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Re:Facebook loses users for the first time by bryanrasmussen on Thursday February 03, 2022 @03:27AM (#30190057)
>Facebook have innovated very little. Zuckerberg recognised this, and bought Instagram and Whatsapp in lieu of building an innovative company. The latter is clearly really difficult to do.

I can't remember who it was - maybe Stratechery - that theorized that Zuckerberg thanks to his experience running Facebook had a really good intuition for when Social media where going to go far and thus was able to make deals that at first looked wildly overpriced but in the end seemed to be a steal.

Perhaps their problem right now is that there hasn't been a social media with the growth potential that has been worth their acquiring.

At any rate not sure if I would say just because they failed one time (even with scandals of last few years) that they're really in trouble, that strikes me too much like most financial journalism that says oh no company X had a bad quarter that's it they're toast and then it turns out they come back the next quarter. I say that as someone who does not care for Facebook or any of their acquisitions (although lots in my family like Whatsapp)

Re:Facebook loses users for the first time by annadane on Thursday February 03, 2022 @07:52AM (#30191798)
> I can't remember who it was - maybe Stratechery - that theorized that Zuckerberg thanks to his experience running Facebook had a really good intuition for when Social media where going to go far and thus was able to make deals that at first looked wildly overpriced but in the end seemed to be a steal.

It kind of helps when you use a VPN called Onavo to spy on what apps people are using...

Re:Facebook loses users for the first time by petesergeant on Thursday February 03, 2022 @03:50AM (#30190230)
> was able to make deals that at first looked wildly overpriced but in the end seemed to be a steal

I wonder how much survivorship bias there is here. Presumably they've made some truly dreadful acquisitions too?

Re:Facebook loses users for the first time by riffraff on Thursday February 03, 2022 @04:26AM (#30190461)
I think Instagram and WhatsApp were the only very expensive ones. They did buy (and kill) a lot more

https://www.techwyse.com/blog/infographics/facebook-acquisit...

EDIT: and Oculus, too

Re:Facebook loses users for the first time by bobthepanda on Thursday February 03, 2022 @03:40AM (#30190136)
The problem with accumulating ever more money is that it becomes ever harder to invest properly and try and beat the market.
Re:Facebook loses users for the first time by chaircher on Thursday February 03, 2022 @04:54AM (#30190626)
I suppose it's like, they're not going to be able to buy TikTok are they?