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Meta announces hiring freeze, warns employees of restructuring

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Re: Meta announces hiring freeze, warns employees of restructuring

#251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They want to change that by having people switching en masse to the Metaverse but I'm really not sure this is happening. The tech isn't even close to there yet. Current gen VR tech demos sparks the imagination, and it's definitely great for people that want to like it... But that's not even close to good enough for mass adoption. Their teased prototypes look like a solid upgrade, but it's still not going to be enou…

> centuries Centuries ? I haven't taken a close look at VR (though I'm flirting with buying a headset soon, just for kicks...) but I'd always assumed it was more like 10-25 years away. What are the hardware breakthroughs that you think would do it?

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Re: Meta announces hiring freeze, warns employees of restructuring

#252
post #14

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I doubt it. My guess is Google/Alphabet will do the same, as they have too high a proportion of people doing things that are neither basic research or contributing to revenue in any way. You can see how that can happen when you have an unconstrained gusher of money. There's effectively zero feedback. However given the weakness of their management (see: gusher of money + lack of focus) it's unlikely that the cuts will…

Netflix looks shaky as hell. They need a huge bet, like Rings of Power or House of Dragons. The entire programming looks so completely awful cookie cutter at the moment.

They are trying to make a play for games. Seems like a market even more risky than films, but whatever.

Re: Meta announces hiring freeze, warns employees of restructuring

#253
post #244
post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

iOS privacy has killed facebook advertisements. Meta is dealing with it currently - so are all small businesses who relied on good conversion from their ad targeting that has gone to isht since then. Apple will probably fill in that void at some point they've got a lock on all that intelligence. I'm curious how long it will take and how they will manage to do it without stepping on privacy toes.

> Apple will probably fill in that void at some point a) what if they don't? Why should they? b) I would lose a lot of trust in Apple if they did. I don't buy iOS devices because I trust Apple Ads better. I buy them because I can avoid ads better and my privacy doesn't get shredded in the process. c) Wouldn't that be a massive antitrust issue?

Apple already is filling that void. If you run your ads on third-party networks, you are beholden to Apple's privacy rules. But if you run Apple Search Ads through, Apple itself, a lot of the same rules don't apply and you get targeting and attribution back.

A lot of advertisers are thus shifting their ad spend into Apple.

Re: Meta announces hiring freeze, warns employees of restructuring

#254

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> The economy is stabilizing. It's being weaned off of ultra-loose money for the first time in years. You might enjoy reading "Principles for Dealing with the Changing World Order: Why Nations Succeed and Fail", https://www.amazon.com/Changing-World-Order-Nations-Succeed-... (The author is Ray Dalio, one of the US's best institutional investors.) The big question is, when are we going to hit bottom? We need to make i…

> and Taiwan situations Let's hope we don't get a Taiwan situation on top of all of the other stuff that's going on. That way lies WWIII.

I expect that's the real reason for the US and Europe's "all-in" hardline over Ukraine: signalling to China about Taiwan.

Because pursuing a similar strategy with China would be substantially more expensive, in terms of treasure and blood, for both sides.

But the critical date there seems to be 2030-2035 based on military preparations.

Re: Meta announces hiring freeze, warns employees of restructuring

#255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Metaverse is an interesting idea, but they're too quick to hail it as the feature of the company imo. It just looks like an expensive, boring, video game right now.

| Metaverse is an interesting idea... It's really not though, nor is it an original one. There are real people with real problems in the world and we've seen over and over that increasingly virtualizing our interactions, with a few exceptions, is a great way of kicking those problems down the road.

An idea can be interesting and still be a huge waste of time. I don't think it'll end well for Meta. It'll be super interesting to see how it plays out. I think we might end up with some sweet VR tech, I just don't think it's going to give FB the kind of business they think it will.

Re: Meta announces hiring freeze, warns employees of restructuring

#256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Brain implants. Or very light AR glasses.

