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Meta projected 10% of 2024 revenue came from scams

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Re: Meta projected 10% of 2024 revenue came from scams

#161

Post by Semaphor »

macNchz wrote: post #16

Alongside a password manager and keeping things up to date, using an ad blocker is truly a foundational security practice these days. The big advertising players simply have all of the wrong incentives to control this problem. They could massively reduce the volume of scams advertised on their networks, but it’d be worse for them on two fronts: they’d have to pay for more moderation, and they’d lose billions in reven…

Honestly, not just ad networks. It’s also publishers. We tried 2 major non-google ad networks. The amount of scams and borderline scams were crazy. And apparently asking for some quality control is complicated. Even with google and ad-exchange, we had to raise the minimum costs by quite a bit to keep most of the scams out. This lowers revenue so most publishers have the same interest in fighting those scams as the networks.

The only reason to fight against the scams is because one cares a little about ones viewers (well, and I guess maybe a bit of brand safety). Which seems to not be the case for the vast majority.

Re: Meta projected 10% of 2024 revenue came from scams

#164

Post by empath75 »

salil999 wrote: post #64
Havoc wrote: post #52

Meta is cooked. It's not just scam portion - their entire strategy is in trouble FB - nobody I know actively uses it anymore. Insta - is being overrun with AI slop and given meta's stated goal of adding more AI interactions on their platforms I doubt they'll even try to get a grip on it let alone succeed Whatsapp & FB messenger - some use but has zero moat over other messengers. It's a completely fungible service in…

I hear this on almost every bad post about Meta. No they are not cooked. They still generate tons of profit and their user base is one of the biggest in the world. They're not going anywhere any time soon.

Blackberry made their best profits in 2008, a year after the iPhone was released, with a stock price of around $140 in May of 2008, their all time high. By December of 2008, their stock price was $30, by 2012 -- $7. That FB are making a ton of profit right now is nothing but inertia.

Re: Meta projected 10% of 2024 revenue came from scams

#165

Post by 9rx »

seeingnature wrote: post #152
9rx wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They didn't need to offer a refund. It was already priced in. You maybe forgot to ask what was coming in future software updates while standing starry-eyed at the impossibly low price it was being offered at, but they knew it was coming. After all, appropriately specced hardware to be able to do it was already onboard.

Your comment is so naive. Most products out there have a terms and conditions that equate to 'the company can change the product at any time and you're always free to stop using it', while giving their salespeople little to no idea about future progress because that would limit sales. Even if you didn't "maybe forgot to ask", there isn't anyone to respond with the truth. If you purchase a product that doesn't have ad…

> that is a huge change in the value proposition of the product.

It is, but one that is already calculated at time of purchase. You'd pay a lot more if there were strict guarantees that it would never display ads.

The Belarus tractor company learned that lesson. Once upon a time they tried to infiltrate western agriculture with, under the backing of the USSR, heavily subsidized products offered on the cheap. But farmers saw through the thin veneer and realized that they wouldn't be able to get parts for the machines down the road. As such, the much cheaper price wasn't a winner. Farmers were willing to pay significantly more to American companies, knowing that they would provide not just on day one but also long into the future. The economic lesson learned was that the marketplace doesn't value just initial purchase price, but the full value proposition over its entire lifetime.

Many people are willing to gamble, of course, especially for "disposable" things.

Re: Meta projected 10% of 2024 revenue came from scams

#166

Post by phantasmish »

iso1631 wrote: post #21
Kelteseth wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same. About half of Youtube ads that I get on my AppleTV (no adblock there sadly) are now AI generated scam products.

My TV has ad block for youtube. I pay 20 minutes salary per month and see no adverts at all, on TV, on phone, on computer. I never understand why well-paid HN commentators refuse to pay for their entertainment. On the web at large, sure use an ad blocker, there's no choice there. There is on youtube though.

Paying Google to not attempt to scam me is... not something I plan to do.

Re: Meta projected 10% of 2024 revenue came from scams

#167

Post by tryauuum »

whatamidoingyo wrote: post #149

I've been seeing legitimate pornography on Facebook while scrolling through reels. I thought it was "just my algorithm", but co-workers brought it up during lunch. Quite a few of them are seeing the exact same ads. I've reported them a few times, but surprisingly (or maybe not), Facebook responds back with "we didn't find anything that goes against our community standards". These ads usually link to a website where y…

the obvious question to you is "have you tried adding pornography to your ads"?

Re: Meta projected 10% of 2024 revenue came from scams

#168

Post by DonHopkins »

9rx wrote: post #115
malfist wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When ford deployed LexusNexus tracking to my F150, they didn't refund any of my purchase price. Samsung isn't refunding any of their $3k fridges that now have mandatory ads

They didn't need to offer a refund. It was already priced in. You maybe forgot to ask what was coming in future software updates while standing starry-eyed at the impossibly low price it was being offered at, but they knew it was coming. After all, appropriately specced hardware to be able to do it was already onboard.

> You maybe forgot to ask what was coming in future software updates

Who exactly was I supposed to ask that? The check out cashier at the store? The CTO of the company that manufactures it? Who even knows the answer to that question, and how are millions of consumers supposed to find that out and contact them directly, and why are they permitted to reveal proprietary plans if they even know?

Your arguments are delusionally detached from reality.

Re: Meta projected 10% of 2024 revenue came from scams

#169

Post by macNchz »

simpaticoder wrote: post #102
macNchz wrote: post #16

Alongside a password manager and keeping things up to date, using an ad blocker is truly a foundational security practice these days. The big advertising players simply have all of the wrong incentives to control this problem. They could massively reduce the volume of scams advertised on their networks, but it’d be worse for them on two fronts: they’d have to pay for more moderation, and they’d lose billions in reven…

*>They could massively reduce the volume of scams advertised on their networks I'm not entirely sure that's true. It's equivalent to asking a platform to moderate all "harmful content" off the site. "Scam" is fundamentally subjective, just as "harm" is. The real solution is to reform the justice system such that a citizen feeling they've been defrauded has a quick and easy process to get satisfaction for themselves a…

While some things may exist in a grey area, there’s an immense volume of blatant, obvious fraud in mainstream ads. A deepfake of Elon Musk promoting a way to get rich with crypto is just so clearly a scam, and yet it’s one I’ve seen in preroll YouTube ads multiple times.

Making the platforms have some liability for facilitating fraud would be good, though. In the meantime I block ads.

Re: Meta projected 10% of 2024 revenue came from scams

#170

Post by Havoc »

salil999 wrote: post #64
Havoc wrote: post #52

Meta is cooked. It's not just scam portion - their entire strategy is in trouble FB - nobody I know actively uses it anymore. Insta - is being overrun with AI slop and given meta's stated goal of adding more AI interactions on their platforms I doubt they'll even try to get a grip on it let alone succeed Whatsapp & FB messenger - some use but has zero moat over other messengers. It's a completely fungible service in…

I hear this on almost every bad post about Meta. No they are not cooked. They still generate tons of profit and their user base is one of the biggest in the world. They're not going anywhere any time soon.

A current big user base is not enough on a „line must go up“ world
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