Meta: A Social Technology Company | Hacker News Reader

Meta: A Social Technology Company

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120 pointssturza155 comments

Meta (previously Facebook) is the ultimate social manipulator.

Your site is losing popularity to a new social media app for phones? Buy that app. Make it basically the same as your version of social media.

Your previously purchased app is losing popularity to an app devoted to ephemeral videos and pictures? Shamelessly copy that app's functionality in every app you own, and even make an exact duplicate app to commodify that feature. Run the competitor into the ground when they refuse to sell to you.

Your collection of almost-the-same-social-media-sites is threatened by a foreign competitor? Lobby for that foreign competitor to be banned from one of the largest single-country markets in the world. That doesn't work? Spread FUD about the foreign competitor's evil. That's doesn't work? Lobby for intense regulation in the social media space to prevent any competitor from ever showing up again.

A series of scandals, leaks, and general scummy profit-seeking behaviour sullies your name even among tech illiterate folks? Change your name so those people can't keep track of what's going on and launder your reputation.

I can't stand Meta. I think Zuckerburg might just be the antichrist (mostly kidding on this one). But I have to hand it to him: he is very savvy at this whole business thing.

I agree but relax with the antichrist stuff, we don't want the justifiable hatred of him to turn into antisemitism like it already is in the conspiracy circles

I wouldn’t really call it savvy. Most people can think of these tactics but many people wouldn’t actually do it. The difference is he doesn’t care about unfairly screwing other people over for his own personal gain. I bet you he rationalizes it like it’s just competition. A multibillion dollar company that can hire 10,000 with a snap of a finger vs a million dollar startup. Yup, just competition.

Genuinely curious, what part of the parent comment is "unfairly screwing other people over for his own personal gain"?

Seems like ordinary business moves to me to buy up competitors. The competitors are paid pretty large sums for their sale so not sure who's being screwed over here.

The consumer is, in nearly every instance.

How are consumers "unfairly screwed over?" They use FB products at their own discretion.

Google " radicalization by social media " Normal people can't quit social networks, they are part of iot life. If you can put them aside, you are not normalnby definiton.

I had to reply because I can't downvote.

Might as well say that cars, computers, television, and clothes are "screwing the consumer over" if your definition is they are part of life and "normal" society can't function without them.

Spare some disdain for the people who choose to work for him.

They deserve it: they commit the evil for far smaller a payoff.

I bet this will be generally effective at shielding their other properties from bad news about Facebook.

For ordinary people, "WhatsApp is owned by Meta" is going to feel really different from "WhatsApp is owned by Facebook".

Will this work, or will this just be like Google's Alphabet, which the general person-on-the-street doesn't know or care about?

Having people on the street not know or care about who owns WhatsApp and Instagram seems like it might be the point.

My point was that Google's rebrand DIDN'T work. Very few people know Google as Alphabet. They still know it as Google (the people on the street that is). So, will Facebook's rebrand have the effect of Bell Atlantic + GTE's rebrand as Verizon, or will it have the effect Google's rebrand as Alphabet?

I hope (and feel) like the ruse will not work.

That's because all of Google's main consumer properties didn't get branding changes and are still all "Google Maps" or "Google Photos", etc...

WhatsApp and Instagram are much stronger brands, and are not already branded "Facebook WhatsApp" or "WhatsApp by Facebook".

> "WhatsApp by Facebook".

Well, the splash screen says "Whatsapp from Facebook", and the description on the Google Play store starts with "WhatsApp from Facebook is a FREE messaging and video calling app."

So, it's out there, even if people haven't changed the way they think.

Disclosure: I worked for WhatsApp until 2019

They are called Google maps/Google photos because these are Google products.

Google is responsible for alphabets web services. Check out Wikipedia for actual examples like waymo (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alphabet_Inc.)

Really not true. The same number of people will know Facebook as owning them as do now. Like now people are like, "you know Instagram is owned by Facebook right?"

That's not going to change.

Google didn't change its org structure for consumer-facing rebranding purposes. It was a move for the market/investors, to separate out more clearly the (lack of) profitability of individual sectors and acquisitions of the company that don't happen to be ads or search. Alphabet was about creating internal transparency.

