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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

#261

Post by 9rx »

lostapathy wrote: post #254
9rx wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You can only buy good/services that are for sale The world is full of custom car builders. Buying a something like the F-150, but without the undesirable computing components, is quite practical and very possible. It'll be expensive , which I expect is what you were really trying to say when you pretend there is no such thing for sale, but you're just returning us to the heart of discussion: The F-150 is cheap, com…

Is it really "accepting a concession" if the "alternative" is so expensive as to not be an option anyway? This is like telling someone who doesn't like that they have to wait in traffic they should just take a helicopter to work everyday. Yes, it's technically an option for some people, but for the vast majority it's not.

Yes. That concession is what gets one with limited means into an F-150. If it was sold at its true market value, absent of all value diminishing systems like tracking, they wouldn't be able to afford that either.

Same goes for roads. You most definitely can build roads that don't have traffic, but only the rich will be able to afford to use them. Traffic is what enables those of lesser means to also participate.

It's a pretty good tradeoff for those who are poor. And the rich can buy whatever they want anyway.

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

#262

Post by mr_toad »

vintermann wrote: post #95
Workaccount2 wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The answer isn't ad blocking, the answer is paying directly and in full (so no need to subsidize cost with ads) for the service. I cannot wrap my head around how generally intelligent people are completely blind to this. I guess 20 years of ad-block-is-the-norm has left people totally confused about internet monetization. I've never encoutered a problem that has such a clear answer, and that so many intelligent peopl…

Facebook has made it very clear that they don't want you to do this: you can pay for ad-free (I believe it's because they're legally obliged to offer that as a result of some things they'be done and deals they've made), but the cost is easily 100 times what they can make directly on ads for me. The only conclusion can be that they place an immensely high indirect value on serving me ads.

They’re probably assuming that anyone who would pay for Facebook has a large disposable income, which means that they’re a juicy add target, and they are worth much more than the average Facebook user.

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

#263

Post by input_sh »

kilroy123 wrote: post #154

It's very clear that social media is dead. My mom sometimes tells me to go look at a picture on Facebook. I'm astonished that there is literally nothing on there to see but ads. I and anyone I know only post stories on Instagram at best. My feed is JAM packed with ads and cringe people still trying to be influencers. Threads is a rounding error. X is blah Meta is desperate to move to AI because they know this. They s…

Meta doesn't know anything, the last successful "product" that they built (as opposed to buying) was splitting off Messenger into a separate app.

Since then, they invested heavily in providing free internet that failed (Free Basics), wasted a bunch of money on some sort of a global cryptocurrency that never even launched (Libra/Diem), tried to invent a whole new market with VR and it went nowhere, and now they're going all in on "AI" but the only thing they have to show for it are some sort of celebrity-impersonating Instagram bot accounts and some glasses whose selling point is that they're branded as Ray-Bans.

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

#264

Post by scott_w »

simpaticoder wrote: post #197
scott_w wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "Scam" is fundamentally subjective, just as "harm" is. From the article: > Meta projected 10% of 2024 revenue came from scams and banned goods , Reuters reports I think we can agree that there's no "subjective" situation when a product is banned. > The ad networks are themselves the natural allies of such a reform The article (and the person you're replying to) point out that a significant portion of Meta's revenue…

>I'm really struggling to see how they're "natural allies" Ah, sorry. Perhaps I should have spelled it out. Meta desperately wants to avoid being regulated. One way they can avoid it is to help make the out-of-band justice system (much) more efficient such that they avoid messy moderation policies and don't need to be regulated anymore. Victims would be happier too, especially if they get remunerated for their pain,…

> Meta desperately wants to avoid being regulated. One way they can avoid it is to help make the out-of-band justice system (much) more efficient such that they avoid messy moderation policies and don't need to be regulated anymore.

I might have bought that but a delayed flight spent reading Careless People swiftly disabused me of any such notions.

> In any event, I think reforming the US justice system is way overdue; it is far too expensive and time-consuming for most matters, and that means we live in a place with de facto lack of courts. And I don't like that.

Most countries have regulators that come with teeth, such that the only times they need to go to court are to confirm they have the teeth they're using. After that, companies fall in line. From the outside, it seems the USA does not have this system and has no desire to develop such a system.

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

#265

Post by bensonn »

I wonder how much of Meta the corporation is a scam waiting to crumble. Hundreds of billions of dollars can make people do questionable things. -their revenue is 99% ads with more than 80% coming from FB and IG -they can only sell ads if they have a large and active user base -DAP (daily active people) is reported publicly but calculated internally -ad spending, views, and engagement are calculated by Meta's own platform

Anecdote (why I think it is a scam)- I had a FB account, I needed it for a previous job but didn't want it. I set up a random email address at a host I had never used, had a made-up FB name, and used a password generator for both the email address and FB accounts. My FB account had almost no activity besides viewing company posts. FB was only used from a single desktop computer. Passwords were stored in my (local only desktop) password manager.

After a couple years, FB emailed me and claimed my account was hacked. The "hacker" changed my profile picture (was a blank avatar icon) to an AI photo of a random guy. Facebook says it is hacked but they keep it visible, my two friends are still friends with the old account (they know it was hacked). FYI - I didn't care enough to send them a copy of my ID, nor did my ID match my user name, so I couldn't reclaim my account.

How would a hacker combine a random username, with a random email (has not been pwnd) only used for FB, guess a ~20 character random password, etc? And why, to steal an account with no followers and to do nothing with the account? That is a lot of work and criminal charges for nothing.

I am fine with FB saying the account was hacked and closing it. It has been years and the account is still live. Is it "active" and counted towards their users? They have a HUGE financial incentive to keep and count all accounts, and they have no oversite to verify accounts since it is all calculated internally with opaque algorithms.

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

#266

Post by AbstractH24 »

croisillon wrote: post #81
mrweasel wrote: post #4

That probably depends on your definition of a scam, but it seems fairly low. Many products and services advertised online just skirts the border of being scams or fraud.

i came to say that, even outdoor advertising probably gets 10 or 20% revenue from snake oil

And what percentage of infomericals and other off-peek TV advertising is in the grey area around scams?

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

#267

Post by carlosjobim »

swiftcoder wrote: post #213
carlosjobim wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

YouTube, Netflix, Spotify, Apple Music, Kagi etc etc

I would submit that maybe the first one qualifies as a social media network

My mistake, I thought the discussion was about online services in general.

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

#268

Post by chrischen »

mrweasel wrote: post #126
chrischen wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. At best most of the stuff I ended up buying from an Instagram ad turned out to be oversold or overpromised and underdelivered. While not a scam outright, it's sort of training me to avoid buying anything from ads...

One of my theories is that there isn't actually enough honest companies buying ad space to satisfy the shareholders in companies like Alphabet or Meta. If they actually care to also filter out the ads for junk products and services, there would probably be a minor collapse in the industry.

Honest companies are priced out by scammy companies, and as long as these companies share the profits they are totally fine profiting off scams. They make more money off the scams, simply put.

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

#269

Post by AbstractH24 »

getnormality wrote: post #11

As my children become old enough to have more unfettered internet access, I plan to tell them the lessons of my experience: that all online ads are for products that range from disappointing to fraudulent, so do your best to completely ignore them. I would hope that every parent does the same and we end up with a generation that dries up the revenue for this sick racket. I suppose the next move by advertisers will be…

Do you think your kids are old enough to internalize that? I assume they are somewhere around pre-teen.

I don't have any kids, so asking because I don't know and am curious.

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