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Comment by 2close4comfort | Hacker News Reader

HA! that is...oh wait you are SERIOUS!)*&^%$# it is cat pictures. That cap is way too high, they only reason it is successful is that people are sheep. Once they figure out how soylent green is made and the FCC chair ignites the internet apocalypse and people will suddenly have to PAY for that "service" Zuck will turn into Bill Gates. And I think we will all be better off.

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Actually Facebook is not "cat pictures." It's a very efficient advertising engine the same way Google is. Similarly to Google (whose revenue is dominated by search ads), Facebook has feeds straight to consumers as well as valuable information about what the consumers are interested in. That's what makes money. Instagram, News Feed, Facebook News --> these are Facebook's Google Search & YouTube.

When you look at the numbers you'll see that they're actually similar companies who've monopolized segments of the digital advertising space. If you're going to complain about Facebook's market cap then you should also complain about Google.

Facebook's even got "other bets" -- Oculus, Workplace, WhatsApp, etc.

Advertising that you as the product have to opt into! Google is at least providing a service/product they give you a shiny something while they siphon your data. I think FB is pretty straight forward they take ALL of your information that you are willing to give up and they sell it. repeatedly. without conscience. for the money. If people stopped sharing or looking where would FB be? That is my problem with cap. They can buy other companies but none of them have anything productive to offer either but I bet they sell that info too.

Just because you don't find value in what FB provides its users doesn't mean others don't.

Look, if you want to have a serious, nuanced conversation about Facebook and it's business. I am all ears.

But I will not entertain low-quality, emotional comments like this and this community shouldn't either.

Nuanced and HN pretty much mutually exclusive. Additionally, on low-quality, given the level of discourse with in the US in general this is PBS level here! HN is pretty much 20-ish people whom think that you can have an actual discussion on the internet, and those over 30 who have enough experiential data to realize that will not happen. So where would you be on position Facebook's market cap and contribution to humanity has a whole are both overly valued but that within the vaccum of Silicon Valley there is more of a drive to be successful (make them dolla billz y'all) than advance mankind as a whole. And I will even conceded that Palantir would be the most vexing for me. In that it has enabled some rather spectacular work at the Nation-State level in making data accessible and malleable, but is the reason why the freedom of data movement is most at risk.

I think it’s unlikely that Future Zuckerberg is going to behave with anywhere near the benevolence of post-Microsoft Bill Gates. How he tried to pull one over on the public with his “foundation” already demonstrated that quite clearly.

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