I keep hearing rumors she may be running to take over for Dianne Feinstein
She’s staying in the board so unlikely.
Sheryl Sandberg stepping down as Facebook COO
611–619 of 619 posts
Re: Sheryl Sandberg stepping down as Facebook COO
#612Earlier quoted context omitted.
I was recently taken aback by how much some of the online major destinations make per site load with ads. It is over $.04 USD. People visit hundreds of pages per day. What consumer will pay over $10 daily to access content that is free with ads?
Exactly. Nobody. Ads are here to stay. At best they may do less tracking in the future, but they remain. Another unpopular thought...in a fully online, digitized society, how are companies supposed to advertise their existence or their products if there's no ads? Not my problem, many would say. Well, it is your problem. Because you probably work at a company and they sell things.
It's more complex than is being presented.
Ads artificially increase the price of a product or service, because the cost of advertising is embedded in the price of what's sold; you're paying more money to be manipulated to buy something.
There are other externalized costs that aren't calculated, e.g. what's the cost to society on top of the "$10"/day?
What if ads also make us sicker, make poorer decisions, wasteful decisions - perhaps as simple as buying lower quality products because they have a higher profit margin and so it's the product you're exposed to, and then because we're sicker we spend more money on health?
There's not much conversation about all of this. I think the natural mechanisms of how information propagated via word of mouth before communications became what they are, how we are able to bypass those natural mechanisms, has some very negative impacts on society, e.g. buying products/services from people that didn't earn or deserve the attention, instead able to buy and manipulate you with cheap-shallow ads; what would the world look like today if this wasn't the case, what would your buying patterns be, what type of person would be amassing profits from the different buying patterns that would exist if there weren't ads, and what would the cascading consequences of that be?
Re: Sheryl Sandberg stepping down as Facebook COO
#613Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
Back when I had Facebook, I had a contact who posted quite a lot. Often quite interesting stuff so I would read it when his stuff appeared in my newsfeed. So Facebook just made his posts my... uh entire newsfeed. Like my newsfeed would just be 5-10 posts from this guy, some political bullshit and then another 5-10 posts from the same guy. Even if that were the stuff I was engaging with, surely it is obvious that I do…
Oh yeah you got the pornhub experience. “You liked one thing so this must be your kink and you must have no other interests.”
Re: Sheryl Sandberg stepping down as Facebook COO
#614Earlier quoted context omitted.
Their anecdote is worth a lot more. Most people under 50 that any one knows don’t use almost every thing. It likely isn’t true that no one is using it around you. I’ve had a friend say that before when I know mutual friends who use it. There’s too many different things so most things won’t be used among any ones anecdotes. For something to be used in different anecdotes is a pretty big deal. Are you using FB and IG a…
All anecdotes are pointless. You can't extrapolate your opinion to the behaviours of a billion plus people.
If a random person has all their friends using any of my web apps, that’s huge. In most cases anecdotes are not worth much. Not in all cases. Not all anecdotes are specifically about billion plus people. Anecdotes were never needed for this convo any way. We have Meta’s data on the usage of their apps and their revenue.
Re: Sheryl Sandberg stepping down as Facebook COO
#615Earlier quoted context omitted.
I feel that you need to actually try out the Quest 2 before you pan it.
If they let me use it offline without an account I would be tempted. I have no desire to have hardware that only works when connected to the internet via an account.
To my knowledge, Nintendos are the only mainstream device or platform that allows that for well over a decade now. Everything else requires an account and internet access. If you want multiplayer, then no mainstream gaming device or platform will fit your needs.
Re: Sheryl Sandberg stepping down as Facebook COO
#616Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Each of these: Markeplace, Forums, Messenger are non sticky and with countless alternatives True, but they are harder to maintain because of the spam. Facebook has more data on genuine users than a bank and it’s easy for them to block low quality or fraud posts. That’s the true value of Facebook - they know more about of your life than you do.
> they know more about of your life than you do. Not so sure that they do. If they knew so much about me why is it that I dislike most that they show me? Perhaps - and that is now the most worrisome thought - that crap is the "best" they can show and everything else is much worse. Now that does not bode well for FB's future. Or Meta's, whatever, even their brand feels a lot dumber now.
> If they knew so much about me why is it that I dislike most that they show me?
If you engage with it, they'll keep showing it to you. Their goal is not to make you happy, it's to keep you engaged so there is an audience for their ads.
In fact, this is why the outrage engine everywhere on social media. People who are upset are going to need an outlet to blow off that steam.
Re: Sheryl Sandberg stepping down as Facebook COO
#617This* from today was marked a dupe but it has new reporting with the likely causes instead of the PR:
>More recently, there was a fresh irritation: Earlier this year, The Wall Street Journal contacted Meta about two incidents from several years ago in which Ms. Sandberg, the chief operating officer, pressed a U.K. tabloid to shelve an article about her former boyfriend, Activision Blizzard Inc. Chief Executive Bobby Kotick, and a 2014 temporary restraining order against him.
>The episode dovetailed with a company investigation into Ms. Sandberg’s activities, which hasn’t been previously reported, including a review of her use of corporate resources to help plan her coming wedding to Tom Bernthal, a consultant, the people said. The couple has been engaged since 2020.
>As of May, that review was continuing, the people said.
* https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31611219
https://www.wsj.com/articles/why-sheryl-sandberg-quit-facebo...
Re: Sheryl Sandberg stepping down as Facebook COO
#618I 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…
On the other hand, no one expected that mediocre "show your domain" centralized networking platform with pictures and commenting will attract three billion people, but here we are.
Re: Sheryl Sandberg stepping down as Facebook COO
#619Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'll listen. I'm struggling to imagine how an empathetic person can be totally amoral and an ethical void. Hearing Zuck pontificate about freedom of speech made me kick a puppy.
Listen to him talk about his daughters.
Thanks. I wouldn't have bothered had you not made the suggestion.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5zOHSysMmH0
I've updated by opinion (judgement) of Zuckerberg.
Previously, I believe he's a moral cripple, quite skilled at discombobulation. Like giving long-winded non-answers to critical question to thwart deeper inquiry.
Now I think he's primarily a philosophical cripple, incapable of deep introspection. From this interview, Zuck was unable (or unwilling) to rise to Lex's challenge to steelman the arguments made in The Social Dilemma. That's just sad.
You're probably right that Zuck does not completely lack empathy. I now think it's more that he's just oblivious. Painfully, willfully, happily oblivious.
This is closer to Kara Swisher's position, which I hadn't really given much weight. (She knows all these unicorn neurodivergent wunderkind personally.) Like when talking about freedom of speech, Zuck blathers Just So platitudes, completely divorced from humanity's entire history wrestling with these kinds of problems. No nuance. No acknowlegement of paradox. No calculus for balancing mutually exclusive outcomes.
This interview does reinforce my view that having someones like Zuck, Dorsey, and others in full control over medias central to our culture and discourse is like giving flamethrowers to a bunch of young boys going thru their firebug stage.
At least Zuck's not (apparently) purposefully malicious, trying to burn down the whole world, like Murdoch. If intentions matter more than outcomes.