> Showing ads to users is a minor aspect of FB's business model. The data collection and shady markets around it are far more lucrative.

Do you have a source for this claim? It's possibly true, but I suspect in reality it's actually the opposite.

No, it's mere speculation on my part. I doubt such proof would exist anyway, as the entire data broker market is intentionally obscured from the public. But it would be foolish not to think that the adtech giants are not major players of its $300bn worth.

A couple lines of thinking lead me to believe this:

- Why would they collect data from people who are not their users, i.e. shadow profiles? Is it really so that when people sign-up they have a better UX, or is it so they can still sell this lower quality data to whoever might find it useful?

- Showing ads to users is only profitable if the user is part of an ad campaign. Meanwhile, user data can be sold perpetually many times, even if they're not directly advertised to on FB. Why _wouldn't_ FB want to be part of this highly unregulated and lucrative market?

Believing anything these companies say publicly is too naive, given their track record of deception. So I don't mind all this being dismissed as FUD. :)

Ads are like 99% of their revenue. The rest of this is FUD

This is total nonsense. Facebook’s most valuable asset is their data which is why they don’t sell it, they rent access to it. It is much better for Facebook if you have to come to them every time you want to target an ad to a 24-28 year old male in the Bay Area with an interest in menswear than if they just sell a CSV with a list of said males.

This is the easiest thing in the world to check: their quarterly earnings are public. If you don’t believe those earnings, I would suggest filing a complaint with the SEC because you would have uncovered one of the larger securities fraud cases of all time.