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Sheryl Sandberg stepping down as Facebook COO

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Re: Sheryl Sandberg stepping down as Facebook COO

#511

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> who wants to be on a marketplace or messaging app that doesn't have the most people? But it doesn't have the most people. I have long lost that sense that FB is where everyone is. That feels so 2016 > Apple realized this with iMessage In general iMessage is not a good example because it a product that leverages the unique position of Apple owning the hardware. No other company can play the same game. Apple don't wa…

Your anecdote is noted, and I have a similar experience with regard to Facebook usage in my circle. That doesn’t change the fact that Facebook has more users than any other platform in the world. I think you misunderstand my point about iMessage. Apple users have a very good reason to use different chat apps. Most people probably text non iPhones every once in a while. Yet every iPhone user I know refuses to download…

This is only true in the US though. Everywhere else in the world iMessage is a dead product, because Apple doesn’t have the market share to push it. If Apple’s market share in the US ever drops significantly then iMessage will promptly die there too.

Re: Sheryl Sandberg stepping down as Facebook COO

#512
post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Disclosure: I worked at WhatsApp, part of Facebook, until the end of 2019. If you think the name change means they're focusing on the metaverse, that's just convenient. The fact is, Facebook is a toxic brand and Meta is just a silly looking brand. Post name change, they can do acquisitions and brand them as X by Meta without associating to the toxic brand. (Plus, maybe they can get the Mennen ad team to add 'by Meta'…

Reality: the name change doesn’t hide anything. Neat to think they believe it does.

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Re: Sheryl Sandberg stepping down as Facebook COO

#513
post #25

I increasingly believe that Facebook’s pivot to Meta will end up going down as one of the biggest misses in the history of business. The metaverse is a real idea yes - but strapping a phone to your face and walking through your coffee table isn’t it. Especially not with a mediocre centralized FB owned “virtual world” where they inflict heavy taxes and content moderation. Facebook has neglected its core businesses for…

It seems like a concept like "the metaverse" will become necessary at some point as a kind of abstraction layer for communication via future technologies such as Neuralink. The comments I have seen from Zuckerberg on the topic of the metaverse, however, do not suggest that they are conceiving of it at this level of generality, instead focusing on extant video-game related concepts (VR, DLC purchases, etc.). Apple's work in this area (as rumored) also reflects the same limited vision of the concept.

Re: Sheryl Sandberg stepping down as Facebook COO

#514

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is the cashier's check fake? What happens if you meet them at the listed bank and ask them to convert it to cash right there?

Why would any reputable person be dealing with a cashier’s cheque in this century?

Earlier in this century they were often required when signing an apartment lease in the NYC metro area.

Re: Sheryl Sandberg stepping down as Facebook COO

#515
post #313

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve worked directly for Mark and closely with Sheryl for nearly 14 years and this is very accurate.

I gotta say, seeing the Meta CTO / Senior Fellow pop up on HN is an unexpected treat! (Oddly, a relative and an ex-boss of mine both worked with you at CenterRun back in the day. Silicon Valley is a small place indeed)

I've gotta say... Changing the name of everything to Meta to try to change the perception was a bit absurd. Just stop requiring Facebook accounts to use VR devices.

Re: Sheryl Sandberg stepping down as Facebook COO

#516

Earlier quoted context omitted.

have you considered that maybe facebook is giving you content based on other datapoints about you? Aside from the occasional scam ad, I mostly get animal videos from facebook.

They do this kind of profile targeting so aggressively it’s absurd. I also almost only get animal content and the occasional post from an ace group I joined, because I generally only post pics of my pup and peak at said group once in a while. Every so often I get lured into looking at something I find politically awful, and just instantly I get inundated with even more awful productized distillation of it. If I so mu…

It is astonishing. I generally enjoy Facebook and while there are ads and click bait a lot of my feed is just my friends talking nicely, but it's a strange subset of friends.

I tried clicking on a few profiles I hadn't seen in a while and a lot of them had nice posts too. I saw everything from them for about a month then it disappeared again.

I am very worried about what will become of all the very private stuff in their database as they begin to decay.

Right now I assume it would take very sophisticated effort to steal all that messenger data, but what about if/when Facebook is a zombie company with a skeleton crew or an unloved subsidiary of a conglomerate?

Re: Sheryl Sandberg stepping down as Facebook COO

#517
post #25

I increasingly believe that Facebook’s pivot to Meta will end up going down as one of the biggest misses in the history of business. The metaverse is a real idea yes - but strapping a phone to your face and walking through your coffee table isn’t it. Especially not with a mediocre centralized FB owned “virtual world” where they inflict heavy taxes and content moderation. Facebook has neglected its core businesses for…

I have a similar take.

I believe FB management saw the writing on the wall, multiple world governments were no longer going to allow them to sway elections/perception + kids never want to use what the 30/40 year olds use, it was a matter of time before FB became uncool.

Staring at this reality, instead of going down with the ship, the logical decision was to take their still enormous resources and pivot to the next big thing. Meta isnt it, and they probably know it, but its their best idea.

Im old enough where Ive seen HUGE things everyone on the Internet was using, die quickly; IRC(as the main internet chat), ICQ, MS Messenger, AOL, Napster, MySpace, Yahoo, Geocities.

Its FBs turn, IMO.

Re: Sheryl Sandberg stepping down as Facebook COO

#518
post #375

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Zuckerberg created a culture of copying rather than innovating, driving out all of the talented employees. The long-term consequences of that leave you with a banal organization incapable of shifting with the market.

Interesting then that the community has massively adopted React and PyTorch as defacto defaults for web dev and deep learning. How is it that these untalented lifer's left behind are doing these wildly crazy good technical things?

I suspect Reacts adoption is more along the lines of "nobody ever gets fired for buying IBM" than because it was genuinely novel. The space of JS frameworks was very well explored by the time React was created.

PyTorch is based on Caffe which was created by Yangqing Jia at UC Berkeley.

Re: Sheryl Sandberg stepping down as Facebook COO

#519
post #25

I increasingly believe that Facebook’s pivot to Meta will end up going down as one of the biggest misses in the history of business. The metaverse is a real idea yes - but strapping a phone to your face and walking through your coffee table isn’t it. Especially not with a mediocre centralized FB owned “virtual world” where they inflict heavy taxes and content moderation. Facebook has neglected its core businesses for…

The metaverse already exists, Im in an elevator in Hong Kong and you're prob in your toilets in Idaho. We speak in a language that I'm not native of (Im French) about subjects that barely concern France or China.

So, what more magic can we add to the internet? Bulky headsets you can only use home, 3D avatars with no more mood cues than a forum smiley ? Micropayment for vanity objects not worth more than my karma count on reddit ?

Facebook lost it when they started this nonsense.

Re: Sheryl Sandberg stepping down as Facebook COO

#520

Earlier quoted context omitted.

craigslist also has this problem, and it does seem pretty easily fixable, to my naive eyes: someone has said "your price is fair, my agent will be over to pick it up with a cashier's check" for every single thing I've sold on craigslist. I don't think filtering out scumbags like this is a terribly hard problem.

Is the cashier's check fake? What happens if you meet them at the listed bank and ask them to convert it to cash right there?

Yes, the cashier's check is fake. And they will never meet you at the originating bank. I've even had cashier's checks mailed to me from my Craigslist ads. Called the originating banks and they verified over the phone that the checks were fake.

When I sell something on Craigslist, it's cash-only and they have to meet me at a public place and pick up the item in person. And I verify the bills are not counterfeit before I hand over the item.

This is what it's come to. Probably because the police can't be bothered with minor fraud nowadays, and the criminals know it.

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