It's not perfect but you can look at average revenue per user on Facebook. There are huge differences based on the country (note this is quarterly):

Q4 '20

Worldwide: 10.14

US: 53.56

Europe: 16.87

Asia Pacific: 4.05

Rest of world: 2.77

So you're worth just over $200 a year. This has gone up a lot over time and is considerably higher than other social networks. Just a year ago, it was 41.41 (23% less) and a year before that is was 34.86 (15% less).

It's harder to do a comparison to google, but I'm sure you're very valuable to them as well, increasingly so.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/251328/facebooks-average...

And likely a working professional adult who can afford an iPhone is worth at least a deviation or two above that.

Maybe, but I'm not sure a working professional adult is an ad-clicker, and I'm not sure that the ads they click on can con them into doing something they wouldn't normally do very often.

> Maybe, but I'm not sure a working professional adult is an ad-clicker, and I'm not sure that the ads they click on can con them into doing something they wouldn't normally do very often.

As a working professional adult, who has access to many others working professional adults, I assure you, ads work.

You’re simplifying ads to a barebones click to rate exchange. Ads are way more subtle than that.

I don't doubt they work. I doubt the margin of work done by facebook ads on working professional adults over the work of ads that they are exposed to through other means and by word of mouth. And not that that margin doesn't exist and not that it's not worthwhile to advertise on facebook, but the doubt is that as compared to any other demographic being advertised to that it's worth so much more.

Advertising to impulsive spenders is worth more than advertising to less impulsive spenders. Less impulsive spenders are informed by ads, more impulsive spenders are convinced by ads.

Wouldn't people with more disposable income (like professional adults) be more likely to be impulsive spenders? They can afford to be.

Maybe. But they can also afford to wait.

Ads are extremely successful for high-ticket offers. If you'll selling a multi-thousand dollar product or service, you can afford a lot of impressions to get just the few clicks that convert for you.

The earning slides from SNAP compare the DAU and ARPU of SNAP, Twitter and FB, reg. the ARPU, they are respectively $29, $72 and $274.

https://s25.q4cdn.com/442043304/files/doc_presentations/2022...

Averages can mislead. In gaming there are "whales" who spend most of the money on in-app purchases.

Certain ads being seen by certain people might be a lot more valuable than average? It might be interesting to know who these people are.

It’s funny as that’s more than what people pay for Netflix. Showing yes your data is valuable and we are getting the short end of the deal.

Why are you assuming that the parent commenter is in the US?

I am. I guess I should have said that.

The concept you are describing is a government.

Except the government is a monopoly with its own agenda. In addition it already kind of owns us (well a large percentage), what would it gain if it negotiated this deal for us? I would argue it can gain more power by making a deal with facebook.

Everyone who doesn't vote and ignores their role in Democracy let's this happen. The president matters much less then the Mayor or the Governor.

Which is why all the choices are pre-approved by the people who would be most damaged by a President.

So let’s say I’m in CA voting for my two Senators. How much does my vote actually count when 10 other states combined have the same population but 20 Senators?

How much does my vote count even for representatives if I’m in a state that’s heavily gerrymandered?

If you're in a district that is heavily gerrymandered, your vote may actually be more important.

Still, the best proportional representation for you is local. So mayor, state rep, governor.

How do you propose the mayor legislate BigTech? Even on the state level, gerrymandering effects representation. Most of the population in GA (where I live), Florida, and Texas don’t support the state laws. Those three states are passing all kinds of laws to make it harder for people to vote. Especially after the “stolen election” that saw GA turn blue.

And before the whataboutism replies start, I’m sure the same happens on the other side. I just know more about my own state.

The allocation of Senators isn’t supposed to be proportionate to state population by design. It’s a non-issue.

Proportional representation occurs in the House.

Just because it was done by design doesn't mean it's a non-issue. The Senate is an extremely undemocratic organization. The population discrepancy between States is much higher now than when the country was founded.

Nor do the reasons the founders did it this way exist anymore.

People confuse the arguments made out of political expediency for political gospel.

Even though many points made about the constitution were rooted in political theory, and make good sense even today, that doesn’t change the fact that the people involved were politicians who were looking to make the best deal possible within the context of a rapidly failing state under the articles of confederation.

See also - slaves being counted as 3/5ths of a person…

The irony is that always gets brought up as though it was actually meant to represent the value of the slave’s humanity.

The large slaveholding states actually wanted 5/5ths whereas states will small slave populations wanted 0/5ths. Slaves couldn’t vote, their interests were ancillary to the whole discussion. The compromise was about pure political power for those that dominated them.

The repeal of the 3/5ths clause along with the subsequent legal restrictions and terrorism against the black population of the south that followed, gave the south more power, and subsequently made it harder to dislodge Jim Crow.