That's the story. At the same time their former CEO made quite a few statements that did not sit well with the management of the daughter companies, Google's reputation is such that some distance really doesn't hurt in the PR department.

Including folks who work in the field - I've never heard "I just got a job at Alphabet".

People on the street don't know about Alphabet is what the above post implied. People will not know about Meta as well hence everyone will still say it is own by Facebook which gotten so much negative feedback that it had to change its name to Meta but essentially still the FB who is own by that Zuck guy.

I think you have it flipped around.

We still think of Alphabet as Google. So while Facebook may effectively become Meta, people will still say "Facebook does X" when they should technically mean "Meta does X".

Doesn't that defeat the purpose of the rebrand? If Facebook is going all in on Meta, wouldn't they want people to think Meta does X instead of Facebook does X? Especially if they're trying to distance themselves from the increasing stink that is Facebook.

What Facebook wants and what the public winds up doing isn't necessarily the same thing.

Depends on what we mean by "work". My impression is that Google didn't change its name due to shame or for consumer branding, but rather to better reflect the company's structure where not everything is Google anymore. In the case of FB, the change could be in part due to bad reputation and in part consumer oriented.

The reason the person-on-the-street doesn't care about Alphabet is that people don't interact with any Alphabet company except Google. Waymo? Calico? Loon? Wing? Hardly any ordinary people think about those. (Maybe some day, but not today.)

By contrast, lots of ordinary people interact with WhatsApp and Instagram. It will be/feel different when they're "owned by Meta" vs. "owned by Facebook."

So if the Whatsapp and Instagram brands are stronger than Facebook / Meta, what will the point be here, to distance and separate the sullied Facebook brand from the not-yet-sullied Whatsapp and Instagram brands by using an intermediary vanilla Meta brand?

My understanding was Google's rebranding was mainly targeted at investors so that when financials were reported, it would be split out between Google vs. other divisions. It would make sense that most everyday people wouldn't know about this.

FB's rebrand seems targeted to everyday consumers, so I would bet their brand strategy would change to cater to that, in a way that Google/Alphabet never cared to.

My mother doesn't associate facebook to whatsapp, although I have explained several times.

The day facebook went down for some hours, she woke me up complaining "the internet was down"

Meta is a real word that's still actively being used. imo this will make it harder to find bad news about the company in the future.

That might not be entirely coincidental.

Entirely. Almost seems like word play to soften the blow of critical headlines.

Like “apple”?

Yeah, but there's already a ton of training data available even when Google was just starting out. That's not the case with Meta.

You still have a point.

Maybe but I'd be surprised. How many (both tech folks or news articles) really associate Fitbit/Waymo/DeepMind primarily with Alphabet instead of Google? Even clicking a recent story which refers to it as an Alphabet subsidy they reference it as "DeepMind, which is owned by Google parent Alphabet,".

Worked for Xfinity

This might be the nicest thing I’ve ever said about Comcast but I think their slow roll-out approach was better (from a PR perspective) than what facebook is doing. There was no big bandaid pull where Comcast was suddenly Xfinity it just sort of... happened?

Did it really happen though? I still see stuff with Comcast on it. Like technician trucks, random web pages, postal mailings, etc. It seems to me that they just came up with the term Xfinity and then slowly associated it back with the Comcast name, so now both Comcast and Xfinity can be thought of as terrible companies.

Older companies tend to be run by pre-internet leadership, with deep and wide political connections and awareness.

They tend to do better with PR slight of hand. Maybe because they get it’s all a political boondoggle and SV companies are run by finance wonks.

Sadly, I think you’re right, given a long enough time frame.

It’s probably a smart move on Facebook’s part. Doesn’t stop them being terrible though.

> Doesn’t stop them being terrible though.

Well, it depends on if they want to keep the Meta name clean from scandals. But I doubt they manage too. It’s a company DNA issue at this point.

With name like "meta" it will be harder to find bad press about them.

Should have called themselves "F" but I think you're actually onto something.

When the marketing outpaces the product call me skeptical.

So the metaverse. Instead of websites (or social media accounts) interacting using links, we'll live in some AR reality and interact some other way?

Sounds hand-wavy. Sound a mix between a bored tech billionaire searching for a new venture and a distraction from awful business practices.

