[_heimdall]

For one thing, I still don't understand Meta as a business. It seems like Zuck refused to accept owning a boring ad business and keeps trying to act like a tech business.

For another, this seems like a move that happens when the bubble pops.

The dotcom bubble went from having tons of business raising fortunes on the promise of business models the internet unlocks to having few internet businesses left at that scale and a bunch of unused fiber.

Now we're starting to see all the companies claiming AI products will make fortunes to them trying to sell unused hardware capacity.

[gloryjulio]

> For one thing, I still don't understand Meta as a business

Zuck got spooked by apple ads change a few years ago, which crashed the meta's stock to double digit. So Zuck is trying to own a platform. They want to be a version of openai selling ads

[kombookcha]

This is an interesting angle. I had not considered how fundamentally exposed Meta is, should Apple and Google decide to break omerta.

[gloryjulio]

Btw I am just quoting someone else. It's in the news in for a long time. Besides ads monetization, Zuck's moves in recent years are mostly about creating their own platform so the Apple incident never happen again

[kombookcha]

It contextualizes all the strange Metaverse and VR-goggles stuff quite well. It always seemed like a weirdly forced product without any particular market fit - who is clamoring for a version of Teams where you need a bulky helmet, and can theoretically buy pretend digital land in order to have a... less useful corporate website? Who is interested in buying dorky goggles that instantly mark you as a weird creep who is probably recording everything you see?

Owning A Platform being the point instead of any actual use-case tracks perfectly with all these weird, forced pitches. These are all products for nobody.

[eiejee]

Actually his basket case investments with VR is what led to a loss of investor trust

[gloryjulio]

That's true. But trying out a new sector is one thing, even apple build their own vr. Zuck took so long to cut loss on vr platform because he wants to have this platform to be solely under his control

[zaphirplane]

How is that different from Facebook

[johndhi]

Good take! I buy it.

[rwmj]

The difference is the hardware will become obsolete in a few years, unlike the dark fibre (really, rights of way) that provided cheap connectivity for years after the crash.

[Traster]

The hardware will become obsolete but we may end up with an oversupply of cheap power - overbuild on things like Nuclear and solar. That would be nice.

[bwb]

Do we have any good data on how many of the GPU burn out given hard usage?

Are we talkinga bout loosing 50% of the hardware as it fails? Or far less?

[digdugdirk]

It's an inherently different thing. Fibre is infrastructure. It'll still function decades later. GPUs at this scale are consumables. I've heard 3-5 years lifespan before they fail out. This might be a low estimate, but even if you double it - they're 50% of the cost of datacenters. We're flushing entire countries worth of economic value down an Nvidia shaped toilet.

[bwb]

Anyone got any good testing data? Surely someone knows rough failure rate from constant usage?

[rwmj]

It's not that they fail (which they also do), it's that they become obsolete. They consume more energy to do fewer operations relative to newer nodes. This is the basis behind Moore's law.

[bwb]

Ah gotcha, ya that will be interesting to see, but does seem like a more likely life of 7 to 10 years is possible.

I am curious on actual hardware failure rates due to heat etc.

[rightbyte]

I tried to do a calculation.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48762428

So 10% failure rate per gpu year. Some might be repairable and there might be a failure rate acceleration as time passes etc. So very approximate numbers.

[johndhi]

It's obsolete for training but is it obsolete for inference?

[disgruntledphd2]

The factories won't be obsolete, even if the chips are.

[rwmj]

The fabs for current nodes will be obsoleted by newer nodes.

[cyanydeez]

not if they completely crash manufacturing with their push for fascism; be more optimistic!

[re-thc]

> It seems like Zuck refused to accept owning a boring ad business

Zuck sees a real problem: not owning the platform.

Hence the VR and other attempts. He sees what he has today as a dead end. The fear grips him.

In theory Google and Apple could ban Meta’s apps and it would be game over.

[eiejee]

lol that’s charitable

The real problem for Zuck is he thinks he’s some grand master who can play 5-d chess, except he can’t

[mrweasel]

He might be scared that his ad business won't be as profitable in a few years. He'll still be rich, but perhaps that's not enough for him. He has all the correct number and knows exactly how many of their users are bots and how much of the ad revenue comes from scams. Maybe he sees a potential risk that we can't.

Could also be a self-image thing. Facebook isn't exactly young and fashionable anymore, it's more akin to a weird mid-90s idea of a close walled Internet in some sense. Instagram users I'd guess is mostly younger women. None of these really align with Zuckerbergs macho persona.

[tacker2000]

Unfortunately he has too much cash since he owns some of the largest social networks and thus receives insane amounts of ad spend… this will not end soon

[jordanb]

And he can't be fired by shareholders.

[spacington]

He just has that much money and his 'whatever ecosystem this is' continues to work, it has to be a kind a playground for him.

He could invest in paying back society but he cares more about continuing his ignorance.

Just imagine how his ego got stroked when he was agreeing with trump like a bootlicker but still sitting at a table at the Whitehouse.

Even with this clown this has to count for something in his books.

[cmiles8]

It’s a pretty consistent story in tech. Meta built a successful ads platform. That success went to their head and the company starts acting like it’s just great at tech and innovation and tried to do a bunch of other stuff. Turns out it’s pretty crap at most other things and can’t figure out how to make money from anything other than selling ads. Company is very headstrong and refuses to admit it’s just not good at other stuff. It has enough cash from ads to not go bankrupt and so just carries on with this nonsense on cycle after cycle of crazy side projects that go nowhere.