Are you going to be willing to install a brain implant from Facebook? Dear God. It's like something out of a dystopian movie. No amount of money will convince me to do something like this, especially coming from Facebook, but any corporation really. Very light AR glasses can be an interesting proposition but they will not provide the VR immersive experience. I'm not sure what people expect from VR but it's not Ready…

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Re: Meta announces hiring freeze, warns employees of restructuring

#257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it just heavily favors new grads, who just spent a year+ studying algorithms. Those with full time jobs have to spend precious hours of free time remembering how to do these.

Well, this just sucks about these jobs interviews. I learned quite a bit during my last job and I'd be happy to show some of these to the interviewer, but instead I'm forced to answer questions that I know have nothing to do with what I'll be dealing with. It's always the same story, it's just exhausting.

Yeah, it's kinda ridiculous actually. It's like they don't even believe you were employed when they interview you.

Re: Meta announces hiring freeze, warns employees of restructuring

#258
post #244
post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

iOS privacy has killed facebook advertisements. Meta is dealing with it currently - so are all small businesses who relied on good conversion from their ad targeting that has gone to isht since then. Apple will probably fill in that void at some point they've got a lock on all that intelligence. I'm curious how long it will take and how they will manage to do it without stepping on privacy toes.

> Apple will probably fill in that void at some point a) what if they don't? Why should they? b) I would lose a lot of trust in Apple if they did. I don't buy iOS devices because I trust Apple Ads better. I buy them because I can avoid ads better and my privacy doesn't get shredded in the process. c) Wouldn't that be a massive antitrust issue?

> what if they don't? Why should they?

They will because they are a for-profit company and there's profit to be had. Apple will likely find a strong marketing angle for their Ad network (won't be the first time they've tried).

Selling hardware is a great business but it gets saturated eventually. The next move for eternal growth is selling services on top of said hardware.

> I would lose a lot of trust in Apple if they did. I don't buy iOS devices because I trust Apple Ads better. I buy them because I can avoid ads better and my privacy doesn't get shredded in the process.

Apple already has a lot of data about you. Consider that they own both the hardware and software experience on an iPhone. I'm having a hard time seeing an alternative here unless you have the time to manage your own phone OS...

> Wouldn't that be a massive antitrust issue?

Only if someone does something about it. I assume G and Meta's lawyers are already working on arguments.

Re: Meta announces hiring freeze, warns employees of restructuring

#259
post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Apple will probably fill in that void at some point a) what if they don't? Why should they? b) I would lose a lot of trust in Apple if they did. I don't buy iOS devices because I trust Apple Ads better. I buy them because I can avoid ads better and my privacy doesn't get shredded in the process. c) Wouldn't that be a massive antitrust issue?

Apple already is filling that void. If you run your ads on third-party networks, you are beholden to Apple's privacy rules. But if you run Apple Search Ads through, Apple itself, a lot of the same rules don't apply and you get targeting and attribution back. A lot of advertisers are thus shifting their ad spend into Apple.

But this is just in the App Store, right? Not on web or within iOS spotlight.

Honestly I don't use FB, but my wife does, and I can tell you she spends about 1/100th the time in the Apple App Store as FB.

I don't see Search Ads as having anywhere near the same context.

Re: Meta announces hiring freeze, warns employees of restructuring

#260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Brain implants. Or very light AR glasses.

Are you going to be willing to install a brain implant from Facebook? Dear God. It's like something out of a dystopian movie. No amount of money will convince me to do something like this, especially coming from Facebook, but any corporation really. Very light AR glasses can be an interesting proposition but they will not provide the VR immersive experience. I'm not sure what people expect from VR but it's not Ready…

I would bet money that Meta is going to fail spectacularly at their attempt to build the metaverse.

And it will be fun to watch from the outside.

Unfortunately, I don't expect this endeavor to give interesting fruits to humanity, but sometimes happy accidents happen.

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