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Facebook is nearing a reputational point of no return

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Re: Facebook is nearing a reputational point of no return

#571

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As far as I've heard, it's 2-4x the average salary on some positions. The ethical problems and reputation it faces in community increased their churn while reducing the available pool of candidates.

Jeez. Do they offer similar above-market rates for remote work? Would they hire a non-CS/SWE managerial type (still with a STEM education), pushing 40, if I grind some leetcode or something? Pretty sure I've got enough Dark Triad traits (and working for other human-destructive organizations) to tolerate their dystopian shenanigans if it comes with a doubling or trebling of my total comp....

Not sure about that since the whole corona-remote thing makes things a bit weird. But I say definitely try, you literally have nothing to lose and they like the managerial types.

Re: Facebook is nearing a reputational point of no return

#572
post #370

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We are in unknown territory with Facebook, but I have no doubt it will fall eventually. The laws of thermodynamics hold true for institutions as much as everything else—one day Facebook will lose to entropy and it will become a fraction of the size it is now.

Microsoft?

Microsoft had to make fundamental changes to stop its slide into irrelevance, and the old corporate culture is still trying to reassert itself. There's a battle of cultures happening and it might turn out New Microsoft was a last gasp.

Re: Facebook is nearing a reputational point of no return

#573

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> discredited hitpieces the Hunter story was anything but discredited. It was just suppressed for no reason other than helping the dems. https://www.politico.com/newsletters/playbook/2021/09/21/dou... > There was no evidence of widespread voter fraud in 2020 There was also no evidence of Russia collusion either, but that didn't stop a very long investigation from the FBI that was being advertised on all news channels…

You are factually incorrect re: Russia for reasons cited in the linked post above. Re: Hunter, that is new info worth looking. Good thing it's not censored like the OP claims to say. Some thoughts: The democratic legislative agenda, and more broadly, the issues facing this country such as a pandemic, job uncertainty, healthcare and infrastructure should be a lot more important than the family drama of the Bidens. Rep…

It appeared now in some press, but NYP twitter account was suspended for even mentioning Hunter's laptop. It was definitely censorship on Twitter and Facebook even against one of the largest media entities in the country.

This is a surprinsingly balanced opinion on this matter:

https://www.theverge.com/2020/10/15/21516729/facebook-twitte...

There is no new info, it was all released before the elections. It's true, the moment was chosen for max damage against Biden, but it was/is a real thing.

It's not about "family drama" at all. That would be stuff like how Hunter had an affair with his dead brother's wife. This is about Hunter using his father's name to make money. It's not unreasonable to believe that using just the name is not that valueble for other parties, it's the influence they buy. And there are some direct hints to that in the emails, while also showing how Biden senior wants to protect his name.

And this goes on today. Hunter is selling art to anonymous buyers for 500k a painting. If this doesn't scream corruption, I don't know what.

Ukraine affair: https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/09/hunter-bid...

New, paintings affair: https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/09/hunter-bid...

I for one don't want such a ban on all businesses. If you do that, then why not ban internal businesses too? How about banning businesses before and after office? It makes little sense IMO. I am just absolutely appalled that the average american does not care even when they see this blatant corruption exposed. The same with Trump hiring his son in law at the WH...why is that acceptable?

I would rather ban trading stocks. That is a time sensitive act, you can easily ban it for the duration of the term. You could put all the owned stocks in a generic fund, say VTI or whatever, and not be able to touch it immediately for day trading.

It's true that in general Republicans want to be against things. After all, they are conservatives, they don't want to change stuff, they want to preserve the current order, that is their philosophy. I don't find it that surprising, and I don't get why people don't get this.

I am more progressive than conservatives, what you would call a socially progressive but lower taxes guy.

Your assessment is a bit off: while Trump was against corona measures, which is mind blowing, cause it was his own government doing them, he was very much for creating jobs. The tax cuts and import tarriffs were both meant to create jobs. The idea was to make it easier to invest in the US, and harder to import stuff, I think that's a pretty clear thing to do if you want more domestic jobs. These are long term measures, but it worked while there was no corona, unemployment was low across the board.

