<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>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></item><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>jldugger</author><text>&amp;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.&lt;p&gt;Are we 100 percent confident that FB is doing this because the math works out and not because the pressure from the board is to &amp;#x27;do something about this&amp;#x27;? We&amp;#x27;re all aware, presumably, of cases where the corporate hierarchy demands action when the data suggests acting at all is harmful. It seems silly to assume FB is the one company immune to those pressures.</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>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></item><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>sillysaurusx</author><text>&lt;i&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.&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s tempting to think of Facebook as omniscient, but I&amp;#x27;m not sure how precisely it can be measured. Economically, yes, maybe. But morally?&lt;p&gt;Remember, the Timnit controversy ended up with letters from congress to Google&amp;#x27;s CEO. In bigcos, not everyone forecasts everything.</text></comment>