Facebook stock is up over 30% this year. So far it’s a blockbuster year for Facebook.

I really don’t understand the obsession with the social media company.

Neither do I, but people still keep using the damn thing.

I agree with you on usage, what I meant to say was more “I don’t understand why it’s OP compared to Boeing when it’s been a great year for FB” and “I don’t understand why OP brought it up, why do people always want to talk about FB”.

>why do people always want to talk about FB

People use it multiple times every day. And for those of us who don't use it at all, we regularly have to justify ourselves.

This is a 737, not a 737 Max. It could be pilot error or lack maintenance plus a bunch other things. I says it's a little quick to jump on Boeing here.

It makes no difference to the average consumer. They see 'Boeing' having an accident, they immediately think, "another problem? this airline sucks!".

But it cuts much deeper than that because the problem with Max involved the lives of hundreds of people. Whichever way you look, this adds an enormous dose of fuel to an ongoing fire.

> They see 'Boeing' having an accident, they immediately think, "another problem? this airline sucks!".

Was going to object that Boeing is an airplane manufacturer, but now I'm not sure if that was intentional.

Make the ticket cost $10 less than a non Boeing plane and no one will care.

Not denying that issue with the 737 Max was probably negligent.

However, as you say average people don't care, but then why are headlines putting Boeing 737 in it. It's just going to add to confusion.

I am an aeroplane geek, and would be comfortable flying Boeing. But I don't think the average consumer can be blamed for thinking differently. The general brand news is the only real information they have to go on. At the very least it is a useful heuristic in the absence of actual understanding. And we can't really expect people to understand thoroughly every product and service they use.

Big companies put a lot of effort into branding, and it can have positive effects for them. The flip side is that people will see bad news with a similar lack of nuance.

It was pilot error to try landing with a tailwind in torrential rain.

The media deliberately push stories in this way to make things seem connected. Just like when MH370 disappeared, on the safest year in aviation history, then the press started pushing every little aviation incident.

May have been the safest. Doesn't matter. There were two disasters hitting the same airline - Malaysian Airlines - both of them spookier by orders of magnitude than your average flight calamity. And then, in the last days of the year, an Air Asia Airbus plummeting into the sea. That was out of Indonesia, but still... Psychology does matter. I remember my daughter, as hardnosed and rational individual as ever was, shortly afterwards going Air Asia in and out of Kuala Lumpur, and being slightly perturbed, however irrational she knew it to be.