I don't think Facebook even have a good reputation for innovation. So now Zuck's throwing ideas out to a swarm of marketers, while facebook prints money in the basement with continually dodgy business practices.

I can't figure out if Zuck and the rest of Facebook leadership are actually bought into the whole metaverse nonsense or simply using it as a distraction from the current image issues for the brand. Facebook is and always will be a data collection and advertising company. No amount of VR side hobbies will change that.

You wrote a lot of wishful thinking here. Within a few years much of our day to day interactions with others will be modulated via sensory override devices, and Facebook wants to "win" at that. Ignore it at your peril.

Remember when Google Glass was supposed to take over the world? Then Magic Leap. Then HoloLens. Then Oculus. And the countless online worlds since Second Life?

This entire industry has been a few years away from mainstream success for decades now. All of it is ultimately a tech showcase without a product use case.

Product use case is eliminating the need for physical co-presence to experience being together. It's going to happen, soon, so don't let the mis-predictions you cite mislead you (which, btw, weren't made by me, since mine are grounded in falsifiable metrics of social presence delivery.)

You're confusing "hardware you wear on your face" with the technology stack which eliminates the need for physical proximity to deliver the feeling of unmediated communication.

So what is this technology if not hardware you wear on your face? Does it exist? Can anyone try it out? When is the release date?

"I don't have time to fight with people who are trying to misunderstand me"

The face goggles are at one layer of the tech stack, and like the other layers, will be continually improved and swapped out with better implementations. See also: displays, or paper.

I have one, and it's kind of fun, but it's also absolutely impossible to synchronize space. Imagine, probably the absolute funniest experience I had was a sort of paintball game, where I had to setup a cube around me and I could just move in it (or I'd rip the goggles cable, bump into a wall etc).

That killed it eventually for me, I can't "move" in this virtual space, if I could map my entire flat with wireless high resolution goggles, that wouldn't really help much since my space is unique so any kind of fun terrain use is gone, I still HAVE to avoid my walls nobody else has.

You can have the sort of running carpet things, but at this point, how lazy do I have to be rather than just get out and speak with people.

What you don't perceive I think, is the vast cheapness of just going to a bar, sitting down, and talking, for entertainment. It's never going to be replaced with VR because VR solves no problem and the fun gets old with the limits

I’d argue the Oculus has made a real dent unlike the other product. I’ve tried it, I tasted the future.

How many did you buy for your family ? Once I bought 3 mobile phones.

But... why ? It's like saying we're all going to have flying cars, at this point.

wasnt this said 5 years ago? I dont know anyone who owns a vr set

Facebook's earnings stated they're going to be burning a large fraction of their net income on it going forward, so it seems like it's hardly a hobby.

I hear dystopia.com is a domain name that might be available for a good price. It probably is a better fit for the company brand anyways.

DYSTOPIA - Digital Yoke Syndication Technology over Public Internet Access

It's only fitting to now call it The Meta Data company.

This is honestly so on the nose that it has to be the origin.

Related: "Facebook's metaverse spending will top $10 billion this year"

https://www.protocol.com/bulletins/facebook-metaverse-10-bil...

The video announcement is extremely wild to me. It is essentially just Zuckerberg talking to you directly for an hour and twenty minutes, with occasional interviews with others. It's like a full-length feature film in both length and production quality, with an emotionless main character and dystopian plot.

He looks even more rendered than Roy Kent.

Facebook continues its transformation from a website to a video game. They created React to turn the static web into a real-time experience. They realized the browser isn't meant to be a game engine, so they are developing another "web" called the Metaverse, which is really just a big distributed video game. It will be successful i.e. addict hundreds of millions of people.

If you thought Facebook proper had negative social effects, wait for the Metaverse to fully roll out... "Optimizing" the human experience has its limits.

It's a bit early for a whitewash, does this mean that we've now seen all the bad news from FB that we should expect? To make it easier I always link the name of the entity to the old name to ensure that their past stays with them. So Blackwater, Xe and Academi are all the same to me, no matter how hard they try to twist their way out of it, ditto for Alphabet and Google, Accenture and Andersen, Worldcom and MCI, Philip Morris and Altria and so on. It's akin to someone moving to the next town over and changing their name, a companies' past should stay with it, rather than that we allow them to whitewash it and treat their reputational wreckage as just another expense item.

