<story><title>Facebook: Free as in Bullshit</title><url>https://daringfireball.net/2020/12/facebook_free_as_in_bullshit</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>samizdis</author><text>I fail to understand Facebook&amp;#x27;s strategy&amp;#x2F;reasoning for running this campaign against Apple. It is generating a newsworthy backlash which serves only to draw attention to FB&amp;#x27;s practice of tracking users across domains&amp;#x2F;apps, when many of said users were unaware of this, and might not be comfortable with it.&lt;p&gt;I would be really interested to hear arguments opposing my assumptions. There must be something that I am overlooking - Facebook isn&amp;#x27;t a stupid company, not by a long chalk. What is the strategy&amp;#x2F;reasoning behind this campaign?</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>wpietri</author><text>I think it&amp;#x27;s pretty simple: the potential revenue loss to Facebook is much larger than the expected costs of cleaning up a PR mess.&lt;p&gt;And I&amp;#x27;m sure they&amp;#x27;re right. It&amp;#x27;s important to remember that Facebook can precisely measure the impact of news articles like this. And even without messing with the newsfeed algorithms, they have way more influence over consumer perception of Facebook than a few news articles do. For example, they could introduce some new &amp;quot;privacy&amp;quot; feature and talk it up in in-app notifications. Or they have you review your privacy settings, something most people will glance at and move on, thinking they are in control. And they can do things like this whenever consumer confidence flags.&lt;p&gt;If Facebook loses a few more users of the sort that are tech-savvy and informed enough that this pushes them over the edge, that&amp;#x27;s fine. In fact, it might be even better, as the remaining population is more easily wrangled.</text></comment>
<story><title>Facebook: Free as in Bullshit</title><url>https://daringfireball.net/2020/12/facebook_free_as_in_bullshit</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>samizdis</author><text>I fail to understand Facebook&amp;#x27;s strategy&amp;#x2F;reasoning for running this campaign against Apple. It is generating a newsworthy backlash which serves only to draw attention to FB&amp;#x27;s practice of tracking users across domains&amp;#x2F;apps, when many of said users were unaware of this, and might not be comfortable with it.&lt;p&gt;I would be really interested to hear arguments opposing my assumptions. There must be something that I am overlooking - Facebook isn&amp;#x27;t a stupid company, not by a long chalk. What is the strategy&amp;#x2F;reasoning behind this campaign?</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>acomjean</author><text>Kara Swisher thinks its part of piling onto apple anti-trust by the US Government, which kinda? makes sense.&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.nytimes.com&amp;#x2F;2020&amp;#x2F;12&amp;#x2F;18&amp;#x2F;opinion&amp;#x2F;facebook-apple-ads.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.nytimes.com&amp;#x2F;2020&amp;#x2F;12&amp;#x2F;18&amp;#x2F;opinion&amp;#x2F;facebook-apple-ad...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;The regulatory and legal questions around Apple’s practices are behind Facebook’s strategy that the enemy of my enemy is my friend. In its attack ads on Apple, Facebook added that it would help antitrust regulators and others — like the Fortnite parent company Epic Games — on the App Store issue.&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;......&lt;p&gt;But both companies have issues:&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;But the cracks we are seeing this week are the most significant — and could spell trouble for both companies. Apple, pointing out Facebook’s data gluttony, and Facebook, in turn, noting Apple’s hegemony over mobile, make one thing clear: These tech companies have too much power. And no matter how you slice it, they are all in dire need of government regulation.&amp;quot;</text></comment>