warrant that, and in particular, I'd expect that to have been primarily in the prime years for content on FB, 09-12.

Assuming an even distribution over 14 years, for FB today, spending 300k a month might warrant a rep but it's at the very bottom of tiered spend.

Re: After spending $57M on Facebook ads, I was kicked off

#114
> If given the chance, I would go to great lengths to adjust my business, to right whatever wrong Facebook believes I have committed. I would change my business model, and shift the direction of my business to ensure I am fully compliant with Facebook’s policies. I have done it many times before. I would like to do it again.

This is a reminder Facebook is too powerful.

Re: After spending $57M on Facebook ads, I was kicked off

#115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I stand by what I posted. I'm allowed to be authoritative as I want in my opinions and what I deem to be a personal analysis of what is a subjective issue. If you aren't in agreement with my assertions, you are free to click the down arrow to the left of the post.

Absolutely. I just mentally add “in my opinion” to everything I read and its liberating; I think way few people do it. More people should see the good wife.

People (myself included) read these comments like a debugger — “How can that be?! I triple checked my ‘brain base’... that’s wrong, must fix”

Re: After spending $57M on Facebook ads, I was kicked off

#116

> If given the chance, I would go to great lengths to adjust my business, to right whatever wrong Facebook believes I have committed. I would change my business model, and shift the direction of my business to ensure I am fully compliant with Facebook’s policies. I have done it many times before. I would like to do it again. This is a reminder Facebook is too powerful.

>e, I would go to great lengths to adjust my business, to right whatever wrong Facebook believes I have committed

Also a reminder not to base your business on a functionality of a monster.

Re: After spending $57M on Facebook ads, I was kicked off

#117

Let's be fair here. Shared.com is in the business of producing and distributing crap content. That's a subjective term, but it's like the supreme court ruling on pornography, you'll know it when you see it. These guys most likely "skirt the line" to just operate as a mediocre and crappy content distribution network, that at scale, makes a lot of money because there is a certain subset of the population that will eat…

I run a consulting company and if I decided to stop working for a client the right thing would be to give some explanation even if it's "We don't think your website meets our quality bar".

Almost 80% of the ads I see on Facebook are of similar quality. If they're trying to reduce low quality content on their platform, than they should just say that.

Re: After spending $57M on Facebook ads, I was kicked off

#118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with you. When the issue of Apple's anti-competitive behaviour comes up on HN, it is always rebuffed by saying Apple does not have a monopoly—its US share of smartphone market is merely 40%. This is demonstration that you don't need a 100% market share to act anti-competitively. Facebook and Google each have less than 30% market share in ad spend in the US.

The fact that 30% app store tax exists and both stores (App Store by Apple and Google Play Store) have somewhat similar strategies highly indicate collusion going on. Apple only changed it for people making under $1m a year after people got mad and they got sued by Epic Games or they knew Epic Games was coming for their asses. But they know that majority of their revenue comes from pubs making over $1m a year which t…

Even if Apple shouldn't be subject to an anti-trust suit, I think the whole industry should be regulated to counter how Apple goes about it's business - if Google could get away with acting like Apple does to it's customers they probably would, Microsoft would also love to but they've been bitten before.

Basic legislation guaranteeing certain freedoms for the consumers costs Apple and Google et al. nothing but massively empowers consumers in a sector where information about the products is largely controlled by the creators of said products.

This also prevents products becoming e-waste when the company is done supporting them.

Re: After spending $57M on Facebook ads, I was kicked off

#119

Let's be fair here. Shared.com is in the business of producing and distributing crap content. That's a subjective term, but it's like the supreme court ruling on pornography, you'll know it when you see it. These guys most likely "skirt the line" to just operate as a mediocre and crappy content distribution network, that at scale, makes a lot of money because there is a certain subset of the population that will eat…

You answer gives me vibes of the recent spat of apologetic answers to the news of Apple banning the "Amphetamine" app in that you defend a behemoth banning something or someone on vague grounds - a discussion on this type of Stockholm syndrome can be found here [1]. My response on to how to handle the shenanigans of these corporate megaliths - by shunning them [2] - was voted down so I have to assume that this is not seen as a viable option either. Is the general opinion here really that we are to simply give in to the whims of these companies? The argument here is that shared.com distributes "mediocre and crappy content". If that is the bar by which companies are to be measured Facebook itself would never be able to meet it.

I sense a need for a new Ralph Nader, someone who has the clout to take on these companies and put them in their place. That place is not in the halls of power, it is not at the dining table of lawmakers, in the ear of regulators. Their place is on the market where they are to compete with other companies, where developers and users use their power of choice to keep them from attaining too much power as they currently clearly have.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25618066

[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25606807

Re: After spending $57M on Facebook ads, I was kicked off

#120
post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The ~$60million is over 15 years, so it's about $330k/month on average, which is still a very substantial amount of money, but at "Facebook scale" this is pocket money you find in the sofa; their revenue is about $5.8 billion a month . For Facebook, the effect is like refusing to serve a customer their coffee at a coffee shop. I suppose that's the real problem with these kind of issues; you see the same on e.g. YouTu…

$330k/month means that you could have multiple employees specifically and solely tasked with managing this one account. It is not a small amount by any means.

You could but isn't the whole thesis of the internet-business a la Google or Facebook that it's "automated"?
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