[wlesieutre]

You could say that Ford is in the automobile industry and they happen to utilize manufacturing in their products, but I don't think it's a useful distinction to make.

Just like Ford's cars are made by factories, Facebook's products are made by programmers.

Even if you want to look at the "tech industry" as meaning "creates tech for use by other people" instead of just "develops tech-based products for consumers," Facebook still has some solid output (React Native, Nuclide, etc).

[gaius]

Apple and Microsoft make technology as their primary purpose. But if Facebook and Twitter could sell as many ads without technology, then that's what they'd do, because that's what business they're really in.

[wlesieutre]

I'm sure Facebook has people who work there because social networking and a solid cross-platform messaging system are both useful services to a huge number of people.

Warner Bros. makes plenty of money off of product placement, but it doesn't make them not a movie studio.

And what about Oculus? Are we writing off VR as a technology because Facebook might put advertising in it?