Edgier prediction: Meta is too (big, but more importantly) relevant to (be allowed to) fail, because it can be co-opted by TLAs due to its apps being pre-loaded on mobile devices.

https://news.ycombinator.com/context?id=44979751

There were a lot of things too big to fail

Lehman brothers, Enron.

When this bubble pops, its going to be absolute chaos maybe just like last time

It will be chaos for those working at Meta and those invested in them too much without an appropriate hedge. I doubt I will notice much, to be honest.

Even if Meta tanked, unless Messenger/Whatsapp stop working, it’s kind of beside the point how much their stock trades for. Everyone will just use whatever has or keeps the most public interest, whether that is Meta-owned or something else.

The worrying aspect is that for Meta to really tank in value, the shit has to have already hit the fan, and it probably would not be isolated to Meta.

My point in my prior comment was that Meta serves the purposes of the IC status quo just by doing what they’re already doing. Cloudflare too, in a way.

> Meta serves the purposes of the IC status quo

The problem is that their products are getting worse and worse. Signal is already taking a huge share from WhatsApp (ads and AI chat bots, really?) and Messenger.

TikTok absolutely obliterated Instagram. Facebook is sliding into irrelevancy, and most importantly, they have a lot of failed products like Oculus, Metaverse (wtf is it anyway), LLAMa, etc. Now they are sliding into even more irrelevance and burning money even faster trying to poach extremely expensive OpenAI folks. My conspiracy theory is that Facebook ads earning numbers are somehow a scam.

After so many bad decisions on their part, so much waste and bad execution that I can't see them surviving the next 5 years.

They can just buy other companies for 5 years and coast, or they would have done if not for antitrust concerns under Biden. They can afford to pay hundreds of millions of dollars to rockstars for well over 5 years, and acquihire their way to acquiring the next big thing. I think they’re probably appropriately valued alongside other trillion dollar companies, but they will likely find that it’s less lonely at the top than anticipated.

Signal serves IC interests too by requiring phone numbers.

> They can just buy other companies for 5 years and coast

No, what they could do in the past is not at all how they can operate today. They can't afford to pay the rockstars anymore, they went through multiple rounds of layoffs. They can't afford to drop the stock too low also. Basically they are in a corner, and I love it. Fingers crossed that within the next five years they shake up upper management and Zuck is out.

They’re laying off folks, but that doesn’t mean they’re doing it due to payroll pressure. They’re a megacorp. They can’t go broke from payroll, they have accountants for that. The folks getting acquihired and poached aren’t at risk of being laid off as long as they’re producing value. If the value they bring at Meta is also not being provided elsewhere, so much the better for Meta. It hurts Meta’s competitors more than it hurts Meta, because Meta won’t miss the money. They don’t need high headcount, they need folks who are irreplaceable. It’s a different hiring process for different jobs.

I doubt Zuck is out anytime soon, unless folks stop using their products compared to alternatives. I think it’s possible, but I think the odds are at best even for him to go in 5 years. In 10 years, who can say? Facebook users are pretty locked in because there’s nothing else like it for the users that regularly use it. Facebook users who aren’t on alternatives aren’t just going to switch to Reddit or TikTok overnight. Why would they? I can’t follow your reasoning, but I understand not being a fan of Zuck or Meta, I guess, but I think their business seems pretty strong right now, though that is subject to change along with consumer whims.

I meant that if meta actually goes under, since they are clearly a decent part of S&P 500, it might create a spiraling effect similar to lehman brothers which can affect the world economy and thus you and me both.

They better get their shit sorted.

"The Zuck" can't be removed — he has more the 60% of the votes![0] The board stupidly voted to do so a few years ago.

[0]: He only has about 13% of the shares, but the dual allocation means that his class B shares are worth 10 votes. And he owns 99% of those shares. https://observer.com/2023/06/mark-zuckerberg-2023-shareholde...