While I think fb’s name didn’t make sense once they bought IG, WA etc and should have changed it, I also agree there’s more in store for them and the timing of this doesn’t matter. Everyone will know meta = fb for a long time to come.

I don’t see a future where they play a large part of web3, the meta verse or whatever you want to call it. Their entire business is built in predatory ads and that is not the future. New generations move on.

( If it is we have a bleak future)

Interesting that they don't own neither of https://meta.org or https://meta.io domains.

Well, you got one out of two: https://meta.org says

     Meta, a Chan Zuckerberg Initiative project, is a biomedical research discovery tool that analyzes & connects millions of scientific outputs to give you a comprehensive view into science.

and

    The Chan Zuckerberg Initiative (CZI) is an organization established and owned by Meta, Inc founder Mark Zuckerberg and his wife Priscilla Chan with an investment of 99 percent of the couple's wealth from their Facebook shares over their lifetime.

And conveniently, as of an hour ago, meta.org is being sunset: https://cziscience.medium.com/meta-transition-5f66b1fae475

Also conveniently, Meta Inc controlled meta.com since maybe 2015 (the internet archive page seems to only have the titles for some time) and was merged with the Chan Zuckerberg Institute in 2017.

Disclosure: worked at WhatsApp until 2019; was unaware of meta.com/meta.org until today

Some "Chun, David INDIVIDUAL UNITED STATES" owns the meta trademark. No mention what industry it is for, not even sure if it's possible to trademark a common word.

Which shows that FB is using this meta thing to distract from their brand but not for much else.

Mark probably wanted to call it "The Meta".

Meta is Hebrew for death, Swedish for Meth. Meta is a great corporate name for Facebook because it let's you choose your preferred analogy.

in Italian means "goal" or "half" (with an accent on the a)

Meth could have been more fitting.

I hate it.

That's quite emotional response to something quite unrelated to your life.

You don't like a company X, you don't use its products, that's it.

Hate is destructive.

Not the parent, but I hate Facebook because of the negative impact it had on my psychology, feeding my depression and anxiety for years before I broke free and stopped using it. That was about 10 years ago.

They seem to have only gotten worse since then in many ways. And I was an adult when I started using it. I can’t imagine what some of these intrusive social media products are doing to kids.

So I dislike and no longer use Facebook. And also, I do hate it.

I’m usually a pretty positive person and would rarely use the word “hate” in respect of another person. I reserve that word for very few scenarios. But I have to say that in this case it’s perfectly fitting.

This is an attitude of blaming everyone else but yourself.

Obese? Hate Coca-Cola. Lung cancer? Hate Philip Morris. Broke a leg in car crash? Hate BMW. Depressed? Hate Facebook.

Facebook is just a tool. How you use it, it is your responsibility.

and yours seems to be an attitude of blaming only the individual. Obese? just a lazy fatso. Lung cancer? just a nicotine junkie. etc.

I think you are also being too simplistic and neglecting the complex interactions between personal responsibility and the dependency on the environment we as a culture inhabit and create.

The impact of large corporations optimising consumer behavior is not zero, otherwise they wouldn't spend so much money on it. So those corporations also share partial accountability to the problems they helped create.

The product "facebook" being a tool does not preclude the company "facebook" from accountability.

> and yours seems to be an attitude of blaming only the individual.

Yes. Because I like to think I'm living among grown ups, not among children where nanny state is needed.

> Obese? just a lazy fatso.

Not everyone of course (sometimes it is disease), but most obese people are.

It is not necessarily bad. Maybe someone decided they are happy being obese, lazy and enjoy sugar in food, that's their choice and their responsibility.

> The impact of large corporations optimising consumer behavior is not zero, otherwise they wouldn't spend so much money on it.

And grownup adults are responsible to recognize these tricks and don't use it when it harms them.

Same as with Coca-cola, which also does millions of these tricks affecting consumer behavior. I drink Coke occasionally, and partly because of their ads everywhere, otherwise maybe I'd drink more water. But I know when to stop.

Right. In my case I chose not to use it.

