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When thebiglebow.ski is blocked by Facebook

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Re: When thebiglebow.ski is blocked by Facebook

#241

Post by sokoloff »

Retric wrote: post #238
sokoloff wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would they pay out all their net income, provide better customer contact/service, and go from being massively profitable to break-even? What’s in it for them to do that? Even if they went 25% of the way there, does it make them a stronger company in the long-term? That they don’t do it suggests they don’t think it would.

25% would probably be vast overkill. The point is they could have say 100,000 people doing customer support without a massive hit to their profitability, especially if that support ended up increasing revenue. In other words the real limitation isn’t their current number of employees or really their business model. They are simply acting like a monopoly which lacks competition. I am sure they think simply buying any…

I would say that “over $2 Billion/year” is a massive hit to profitability for any company, even if that is “only” 10% of the total income.

If your boss came to you and said, “Retric, we’re making the world better, but as a side-effect, we’re cutting your pay by only 10%,” how would you react? That’s probably close to how the board and shareholders would react to Google doing it.

Re: When thebiglebow.ski is blocked by Facebook

#243

Post by SagelyGuru »

duxup wrote: post #160

>The website has all this time been incorrectly labelled “by our automated tools” as spam, according to the spokesperson. “Our apologies for the inconvenience.” It seems the large tech companies just have a policy to automate as much as possible and if it impacts some folks unfairly, that's just how it works and they've no interest in dealing with it unless it gets PR. Otherwise screw those little people. I had a dom…

FB predictably reacted only when an article came out. It seems likely that they blatantly censor all kinds of things for their own partisan reasons. It is only when you have a friend close to the media outlets and are able to generate some publicity that they go into damage limitation mode and blame it on "automated tools". How convenient!

Re: When thebiglebow.ski is blocked by Facebook

#244

Post by Retric »

sokoloff wrote: post #241
Retric wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

25% would probably be vast overkill. The point is they could have say 100,000 people doing customer support without a massive hit to their profitability, especially if that support ended up increasing revenue. In other words the real limitation isn’t their current number of employees or really their business model. They are simply acting like a monopoly which lacks competition. I am sure they think simply buying any…

I would say that “over $2 Billion/year” is a massive hit to profitability for any company, even if that is “only” 10% of the total income. If your boss came to you and said, “Retric, we’re making the world better, but as a side-effect, we’re cutting your pay by only 10%,” how would you react? That’s probably close to how the board and shareholders would react to Google doing it.

That assumes having a large dedicated support staff had absolutely zero positives for the company. I think that’s extraordinarily unlikely as even just the feedback from support calls is valuable information. Remember, Facebook etc is making money by directly selling advertising and individual support calls can be quite profitable for them.

Sometimes a support call from a tiny new account that costs them 2$ can be worth a new 20,000$+/month revenue stream. Or that same account can walk away with a bad taste in their mouth. Similarly, if their getting thousands of calls about something that’s often a fixable problem which they would otherwise never know about.

Which isn’t to say it’s profitable in the short or long term, just significantly less expensive than the sticker shock suggests.

Re: When thebiglebow.ski is blocked by Facebook

#245

Post by quercusgrisea »

tomglynch wrote: post #237
tinco wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We not only don't charge them, our governments actually give them money to do it. The Netherlands actually gave Microsoft 500 million euro in free energy credit (by building them subsidized windmills) just so they would build their enormous data center here, an enormous datacenter that is going to employ only 125 people. And those windmills, they were pitched to the people as being able to power 370.000 households. T…

While this outcome isn't best for the economy, it is a good solution for the environment, and perhaps that was the goal of the Netherlands.

How is that a better solution for the environment than using the windmills to power homes?

Re: When thebiglebow.ski is blocked by Facebook

#246

Post by pixl97 »

dingaling wrote: post #129
blunte wrote: post #74

There are so many ways to have a problem with Facebook and be unable to get help. The list of ways grows... My "favorite" is if you once had a spare FB account for playing some game, and later FB has blocked that account (for inactivity, or being obviously fake _after_ they instituted the real name policy)... but you still get occasional emails from FB begging you to come back and login - your friends miss you! Of co…

> Facebook will continue as a bad and irresponsible actor of global proportions I log in, I have a browse at what my acquaintances have posted, I close the tab and go on with the day. Sometimes I flick through the 'People you may know' and smile at some old real-world friends. For the vast majority of people, Facebook is a positive experience.

The vast majority of people I interact with have a positive experience. Though that tiny minority that did not survive might disagree!

Re: When thebiglebow.ski is blocked by Facebook

#247

Post by croes »

nine_k wrote: post #186
duxup wrote: post #160

>The website has all this time been incorrectly labelled “by our automated tools” as spam, according to the spokesperson. “Our apologies for the inconvenience.” It seems the large tech companies just have a policy to automate as much as possible and if it impacts some folks unfairly, that's just how it works and they've no interest in dealing with it unless it gets PR. Otherwise screw those little people. I had a dom…

Making things right 100% of the time costs a ton. Sometimes the business is willing to pay: something related to money or legal compliance, the serious stuff. Sometimes it's cheaper to have things work, say, 90% of time, and maybe manually fix some stuff when badly needed, on a best-effort basis. Often it's the only viable way. Usually, if there's no written contract, best-effort is the only treatment you can expect.…

But then you need an official way to report and fix errors.

Re: When thebiglebow.ski is blocked by Facebook

#248

Post by croes »

This is the result of monopolies. The internet is meant for communication by defining protocols to connect all computers with each other. This allows everyone to participate and at the same time creates redundancy, which minimises failures. Companies like FB are a perversion of this purpose, instead of using free protocols, communication is done by a few programs. This creates the basis for censorship and forms a bottleneck or a predetermined breaking point.

Re: When thebiglebow.ski is blocked by Facebook

#249

Post by hazz99 »

throwaway2048 wrote: post #236
stickfigure wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How many of those washer/dryer units do you think they sold? Hundreds of thousands? If it's a super common model, maybe millions? Google and Facebook each have 3-4 orders of magnitude more customers. I'm not sure manning phones is realistic.

If the problem is too big for Google and Facebook to handle, maybe Google and Facebook shouldn't exist

There are good benefits of having centralised services though. I don’t like this either, but I don’t think the solution is as simple as “they shouldn’t exist”.

I think the issues come down to incorrect or misaligned incentives.

Re: When thebiglebow.ski is blocked by Facebook

#250

Post by ivanche »

dingaling wrote: post #129
blunte wrote: post #74

There are so many ways to have a problem with Facebook and be unable to get help. The list of ways grows... My "favorite" is if you once had a spare FB account for playing some game, and later FB has blocked that account (for inactivity, or being obviously fake _after_ they instituted the real name policy)... but you still get occasional emails from FB begging you to come back and login - your friends miss you! Of co…

> Facebook will continue as a bad and irresponsible actor of global proportions I log in, I have a browse at what my acquaintances have posted, I close the tab and go on with the day. Sometimes I flick through the 'People you may know' and smile at some old real-world friends. For the vast majority of people, Facebook is a positive experience.

Facebook certainly doesn't earn money by people browsing at what their acquaintances posted and closing the tab immediately.

I'd argue that, for the vast majority of people, Facebook is highly stressful and manipulative environment, and they aren't even aware of that.

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