Healthcare is idiotic from both parties, Republicans don't want to spend money for other people (even though it would be cheaper overall to do so) while Democrats want to spend money on as many people as possible, without reducing costs, which make it impossible to cover everyone. Bernie's might be the only option that makes sense, but I haven't looked too much into it, probably because I despise socialists too much.

Re: Facebook is nearing a reputational point of no return

#574
post #370

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We are in unknown territory with Facebook, but I have no doubt it will fall eventually. The laws of thermodynamics hold true for institutions as much as everything else—one day Facebook will lose to entropy and it will become a fraction of the size it is now.

Microsoft?

Microsoft is an interesting case in that it has lost its influence while growing its market cap. Microsoft is several times as big as it was when PG called it dead 14 years ago[0], but founders today aren't afraid to compete against it or refuse its acquisition offers. Microsoft makes plenty of money, but does not have a great deal of control over what anybody else does.

[0] http://www.paulgraham.com/microsoft.html

Re: Facebook is nearing a reputational point of no return

#575
post #393

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Being able to passively keep in touch with many of the thousands of people I've met in my life is incredibly valuable to me. It feels incredibly sad to just let those relationships die because you're focusing your energies on the people that are currently around you.

Those passive relationships are why I left Facebook. I had hundreds of friends, from people I had met once or twice to family and close friends of decades - but few of them put any effort into the relationships, instead relying on Facebook to prompt them to wish well on major events or update them on news. Those relationships you don't want to let go of? They're largely worthless.

You shared moments of a finite life with them.Thus they are valuable. You read this comments, wasting expensive seconds of your life on it. Thus the relationship to a internet stranger was valuable.

All those connections are paid for in the most expensive currency that is.

Re: Facebook is nearing a reputational point of no return

#576

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think HN needs a thread dedicated to exploring the word "censor". If you think it means "any deletion of content" then I support some forms of censorship. If you think it means "the prohibition of the possession of thought or the ability to transmit that thought via your own mechanisms", then I am against it.

When content gets deleted or hidden, it inhibits the ability to transmit that thought, so I fail to see your distinction. Censorship is censorship. "Good censorship" and "bad censorship" is a slippery slope. The only type of content that should be censored in a given jurisdiction is content that is against the law. What should be against the law is an entirely different discussion to be had amongst inhabitants of tha…

I don't think we should tell HN or Facebook they must host content they know to be false and contributory to the decline of the nation.

You have to draw the line somewhere on when speech is defended, and when owners of sites or infrastructure should be legally and morally required to host content they don't support.

My line is at the ISP/DNS level. Let people build their own sites to publish whatever they want, and regulate ISPs and registrars as quasi-public utilities with certain societal obligations.

I don't think that obligation should extend to individual websites.

Re: Facebook is nearing a reputational point of no return

#578

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Very much missed the point with a motivated reading of the intent behind what I'm saying. Nicely done! My comment wasn't directed at 0.1% pile. It's directed at mid-tier, good-not-great CS programs that FB is both targeting in ways that other FAANGs don't, and also have put on heavy marketing programs at. Signal or noise, hard to say, but they wouldn't be doing it if the need didn't exist . What matters more is the s…

once again, you are over-estimating the powerful SJW Unioin. A lot of talented libertarian, conservative people can't work at facebook because it's too woke. May be a Sheryl Sandberg will make way for Peter Thiels...and it's a fantastic thing for FB. At this point too many FBers have to walk on eggshells. A clean cut of SJWs will make FB a better and more powerful company

[deleted]

Re: Facebook is nearing a reputational point of no return

#580
post #481
post #444

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> The dumb mergers and other mistakes were window dressing on this landscape transformation. Were all AOL's mergers dumb? IIRC, they used their sky-high stock price to buy Time Warner (among other things), and once AOL was no longer the cash cow they turned out to own a lot of valuable things.

As with all mergers, it depends on to whom / for what. For AOL shareholders, by 2002, between the merger and the dotcom bubble bursting, 2002$200 B (so about 2021$5.5 T?) had been wiped from AOL's market cap. So that was, presumably, not good.

What a weird way of looking at it. First, how did you turn 2002's $200B into 2021's $5.5T?

But my point was if it wasn't for the merger, the AOL stockholders would have lost far more in the dotcom bubble bursting. Pointing out they lost a lot in the combined events isn't really a counterargument.

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