Hate might be strong, but this is kind of like naming your tech company "computer." "Meta" is used across so many industries in the tech sector, and outside. Now it's tied to the stink of "facebook."

Facebook radicalized my father and ruined our relationship.

You are talking like your father is not a free thinking adult not capable of forming his own world view.

I hate to say it, but if your relationship is ruined, it's not Facebook to blame.

I think that most people here would agree that social media, and Facebook in particular feeds off people's tendency to get addicted to... it. Of course you can "get off" or use it thoughtfully. Many do, but many don't, not realizing how it changes your perception of reality and by extension your personality and relationships. Looking at the amount of plainly false information spreading in these networks, I wouldn't necessarily collectively characterize the userbase as a bunch of free thinkers. Sadly.

Unsolicited advice: you need to learn empathy.

It is a core life skill, and based (admittedly entirely) on your posting history here, you lack it completely.

Thank you making an assessment of my character knowing virtually nothing about me.

This is not an emotional support forum. If you don’t want to have your relationship discussed, don’t bring it here, that’s it.

> Thank you making an assessment of my character knowing virtually nothing about me.

The pot calling the kettle black it would seem.

> This is not an emotional support forum.

We are all humans here, and humans have emotions. And we bring those emotions to everything we do. To deny this is extremely naive.

There is nothing to be gained from being disrespectful or cruel to each other. Quite the opposite in fact.

> There is nothing to be gained

There is. I pointed to a flaw in the argument.

> from being disrespectful or cruel to each other.

I'd say it is disrespectful to bring your own grief as an argument in a rational discussion. Keep your personal life out of discussing technical or political discussions.

> And we bring those emotions to everything we do.

No we don't. At least those of us who have grown up.

It's not that simple. It's very hard to avoid Facebook. For example I literally can't delete it from my phone.

Pedantry ain’t gonna save anyone from anything

Neither a prejudice against “emotions”

I didn't see any pedantry, and nobody here needs saving (except from themselves).

You are picking up extra shifts on the Facebook PR defense today. I like the aggressive attitude. See you back at the Meta offices tomorrow! Can't wait for the company Halloween party over VR.

My response was an intentionally flippant statement, and very self-aware as a "first impression" type thing. I don't actually hate Facebook, or their new name (but I don't think it's very good).

Sorry that went over your head, I didn't mean to trigger a lecture.

idk i'd destroy facebook and tbh i'd view it as a neet +ve for society, hate seems like the appropriate word (at least for me)

> idk i'd destroy facebook

Sorry to hear that. I'd prefer to live in society where there's rule of law and basic freedoms, including freedom to conduct business even if I or someone else disagrees with how that business operates.

I wouldn't want to destroy any legal business.

And some of us think that the category of “legal business” should be restricted a bit more, just as we don’t allow alcohol and marijuana producers to sell to minors, or financial institutions to loan money at high interest rates with self-enforced, obliquely-hinted-at physical penalties.

Maybe it should be restricted. I personally think the ability to censor free speech and free expression for such companies should be restricted.

But destroy it? That'd be too much.

Facebook has literally shaped our world, and often.. the people we encounter in it.

Meta could do a bit of that, too.

He hates the name. Take a chill pill.

Nothin worse than a facebook meta verse.

Now they can say that hackers only made off with "Meta data". (Sorry)

an interesting idea but the technology just isn't there.

even if the technology were here, ultimately the things people enjoy involve reality - eating, vacations, traveling, etc.

I'd go the other extreme actually and make some sort of "superreality"

if you ask a million people "what brings you joy" - the vast majority of the answers will involve spending time with other people in person. video games, social media, etc. only serve as a gateway to reality. a "metaverse" would ultimately be at odds with this.

Eh, the tech isn't there until it is (PalmPilot/iPhone).

An example of something that's already here: call of duty. Spending time with others while casually playing is a fun time. It's challenging, requires communication, you shoot the shit, laugh, drink, etc. I already refer to it as plugging in.

Sure I prefer a lake house, or skiing in the mountains, but that's expensive, and not accessible to most. I think too if the environment trends into more chaotic areas you can expect people to spend more time inside, thus more demand for digital experiences.

