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Your lottery ticket analogy suggests that Facebook was a success because of dumb luck.

If an analogy is the exact replicate of the subject, what's the use of it to begin with? The lottery card is an exaggeration, to make a point, which is that randomness plays a significant part in a startup's success, enough to make it almost impossible to predict or reproduce reliably.

Argument by analogy is what religious leaders and lawyers do to sway the masses into burning witches.

This is a false analogy because it simplifies too much, in favour of strengthening your point, as the parent points out. It's a nifty analogy by itself and I enjoyed it, but I don't agree that it comes close to covering the main features of the case.

More like video poker, you have to know how to play the odds to eke out a living but making bank is luck.

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