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Google could have killed Facebook with the flick of a switch

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Re: Google could have killed Facebook with the flick of a switch

#11

Post by arthurcolle »

dvfjsdhgfv wrote: post #6
arthurcolle wrote: post #2

That so many smart and talented people choose to work on AdTech or systems that support AdTech is such a shame. That being said, I love these little anecdotes, they are super fun to read.

There are so many aspects of adtech that are ethically neutral. Just as advertising itself - there are even ads created by great creators that are works of modern art. It's only when it's abused adtech becomes evil.

Wow, I bet I'll miss out on so much important culture by not getting visual pollution all over the place unless its regulated out of existence.

No thanks, I'll continue to block it everywhere that I can, and even going further and inspecting elements to get rid of obnoxious paywalls as well! Wow, am I a hypocrite? Maybe develop real, sustainable revenue models that aren't dependent on clickbait and being a lobbyist for corporations in the form of selling eyeballs to the highest bidder. Just yuck. I'll be inclined to buy into $WHATEVER if you just let me use it for a bit, if I find it of my own means. I promise you I'm not going to buy a Swatch because of your fucking banner ad. Seriously, I promise. If I just bought a book I promise you I'm not going to buy it again if I see it appear in my side banner. 100%.

Or maybe I'll just grow less dependent on external services every time I have to consider another subscription... wow! We'll see!

Re: Google could have killed Facebook with the flick of a switch

#13

Post by croes »

dvfjsdhgfv wrote: post #6
arthurcolle wrote: post #2

That so many smart and talented people choose to work on AdTech or systems that support AdTech is such a shame. That being said, I love these little anecdotes, they are super fun to read.

There are so many aspects of adtech that are ethically neutral. Just as advertising itself - there are even ads created by great creators that are works of modern art. It's only when it's abused adtech becomes evil.

Have you checked the art vs bullshit ratio?

Re: Google could have killed Facebook with the flick of a switch

#14

Post by beefield »

dvfjsdhgfv wrote: post #6
arthurcolle wrote: post #2

That so many smart and talented people choose to work on AdTech or systems that support AdTech is such a shame. That being said, I love these little anecdotes, they are super fun to read.

There are so many aspects of adtech that are ethically neutral. Just as advertising itself - there are even ads created by great creators that are works of modern art. It's only when it's abused adtech becomes evil.

It may be "many" but it does not mean that the defining nature of advertising is ethically neutral. I think I just quote Banksy/Tejaratchi:

"People are taking the piss out of you everyday. They butt into your life, take a cheap shot at you and then disappear. They leer at you from tall buildings and make you feel small. They make flippant comments from buses that imply you're not sexy enough and that all the fun is happening somewhere else. They are on TV making your girlfriend feel inadequate. They have access to the most sophisticated technology the world has ever seen and they bully you with it. They are The Advertisers and they are laughing at you.

You, however, are forbidden to touch them. Trademarks, intellectual property rights and copyright law mean advertisers can say what they like wherever they like with total impunity.

Fuck that. Any advert in a public space that gives you no choice whether you see it or not is yours. It's yours to take, re-arrange and re-use. You can do whatever you like with it. Asking for permission is like asking to keep a rock someone just threw at your head.

You owe the companies nothing. Less than nothing, you especially don't owe them any courtesy. They owe you. They have re-arranged the world to put themselves in front of you. They never asked for your permission, don't even start asking for theirs."

Edit: Credits also to Tejaratchi

Re: Google could have killed Facebook with the flick of a switch

#15

Post by disgruntledphd2 »

simonh wrote: post #10
Osiris wrote: post #7

If the product was responsible for 25% of the company revenue, why was only half of one engineer assigned to it? And after the vulnerability was discovered, they still only had 5 people assigned to it while it increased in importance to 50% of revenue?

I've seen this sort of thing happen many times. What usually happens is the original team that built it leave the company or move on to other teams, and the one engineer left actually has a different job as well now but is stuck supporting it part time as a favour. It's not that you couldn't assign other engineers to help support it, but they wouldn't have any idea how to do so because there's probably no documentati…

It was because Facebook practiced open allocation for engineers at the time.

Essentially, you had a choice of teams and the manager would need to convince the engineer to work on the project.

At the time, ads was not a high status part of FB engineering, and as such, it was very difficult to get people to work on ads products.

Re: Google could have killed Facebook with the flick of a switch

#16

Post by disgruntledphd2 »

closetnerd wrote: post #12

Quick note: it's an unfortunate fact of life that some engineers make a career of exaggerating things.

This is not that, though.

I heard this story from people involved at the time, and it's not exaggerated in any way, shape or form.

Re: Google could have killed Facebook with the flick of a switch

#17

Post by arthurcolle »

beefield wrote: post #14
dvfjsdhgfv wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are so many aspects of adtech that are ethically neutral. Just as advertising itself - there are even ads created by great creators that are works of modern art. It's only when it's abused adtech becomes evil.

It may be "many" but it does not mean that the defining nature of advertising is ethically neutral. I think I just quote Banksy/Tejaratchi: "People are taking the piss out of you everyday. They butt into your life, take a cheap shot at you and then disappear. They leer at you from tall buildings and make you feel small. They make flippant comments from buses that imply you're not sexy enough and that all the fun is h…

This is such a great quote. I've checked out a couple books on Banksy but haven't ever run into it before. Thanks so much for sharing!

Re: Google could have killed Facebook with the flick of a switch

#18

Post by arthurcolle »

croes wrote: post #13
dvfjsdhgfv wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are so many aspects of adtech that are ethically neutral. Just as advertising itself - there are even ads created by great creators that are works of modern art. It's only when it's abused adtech becomes evil.

Have you checked the art vs bullshit ratio?

That probably costs extra

Re: Google could have killed Facebook with the flick of a switch

#19

Post by acd10j »

Facebook's real moat is it's massive user base not it's ad revenue, even losing 25% of it's revenue would not have effected or killed Facebook, Only building better viral social network could have killed it. Ad revenue is just a side effect of this massive moat. Just like Google can survive a temporary year or 2 of 25% drop in revenue if their search dominance continues or increases but not opposite.

Re: Google could have killed Facebook with the flick of a switch

#20

Post by CodesInChaos »

Couldn't they have compiled sqlite to javascript using emscripten as a websql replacement?

sql.js seems to have been started in 2012, and even if it might not have been production ready at the time, I'd expect facebook to be able to pull off such a project by themselves.

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