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by justapassenger 1100 days ago
FB in those years also had horrible mobile apps, made no money on mobile while world was shifting there. And they kept on investing mostly into their desktop website.

It was sure bet, in a hindsight. They could’ve easily botched mobile, open room for competition to swoop in and become irrelevant in the process.
1 comments
Sai_ 1100 days ago
If I remember my tech history, by 2012-13, FB had realized that their html5 FB app wouldn't cut it on mobile devices and had gone all in on a native app.

https://magazine.wharton.upenn.edu/digital/the-pivotal-tale-...

I mean, I myself left Wall Street to work on iOS apps back in 2011. Only a willfully blind person would have ignored mobile/smartphones by 2012-13.

Of course, they could have botched their mobile transition - Reddit's ongoing dumpster fire is an example of corporate self immolation - but even back then Mark Z was no schmuck.

link
justapassenger 1100 days ago
There’s big gap between not being a schmuck and getting your company to be one of the biggest tech behemoths.

Rewriting app, means years of no new features (like Twitter did with their backend rewrite). That’s a very vulnerable period of time. And no guarantee that their apps will be any good (especially given their track record of low quality). It wasn’t guaranteed in any way that they will start making meaningful money on mobile.

They could’ve easily end up like Twitter, plagued with reliability issues and no good monetization.

link