Carmack vs Zuckerberg I think can be summed up as follows: one builds things things people will genuinely like, and the other one force-feeds people until they like it and know no other option.
Behavioral economics of the preceding decades trained people to sit and stare.
His success is due to a shared idea lots of money = positive contributor
Until they didn't anymore because broadband infrastructure, now they're a prefix that you say before you say "Time Warner"
How long until we get to say "Meta Disney"
I'm not so sure that this shows Facebook pulling off an odds-defying feat. AFAIK Facebook targeted people who would have never touched a mobile phone or have working internet otherwise. Any company with sufficiently deep pockets to subsidise internet for free could roll out a similar locked-down internet for these people.
It proves Apple’s data labels and growing awareness digital ads drive little business, which proved Facebook is a non-contributor to the economy in a real way
Zuck is just looking to keep his good times rolling as interest fades. This isn’t courage, this is “the writing is on the wall, let’s try something sooner than later.”
Like here's a "Microsoft’s Windows Mobile 2003 for Pocket PC Phone Edition" phone out a couple of years before the iPhone https://www.zdnet.com/product/anextek-sp230/
Anyway, Zuck's easy to make fun of. Easy to underestimate too.
Back in the 90s, it was thought to have been proven that an AOL-like attempt to top-down control the WWW was doomed to failure. An open web was too powerful. Well... that was before Zuck.
In many countries, FB-only internet is free and that means FB-only internet is the internet for like a billion people. Meanwhile, lots of unsophisticated users who's first and only device is a smartphone are mostly just FB users. He defied conventional wisdom, made FB a walled garden. Zuck really did "do AOL."
Meanwhile, the IG & WA acquisitions are strategically flawless in retrospect. With his tactical skills in the early days, Zuck's managed to keep more shares and control over FB than other CEOs. He may not have style and he's not quite hip, but Zuck is effective in his strategies.
I'd like to believe Carmack is right and Zucks' lame, top-down VR metaverse is doomed... pun intended. But I also recall that Zuck bought John out, and he's the boss. That may not be coincidence.