[product50]

You are absolutely wrong on both counts.

THe only real change will come from users. If Facebook users start boycotting (and to be clear no users are doing this), that is what will hurt them. So while you and I continue to be outraged, a lot of users don't care enough and just goto Facebook to see what their friends are doing and clicking on that ad. And the wheel keeps on turning around.

Employee activism won't matter much for Facebook. Unlike Google, Zuckerberg holds all the keys and he is firm/unwavering to his principles. Also, the core set of employees stick with him. Check out how Chris Cox just rejoined Facebook.

[CogentHedgehog]

I hear this claim a lot, but it forgets that Facebook has 1.7 BILLION daily active users and still growing. They won't miss a few users here and there: users are the product, not the customer. 100 million people could leave Facebook and it would only slightly reduce the amount of ad impressions they can sell.

On the other hand if advertisers boycott Facebook that directly hurts their bottom line.

[lallysingh]

All true, but I'll point out that different users are worth different amounts. If the users with high disposable income leave, then the Audis and Pelotons leave the platform too.

[CogentHedgehog]

An excellent point. Facebook's demographics now skew heavily towards Boomers who have lots of money to throw around. These boomers are never going to leave Facebook based on some "delete Facebook!!!" comment on Hacker News or Reddit.

Literally the only effective way to force Facebook to change their ways is regulatory action or advertiser boycotts.

[vin047]

Facebooks value proposition (users) to its customers (advertisers) is too high. Other advertisers will fill in the gap left by those who are boycotting – less advertisers means more ad space for the others.

Agreed that even 100 million isn’t enough, though it would be the start of a trend which could slowly pick up momentum.

[product50]

400 advertisers, who are the largest brands, have already boycotted Facebook. And the stock is near all time high (it recovered the losses this week) and Zuckerberg is pretty much saying he won't change nothing. So there you have it. Very likely this will hurt advertisers more (since they now have lower ROI) vs. Facebook whose large base of performance driven and small advertisers (who don't have much brand to speak of) will take over.

Only thing which matters in the end is whether users continue engaging with Facebook. Money will flow thereafter. If users don't engage, even if the money is coming in for the time being, it will raise red flags across the board. This is why Twitter is such a shoddy stock to own - since their user numbers have been stagnant since 2013 regardless of how strong their ad business is.

This is social media 101.

[CogentHedgehog]

Most of Facebook's advertising by total volume comes from large numbers of small advertisers. That's why their stock is up -- people didn't realize how small the net impact of a few large brands is on their total revenues.

Were you going to ignore my point about Facebook being about to lose 100 million daily active users without even feeling it?

[product50]

You have no idea what you are saying. You need to go deep to have sane arguments.

If FB loses 100M users in US, they are actually going to lose their shit vs. them losing 100M users in APAC. Get real. The fact of the matter is no user in US (where almost all the uproar is) is leaving

ALso, most people knew about FB having majority of its spend from large advertisers. The stock fell because Wall St felt that the boycott will go deeper (or will impact usage numbers) but it just fizzled out with some big brands. And that doesn't matter. So it is back up again.

[vin047]

Agree with you on the first part, but not sure on the second – if skilled employees leave (especially for other competing social media apps) Facebook will start to lag. Even with its core loyal employees Facebook can’t compete if they don’t retain skilled workers.

[ThrowawayR2]

Facebook has enough momentum that not having the best and brightest probably wouldn't slow them down. And, let's face it, for what Facebook pays, there are still plenty of skilled people who don't favor one side or the other who would happily take their money.

[vin047]

Momentum would keep them going for a long time but they’d eventually stagnate if they lost the majority of their best workers – look at other once dominant tech companies who can longer get the best talent, even with their deep pockets. This doesn’t mean they’d collapse completely of course.

I realise this is just a hypothetical though – highly unlikely since it would require the top employees leaving en masse.

[iateanapple]

> Even with its core loyal employees Facebook can’t compete if they don’t retain skilled workers.

There is an abundance of skilled workers who don’t care about this boycott. I personally know quite a few skilled devs who think Zuckerberg taking a stand is a reason to work for Facebook.

[vin047]

Well yeah but that would be Facebook retaining/gaining skilled employees, not losing them.

If, hypothetically, many skilled workers did care (and didn’t like Zuckerberg’s stance) then they’d lose them, which would impact their performance especially against competitors.

I appreciate that this is highly unlikely to happen since, as you said, many don’t care and in fact see this as a positive. I was just stating that I object to the idea that employees can’t have an impact – they can, in sufficient number. We just need to get them to care (lol).