<story><title>Meta: A Social Technology Company</title><url>https://about.fb.com/news/2021/10/facebook-company-is-now-meta/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>rexreed</author><text>Will this work, or will this just be like Google&amp;#x27;s Alphabet, which the general person-on-the-street doesn&amp;#x27;t know or care about?</text></item><item><author>canniballectern</author><text>I bet this will be generally effective at shielding their other properties from bad news about Facebook.&lt;p&gt;For ordinary people, &amp;quot;WhatsApp is owned by Meta&amp;quot; is going to feel really different from &amp;quot;WhatsApp is owned by Facebook&amp;quot;.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>stetrain</author><text>Having people on the street not know or care about who owns WhatsApp and Instagram seems like it might be the point.</text></comment>
<story><title>Meta: A Social Technology Company</title><url>https://about.fb.com/news/2021/10/facebook-company-is-now-meta/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>rexreed</author><text>Will this work, or will this just be like Google&amp;#x27;s Alphabet, which the general person-on-the-street doesn&amp;#x27;t know or care about?</text></item><item><author>canniballectern</author><text>I bet this will be generally effective at shielding their other properties from bad news about Facebook.&lt;p&gt;For ordinary people, &amp;quot;WhatsApp is owned by Meta&amp;quot; is going to feel really different from &amp;quot;WhatsApp is owned by Facebook&amp;quot;.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>dfabulich</author><text>The reason the person-on-the-street doesn&amp;#x27;t care about Alphabet is that people don&amp;#x27;t interact with any Alphabet company except Google. Waymo? Calico? Loon? Wing? Hardly any ordinary people think about those. (Maybe some day, but not today.)&lt;p&gt;By contrast, lots of ordinary people interact with WhatsApp and Instagram. It will be&amp;#x2F;feel different when they&amp;#x27;re &amp;quot;owned by Meta&amp;quot; vs. &amp;quot;owned by Facebook.&amp;quot;</text></comment>