Re:Ask HN: Why Did Medium.com “Fail"?
by doctor_eval on Friday February 10, 2023 @10:25PM
(#34749275)
Well, I disagree with your previous assertion that Facebook makes money from selling ads.
Facebook makes money by creating a product that attracts a bunch of people to use it, and then they sell ads.
The whole thing falls apart if they don’t do #1 properly.
we'll have to agree to disagree then. There are many other properties outside of Facebook.com where their ads run, in competition with Google.
Re:Ask HN: Why Did Medium.com “Fail"?
by doctor_eval on Saturday February 11, 2023 @01:10AM
(#34750010)
We are specifically talking about the user visible pages of these companies and their “enshitification”
> Facebook's business was providing a common platform for people that know each other to share publicly. Twitter's business was a billboard to share what they're doing. Google's business was to provide a way to find things on the web.
They may have other businesses in banner ads but I’m specifically responding to the question,
> do all platforms go through this? if so, it's very sad.
by trying to make the point that if their business is selling attention, then pissing off end users - thereby reducing the supply of attention - is bad management.
Many of these giant sites are really in the business of talking money out of investors, so their main business is not really selling a service at all (its "investor storytime").
I don't think that arbitrage model is useful because one side is paying cash and the other is not. Its like calling dating a marketplace, a bad metaphor.