Main thread here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29029317

Am I the only person who immediately thought "metadata".. As in all the data they collect and weaponize against you?

The logo is an Infinity Pringle. Cannot unsee.

Looks like one of the old Visual Studios logos to me.

It rotates in the third dimension.

They could have done a lot more for their brand's image by removing the forced FB integration with Oculus.

The new Meta site doesn't make me think they are at all considering removing that forced integration.

I think they announced that they're doing exactly that (or at least working on it).

I sincerely hope this does not work and they continue to carry the stigma they've rightfully earned.

Facebook tried to buy and takeover the term "Internet", but failed given its widespread use, so they knew it was important to not delay in taking over the term for the thing many early adopters believe will be similarly significant.

Source?

Internet.org

Meth: A Social Addiction Company. Presented by a archetypical nihilist with fish eyes.

I never Meta bigger jerk than Mark Zuckerberg.

I mean obviously whatever name they came up with will get ridiculed, but they are just begging for it. The late night comedians are going to have a field day tonight.

Im so bored of this universe, time to jump into the next one via meta.

Apparently it should read Zuckerberg is so bored of Facebook that he jumped to meta.

[dupe]

merge with main discussion over here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29029317

Sorry to pass for a semantic Luddite, but "social", "technology" and "company" all in one title, is something I'm not thrilled to read.

hey man the luddites actually made some good points, technology isn't intrinsically good or synonymous with "progress"

bad use of the term on my side then

Is that what we call to "Advertisement Company" now?

Bye FAANG, Hello MANGA

google is called alphabet now, so MANAA

Mamaa

Their metaverse is an extension of the physical world, except controlled perpetually by a single company with a history of trying to crush or buy out competitors, enabling a genocide, and doing lasting damage to some users' mental health. What could possibly go wrong?

Rebranding to try to appear diverse, but...

Income: 99% from advertising on the social media apps?

All this other stuff is cute hobbies they blow some of their profits on.

Will we start talking about MAANG now?

Netflix was always to small to be included so now the acronym is MAGA

4D chess. Unbelievable. /s

I guess it should be Alphabet in there instead of google, so it's like AMANAM

Without "F" in the acronym, maybe Microsoft can be added to the list!

Time to rebrand as MANGA

MANGA!

How different were the reactions to Alphabet, which on the surface was the exact same move?

Google created Alphabet as an umbrella company so that Google search would be isolated legally from all their other non-money making projects. There was no shift in the company mission/focus.

Facebook the company is rebranding to Meta. Unlike Google/Alphabet this move marks a shift in the company focus from Facebook as the company’s main product to developing products for the Metaverse.

Was Alphabet created to distract people from bad behaviour? Did it seem like Google leadership created it because they got bored with their dayjobs?

Do you disagree it was the same move?

Maybe they had incredible foresight.

In that case didn't they make the change too early?

Perhaps FB made it too late

Just keep calling it Facebook. They don't get to decide what it is called, we do :)

Facebook’s “Meta” rebrand will stick as much as Microsoft’s Internet Explorer Edge.

Metasploit. Metadata.

Screw that guy.

Hopefully this is a public announcement that Mark Zuckerbarf has indeed lost his mind.

The trustbusters will never find you now Facebook.

Facebook who? There's nobody here by that name.

So meta

Without "-data" meta struck me as corporate appropriation of slang. 'Hella' would be more entertaining.

snooze

"Let's change our brand. We will get the suckers to think we are creating a better digital future!"

"We will continue to make people more miserable, and me wealthier?"

(I like FB groups. It's not all bad. I do believe the company, and their acquisitions, are not good for adolescents psyche, or even most adults up to 40.)

Heck, it seems to be doing some of its worst damage to the over-60 crowd.

Me, 20 years ago: I wish Dad would try to learn how to use a PC so he could understand what I’m studying.

Me, 10 years ago: I wish Dad would try to learn how to use the Internet so I wouldn’t have to manage increasingly digital regular personal business stuff for him now that Mom’s gone.

Me, today: I am delighted that Dad never took an interest in the online world and will happily serve as a phone to Internet proxy for him the rest of his life, and Snapfish makes good money off me now that I’ve presented my dad with the stereotypical reason his generation started using FB: a grandchild.

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