But your point is still very valid. Somehow people are comfortable compartmentalizing the notion that the constitution is/was perfect, except for that one part that somehow doesn’t count and was “inevitably doomed” anyways.

Fun fact, the 14th amendment would have never passed if the South had not seceded.

> The population discrepancy between States is much higher now than when the country was founded.

This is exactly why the Senate was designed this way.

> Nor do the reasons the founders did it this way exist anymore.

Federalism still exists even if you don’t see it.

Simply because something was designed a certain way 250 years ago, doesn’t mean it’s a non issue.

The political problem they were trying to solve at the time (balancing the interests of independent sovereign political entities with respect to land claims and future political power) doesn’t necessarily map onto the problems we have today.

Proportional representation also doesn’t occur in the house because of gerrymandering.

https://www.fairvote.org/votes_vs_seats_in_the_people_s_hous...

Sounds like the problem here is gerrymandering not the Senate.

There is no democracy other than direct democracy. If you cant fire your government this afternoon, they own you, not the other way around.

That's not how direct democracy works.

If we assume that Switzerland is probably closest to the ideal of a direct democracy please take note that voters can not directly vote for the executive government (The Bundesrat, or federal council).

They elect members of the two houses, which in turn elects the 7 executives. Usually this is based on the recommendation by the parties and with a specific formula considering party, language and area of the country.

We also can't fire government members this afternoon. It's just like everywhere else. We can just not re-elect them.

I looked up the Swiss system, and it certainly is not direct democracy.

> it certainly is not direct democracy

You appear to make up your own extreme definition of what the words "direct democracy" should be and what they should mean. But it's not like that. There are ways words and condepts are commonly used. [1]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Direct_democracy

Looks like I need a new word to describe a system where everyone rules, rather than certain people or organization, since both democracy and direct democracy are apparently taken to describe systems where all people don’t actually rule. Maybe “actual true direct pure democracy” should do.

> Maybe “actual true direct pure democracy” should do.

That would certainly be clearer :)

So many towns where I live put issues on the agenda for town meetings. How this works in practice is that, if there's some issue that someone (like a developer) feels strongly about, they pack the town meeting with allies and push it through because most people probably don't care much and don't even attend the meeting.

I'd argue that it's closest practical example of direct democracy. As in initiatives and referendums.

But I'm always happy to learn if you can come up with a counter example.

Under a direct democracy, you should be able to vote that you can't do that.

No.

You can't have a democracy with 100 IQ idiot majority, because their decisions are governed by whatever gets poured into their poorly working brains that week, so you end up with corporatocracy or fascism, pretending to be a democracy.

I know this isn't the point, but you do realize that the IQ is rearranged to fit a bell curve with 100 being the exact middle average, right? By literally the definition of IQ, 100 IQ is not "an idiot".

I think the point is that the average person is an idiot.

Then we need to fix the apparent problem of idiot majority. If you say most people are stupid why would you want them to vote every 4 years. Can you trust their vote? Do you still advocate for the current form of “democracy”? Maybe we should go back to monarchy and have only one glorious ruler rather than one glorious government.

You can fix most people, or you can just abandon one idea because it's incompatible with how most people are.

Tough choice, but I think I'll opt in for the latter.

Uh! Oh! But if not democracy, then what? Then fascism and corporatocracy - what we have had for as long as you've been alive. You just don't know it :)

Your reply is confusing. So you maintain that most people are stupid, and still want to give them voting rights. What is the logic behind that? To clarify, I don’t think most people are stupid, and I advocate for direct democracy.

Digital direct democracy is a potential opportunity that has only become possible with ubiquitous computing devices (iPhones)

“ In short, if you're excited about iOS 14, you are more likely to be poor than not”

Why are supposing that all rich people made their money through online advertising? It’s clearly untrue and certainly not a robust enough a conclusion to feel bad about your relative success.

I said "more likely," not "guaranteed to be."

> Why are supposing that all rich people made their money through online advertising

If you replace "all" with "most," which is how I phrased it, then your sentence sounds like this:

> Why are supposing that most rich people made their money through online advertising

Ok now we're onto something interesting, but I can see how you might be still struggling with the phrasing. May I suggest to reformulate as follows:

> Why are supposing that most rich people made their money by selling something for more than they paid for it?

Perfect! So we just have to answer if in the context of most people who became rich, "online advertising" = "selling something for more than they paid for it." I would argue that you can sell things without advertising them, but you certainly have to make people aware that you're selling those things one way or another (and mind you, in the context of rich people, you have to do that at a very large scale). So when answering how MOST rich people attracted attention in 2021, and that AT SCALE, I think the above is not so untrue (you will certainly find many who ALSO used TV and other channels, but very few people with a TV budget had a $0 paid social budget).

