[r00fus]

I absolutely don't know why Facebook balked at making their own phone back in the day. Facebook's entire value prop about 10-15 years ago was the fact that you could find anyone on there who you even remotely knew.

Imagine (10 years ago) being able to use an FB version of Siri/Alexa to "connect me to that girl Megan from my 5th grade classroom". Sure sounds compelling.

Instead FB released a half-assed "dailer app/widget" and forgot about it. Today that window of opportunity closed.

[VWWHFSfQ]

> connect me to that girl Megan from my 5th grade classroom

if you only look at the tech then yeah it's compelling. but in reality it's creepy and people don't want it.

[r00fus]

When did that ever stop Zuck?

[klodolph]

I think Facebook didn’t have the kind of capital to do it at the time they would have needed the captial to make a phone. Keep in mind that the Windows phone was reportedly pretty good but came out in 2010 and it turned out the smart phone space didn’t give out prizes for third place. People always underestimate the cost of developing a smartphone, even when working with modern OEMs, never mind working in the 2008-2010 time frame.

[blsapologist42]

They tried to make their own phone but it just didn't work out. So they ended up releasing something just so they could show something after all that investment. Of course teh company was much smalelr then.

[michaelt]

> I absolutely don't know why Facebook balked at making their own phone back in the day.

Why would that have gone any better for them than it went for Amazon and Microsoft?

[swatcoder]

> I absolutely don't know why Facebook balked at making their own phone back in the day.

Because it's really hard to make good hardware cost-effectively. The only companies that have succeeded in the phone market are practiced hardware companies, except for one software company that focused on making a adaptable OS for hardware companies to use.

[klabb3]

> Imagine (10 years ago) being able to use an FB version of Siri/Alexa to "connect me to that girl Megan from my 5th grade classroom". Sure sounds compelling.

I agree that fbs value was/is the social graph. But you’re saying that there was a lack of voice UI? Or lack of a capable mobile experience? I don’t see how any of that could have been more than marginally helpful in reducing the friction of adding a friend on a social network.

[hello_moto]

> I absolutely don't know why Facebook balked at making their own phone back in the day

Microsoft and its phone story is enough to explain why.

Facebook needs a new platform that they control themselves and Phone is D.o.A because they have to compete with other companies (Apple, Google). Nobody wants to have 2 phones and nobody wants yet-another-Android phone "just for Facebook".

[krschultz]

I don't think they balked, they failed.