back to article Facebook may print money but thirsty Wall Street wants more

Anyone asking why there hasn't been a major new technology company to rival the likes of Facebook for a decade should take a good look at... Facebook. It's a reasonable question. If you exclude Uber as a technology company – it's really a casual labour arbitrage play that just happens to involve cars, other people's cars – …

  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    All that lovely advertising lucre

    What a shame Zuck that none of it will stem from showing them to me. Think of all that extra advertising dosh Grumpy Old Gits like me would bring it if your site wasn't such a pit of hatred that drives people to kill themselves?

    I have set myself the goal of living to a ripe old age and never once going near your den of iniquity.

    I'd have to unblock your domain from my firewall first and I have zero intention of ever doing that.

    TBH, the sooner FB (and all its copycats) end up in Chapter 7 the better. The world would be a far, far better place (IMHO).

    1. ratfox
      Alert

      Re: All that lovely advertising lucre

      Is it even necessary to be on Facebook to earn them money? I think that like Google, they have adverts on third-party sites, with profiles built by tracking your IP on third-party sites. No Facebook account needed.

      In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if the reason of Facebook's success was the data it gathers from third-party websites, rather than what they find on their own site. People might well display more honestly their tastes while surfing the web than with their curated image on a social network.

      1. Stumpy

        Re: All that lovely advertising lucre

        That's where the likes of Ghostery, AdBlock Plus and Privacy Badger come to the fore. No profiling and tracking cookies allowed, unless I specifically allow them.

      2. VinceH

        Re: All that lovely advertising lucre

        "Is it even necessary to be on Facebook to earn them money? I think that like Google, they have adverts on third-party sites, with profiles built by tracking your IP on third-party sites. No Facebook account needed."

        Do they have adverts on third party sites? I thought the way it worked was that third party sites would have a Facebook 'Like' button or whatever, and the script (and cookies) behind it were tracking visitors to the sites. If the visitor was ever on Facebook, that tracking info would therefore be used to tailor the advertising there so that the visitor would see adverts that Facebook's systems deemed relevant to them.

        But that only works for people that don't use things like Ghostery, NoScript, etc, etc - so the vast majority of people visiting any such sites. :/

      3. IGnatius T Foobar

        Re: All that lovely advertising lucre

        In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if the reason of Facebook's success was the data it gathers from third-party websites

        That's why it's important to run a Facebook Blocker extension on your browser. Yes, there is such a thing, and yes, you need to be running it, to keep Facebook (who are LITERALLY Hitler) from following you around all over the web.

        1. FIA Silver badge

          Re: All that lovely advertising lucre

          and yes, you need to be running it, to keep Facebook (who are LITERALLY Hitler) from following you

          Hmm, this doesn't ring true to me, let's just check my handy 'Facebook or Hitler' checklist:

          1. Murdered so many people actually had to industrialised the proccess to make it more efficient..... Hitler: 'Yes', Facebook: 'No'[1]

          2. Invaded nearby countries in an attempt to establish a superstate...... Hitler: 'Yes', Facebook: 'No'[1]

          3. Annoyed you with some cat pictures and constant updates of your friends eating habbits..... Hitler: 'No'[2], Facebook: 'Yes'

          4. Fostered and encouraged hatred of a particular social subgroup based on ethnicity/religion or other spurious grouping attributes..... Hitler: 'Yes', Facebook: ...... well, okay, this one's maybe not as clear cut.

          Still, they don't seem to be that similar to me... must be getting old.... Or maybe, just maybe, when you compare anything to Hitler or the Nazis perhaps 'Have they murdered several million people?' should be first on your list......

          1. Well, not yet.....

          2. Wasn't he more a landscape artist??

    2. JamesPond
      WTF?

      Re: All that lovely advertising lucre

      I do use WhatsApp but the second they start putting advertising on it I will stop.

      Perhaps I'm a grumpy old git as well but I really can't see the lure of updating ones profile on Facebook or Twitter et al with what I've done in the last 5 minutes hundreds of times per day as a lot of my colleagues seem to want to do. And I don't give a rats-arse if you've just had a shit or eaten a horse burger.

      Are the yuff of today so shallow that they have to measure themselves in how many friends or likes they can boast?

      What societal benefit has Facebook delivered that is worth beeeeeelions in profit? I guess Zuck doesn't care, he's laughing all the way to the bank, although you have to respect his altruism.

      1. Redstone

        Re: All that lovely advertising lucre

        I've started using Signal as an end-to-end, precisely because you have to manually invite a connection with each person you want in your Signal contact list, rather than having the app rape your phone's contact list and cross check with every other raped contact list on Facebook's database.

  2. James 51
    Devil

    Whenever I read that record breaking profits aren't enough for Wall Street I am reminded that the part from Hellboy 2 were the bad guy points out that humanity has a hole in its heart and our greed can never be satisifed. I think he might have had a point.

  3. Robert Carnegie Silver badge

    Innovators get bought up.

    If you have a new and successful IT business idea, you will be bought by Facebook - or by Google - or by Microsoft - or whoever. The next Facebook gets swallowed by one of the current players.

    1. JamesPond

      Re: Innovators get bought up.

      Is there no monopolies and mergers commission in the USA?

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Paris Hilton

    Snap IPO was needed....

    .... to pay for his CEO marriage.

    Good luck to the (gullible) investors...

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Value for money

    According to Private Eye this week, a "digital ad" is regarded as viewed (and hence chargeable to the advertiser) if 50% of its pixels are visible in a browser window for 1 second. An audit of Facebook video ad "viewability" suggests that their figure is between 20% and 30%.

    1. Zog_but_not_the_first
      Windows

      Re: Value for money

      A technical IT article in Private Eye! Shurley shum mistak?

  6. IGnatius T Foobar

    Mobile revenue

    Mobile now accounts for 87 per cent of Facebook revenue.

    ...because it's a lot harder to run ad blockers on mobile. Once that shoe drops, Facebook (who are literally Hitler) will have a lot less revenue.

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