How do you know what you are getting from them is too little until the service itself is gone? I suppose you can estimate but I feel like without targeted advertising the web would be a dark place. Personally I don’t pay for much (prime, Netflix, NY Times) and expect a lot. The people I know are the same

> I suppose you can estimate but I feel like without targeted advertising the web would be a dark place.

Is this sarcasm? The web is a dark place because of targeted advertisement. I’d rather pay than be tracked and my data sold through bidding processes.

This comes up again and again. People will continue creating and posting even without ad money. They will post for art, for study, hobbies, social issues or just to organize events. There are also those who publish free content and make a profit on something related. That's how the good old internet was working back in the day.

The problem with current internet is that everyone is trying to get the ad money so they don't really align their interests with us who want quality content.

The problem is the freeloaders of the internet far outweigh the people that want to pay for services. Until that changes, we will continue to see the internet dominated by targeted advertising. Honestly, it will be interesting to see what happens to services like DDG. I think it will be a true test of what the world wants, an extremely well funded machine like Google or a more lean privacy centric tool. Capitalism is an interesting thing though. Targeted advertising naturally brings in more money (back to the freeloaders point)

Your data are only as valuable to Facebook as your buying power. Obviously that's not the same across all people, and while the average revenue per US user might be in the teens per month, many US consumer are in the single digits. So presumably a consumer union might get you a fraction of that value back - a few bucks per month. Why not - who wouldn't want a free monthly cup of coffee? I suppose the only catch here is the more excited you get about this concept, the less money your union could negotiate on your behalf.

$10B per year divided by say 150M users equals about $5.50 a month. Not bad, but not gonna cover your $20 Netflix fees.

“I care a lot about my privacy. That’s why I use Google”…

It's more about my privacy being worth a lot more than what Google is willing to pay in the form of services. As an individual, the only thing I can do is stop using Google and Google wouldn't miss me.

There is no need as there is no coercion involved: just stop using them if you don’t like it.

And never have email correspondence with anybody who uses GMail?

Not different??!

Not a lie at all. Apple is as dirty as they come.

Apple is a cartel and Google pays the protection money that Facebook failed to. If Apple really cared about privacy and not money, they'd block Google from the platform too.

A single policy changed wiped 25% of a trillion dollar company's market cap. That's a gravitational wave that shows what kind of overwhelming monopoly power Apple wields.

To be clear, I hate Facebook and ads, but Apple is an incredibly dirty business and is doing massive amounts of harm to startups and our industry as a whole.

Apple owns "America's computer" (50+% of average American's internet usage), and they control it like a dictatorship. High taxes, close inspection of every deploy, arbitrary rulings, forced use of Apple platform pieces, no possible business relationships with your customers.

The DOJ needs to step in and remove the App Store monopoly, its tax, and its arbitrary rules. When you run a device this pervasive and entrenched, it's no longer a platform. It's a common carrier. App installs need to happen over web, where they'd still be just as safely sandboxed, monitored, and remote killswitchable.

> they'd block Google from the platform too.

To be fair, they didn't block Facebook from their platform. Users now just need to agree that they want to be tracked (spoiler: practically no one wants to be tracked).

I don't disagree with your general take and save for an iPod classic I don't own any Apple gear. But in my book that was one of the better moves that Apple ever pulled.

Yeah. More privacy by getting rid of third-party cookies and having the prompt for apps is a great thing. That it also reduces the revenue of the two monopolists who didn’t even bother to differentiate that revenue (Facebook is 98% ads, Google is at something like 81%) is the cherry on top.

> Apple owns "America's computer" (50+% of average American's internet usage), and they control it like a dictatorship

If Apple didn't give their users tools to control tracking, wouldn't that be more dictatorial?

It would be fair business if the DOJ removed the app store, but Apple removed APIs that allow tracking.

I would be fully on board with that. 100% pro-consumer, pro-small business.

Apple needs to protect its consumers, but the US government needs to protect businesses against the Apple monopoly.

> It would be fair business if the DOJ removed the app store, but Apple removed APIs that allow tracking.

Why is that more fair? I bought an iPhone a month ago (my first) in part because I want their version of the App Store and I want more privacy controls. I actually like that Apple's requirements push developers to make a native app rather than a web app (for example).

I'm certainly sympathetic to the argument that 30% is too large of a cut and it's well past time for payment reform. However, I think consumers would be worse off losing Apple's more tightly controlled app store implementation. If you want more options, go Android. That's what I did for more than a decade.

So, you’re complaining that Apple gave users a choice not to be tracked?

You keep making this kind of reply to all of my comments.

I've already enumerated my problems with Apple here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30196852

I would be fine if Apple removed tracking if the DOJ removed their app store.

Because this article is not about developers having to pay 30%

Your problems outside of the 30% (which is valid) is that you want to be able to ship crappy cross platform web apps and know more about your users (which I don’t want).

It's funny how the same reasons third party devs hate the iPhone are roughly the same reasons I bought into the iPhone ecosystem.