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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

#91

Post by PeterisP »

kps wrote: post #83
supermatt wrote: post #4

TLDR: Facebook built the app responsible for their entire ad platform on a chrome-only tech (WebSQL), and when it was deprecated, instead of dropping in a widely-used polyfill, they decided to do a major 3yr rewrite risking 25% of their revenue in the process. I guess this is the stupid shit that being "too big to fail" permits.

Another option would have been to use a chromium build with WebSQL still in place.

They would have to get all their advertiser customers to use that custom chromium build, which would be possible but would not be good for their ad sales.

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

#92

Post by ska »

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?

> If the product was responsible for 25%

Being a (however necessary) part of the toolchain is importantly different than being responsible for the revenue. Such tools often fall under "it ain't broke, don't mess with it". Until they are broke, of course.

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

#93

Post by kokx »

fbelzile wrote: post #82

This is a good story, but Google can still literally kill any business that relies on the Play Store or Chrome Store with a flick of a switch today (like mine). No human even has to get involved. At any moment, some code running on a Google server can decide to flip a bit and disable access to an app or extension in their stores.

That's not entirely true. They can kill any small and medium business easily. Taking out larger competitors in such a way will likely invoke lots of unwanted antitrust attention. Over the entire world. But they can easily kill any small competitor.

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

#94

Post by esprehn »

This story is a fun read, but the "Chrome could ruin us at any moment" angle is more story telling hyperbole than reality.

At that time on Chrome we were just figuring out a process to remove features and were pretty conservative. We debated a lot about the right way to remove things without causing damage to the web ecosystem. In an early attempt we had failed trying to remove a legacy feature and needed to revert it. It had broken a big company who had then contacted Google directly about the business impact and it taught us a lesson about being careful.

IIRC WebSQL had very high usage and we didn't seriously considering removing it. It's also pretty self contained so the cost on the engine isn't that high.

Chrome still supports WebSQL today because the usage remains quite high at 1%: https://chromestatus.com/metrics/feature/popularity#V8SQLTra...

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

#95

Post by protomyth »

PeterisP wrote: post #91
kps wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Another option would have been to use a chromium build with WebSQL still in place.

They would have to get all their advertiser customers to use that custom chromium build, which would be possible but would not be good for their ad sales.

Given how long some of us had to hang on to Internet Explorer 6, I'm pretty sure the advertisers would have required their IT staff's to comply and install the "Facebook Browser".

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

#96

Post by _-___________-_ »

wwww4all wrote: post #85

I laugh whenever the tech futurists talk about AI, machine learning, automation, singularity coming in the near future. Most of the important software, that run Trillions of dollars in online economy, have dependencies in ancient tech. No one wants to work in that jumble, and updating has failed in one way or another. Google ACH and ask why it’s takes several days to transfer money from bank to bank.

> Google ACH and ask why it’s takes several days to transfer money from bank to bank.

Given that there’s approximately one country left in the world where that’s the case, I suspect the root cause is not a technical issue.

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

#97

Post by wwww4all »

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 more positives in Adtech than negatives.

Adtech allows people and businesses to find products and services they want and need. Gives consumers choice in discovery and businesses reach and targeting customers in need.

At fundamental level, Adtech is there to help people. That and the many business opportunities are why so many talented people work in Adtech.

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

#98

Post by joe_the_user »

gretch wrote: post #79
GuB-42 wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know how they are doing it but Google manage to fail at anything social. By that I mean communication platforms, social networks and instant messengers. They have promising starts but they fuck it up later. Their only successes I'd say are GMail and YouTube. I'd say for GMail, it is just an email client they started out excellent, thanks in part to its huge storage space and good search features. And they did…

disclosure: I work for google "People who understand human beings" and the have the ability to synthesize those insights into compelling technology products are exceedingly in demand in 2021. Rest assured, we hire as many as we possibly can and offer them a lot of money/benefits. However, they can pretty much get jobs anywhere and many choose to start their own venture. You seem to think it's quite easy though. Do yo…

Respectfully, the thing is, back when G+ came out, myself and many others pointed-out how Google's real name policy combined with Google merging all the existing Google accounts into G+ sank the effort - 'cause lots of people didn't want all their youtube or other data available to their friends and lots of others didn't want strong real name policy enforced - and Facebook had a real name policy that was and is only mildly enforced.

I don't think I'm a genius here since many others said similar things. Rather, the G+ action felt like corporate policy stepping on sensible thinking. Yeah, youtube, gmail and etc are hard to run, hard to alter and so they weren't going to change. But someone also felt they need to leverage all those desperate things - that just feels like what middle management does, not simply what people with not that much understanding do.

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

#99

Post by grecy »

esprehn wrote: post #94

This story is a fun read, but the "Chrome could ruin us at any moment" angle is more story telling hyperbole than reality. At that time on Chrome we were just figuring out a process to remove features and were pretty conservative. We debated a lot about the right way to remove things without causing damage to the web ecosystem. In an early attempt we had failed trying to remove a legacy feature and needed to revert i…

.. and even if Chrome had removed WebSQL back then, couldn't that have just kept using whatever version of Chrom e they were already using?

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

#100

Post by nosefrog »

grecy wrote: post #99
esprehn wrote: post #94

This story is a fun read, but the "Chrome could ruin us at any moment" angle is more story telling hyperbole than reality. At that time on Chrome we were just figuring out a process to remove features and were pretty conservative. We debated a lot about the right way to remove things without causing damage to the web ecosystem. In an early attempt we had failed trying to remove a legacy feature and needed to revert i…

.. and even if Chrome had removed WebSQL back then, couldn't that have just kept using whatever version of Chrom e they were already using?

My understanding is that clients would have to use an outdated version of Chrome, which is probably an untenable ask.
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