Facebook is planning to build a real community with parks, stores and apartments
nytimes.com
nytimes.com
What it did is create an awful monoculture. You don't get to have a beer with a buddy works at a competing or related company and realize how utterly, unbelievably stupid and immature your position is on this or another issue. Ideological inbreeding is what it is. My biggest regrets lie where I wasted time on something that I could have been talked out of by someone with a different perspective.
I think cross-pollination of ideas is the major advantage of Silicon Valley. Seattle is also getting better recently, with big companies opening more jobs.
Tech workers hanging out with other tech workers is still a huge circle jerk of ideas. If all you've known is graduate university with a CS degree and working at tech companies and living in upper middle class and wealthy livelihoods you are still part of the same monoculture. Not much changes between Google and MS in the larger picture.
People are increasingly afraid of tech companies, not in love with them. We’re all pretty dependent on them, but that also breeds fear and loathing. It doesn’t help that so many companies are full of the same, weird, Stepford Wife tone of “We love you, we want what’s best for you, and that just so happens to align with our own perverse incentives. We’re changing the world.”
I get the sense that the older guard of the media is also taking this opportunity to stoke fear and resentment of their newer competitors. They’ve been good at that kind of thing for a couple of hundred years longer than tech as a concept existed. I’m concerned that things like encryption and secure messaging, self-driving tech and more will be cynically attacked too.
Facebook has 2.2 billion monthly active users[1]. That's billion, with a B. HN has 3.5 million (with an M) unique visitors per month[2]. Everyone on Hacker News AND the 10 people closest to them could all drop off Facebook and it would only be about 1.5% of Facebook's traffic. Are you sure that the trends you're mentioning are happening outside your social circle? I'm not.
From my social circle outside the tech world, Facebook is increasingly being frowned upon - and in the teens age bracket , Facebook is what old people (parents and so on) use. Obviously anecdata, but the general feeling is that people use it less and less. There might be a perfect storm coming for Facebook - or it's just a temporary fart, soon to be forgotten.
"I deleted my FB account; I'm only going to post on Instagram now."
FB is like the Goldman of the Social Media (and increasingly, via Messenger and WhatsApp, Communications) world. They have their tentacles everywhere.
Also at the teen-level, Onavo, FB's VPN service, is yuuugely popular in high schools across America.
And imagine if VR actually takes off and becomes a compelling new communications medium.
FB has a lot of inertia at this point, I don't think they're going anywhere.
(Lastly, even with all this hub-bub in the news, I'm sure the govt loves FB and doesn't want it going anywhere; it's a huge competitive advantage for the US intelligence community).
Sure, I know plenty of people that used Facebook several years ago, but it's become a ghost town. My friends, family, and coworkers might be unusual, but not that unusual.
Facebook is losing the young audience in a big way.
How much of the daily traffic from a small percentage of people drives a large portion of the rest of the platform? How much of that 1.5% can Facebook afford to lose before it creates a trend they can’t escape?
How many have to be for 2.2 billion to not still be a pretty damn big number?
> How many are generating content or participating in a way that drives the platform?
Facebook has no shortage of content.
> How much of the daily traffic from a small percentage of people drives a large portion of the rest of the platform? How much of that 1.5% can Facebook afford to lose before it creates a trend they can’t escape?
All of them, as long as the losses are made up in other areas.
Now, the monarchs may not die. "Facebook Forever" as reality? A 'Black Mirror' episode isn't a far stretch, and to be fair so is the opposite -- both of which we can see in reality today.
Being skeptical of tech companies is great. Behaving appropriately is also great. Going "all or nothing" can be debated. I'm interested in hearing about something in the middle, should such exist.
Montesquieu also described separation of powers in the same book [1]
1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Separation_of_powers#Montesqui...
You can also use addiction as a strategy to create dependence, but this is a strategy: users will inevitably realize there's more harm than good being done. It also means you're at risk of become a fad. I actually think Facebook's pivot from user engagement maximizer to social fabric platform reflects some internal awareness of the vulnerabilities of an addiction-focused business strategy over the long term.
People need Microsoft Windows to operate their businesses and do their jobs, Apple phones and Netflix subscriptions are much easier to replace.
- Facebook: Rolodex
- Apple: Simple, low-hassle, powerful tech
- Amazon: Supply chain, low prices, long-tail product discovery, stellar shopping experience supported by an tremendous economies of scale, compute, internet infrastructure
- Google: Search, email, maps, productivity software, compute, internet infrastructure
For as long as these companies remain dominant in these categories continue to provide value to customers, they will not be replaced. They continue to grow exponentially in major part because of the very real value they provide and the lack of viable competition from outside of these groups.
Hence Facebook's goal to move into fundamental infrastructure with both this company town plan and internet.org
Same with Google Fiber etc...
The ultimate goal for a tech company is to provide what utilities and public infrastructure cannot.
I neglected this vector whilst recalling my previous comment, and I acknowledge addiction as a viability towards ruling over others. Putting ethics, morals, and similar aside for sake of power -- addiction I feel is a "better" method of ruling than fear, given that fear is "better" than love. Why go after all the trouble of scaring people about "the enemy from the East/West/Whatever" back and forth forever when you can just jack them up happy on Jizzum 3.4? You don't, so develop Jizzuj3.4 as you scare people from East and West.
Not cynical at all. We have to push back or we risk the hellworld scenario: the well-to-do safe and secure inside self-driving cars that don't brake for pedestrians. [1]
Pedestrians likely made homeless by NIMBY protectionism preventing the construction of shelters and restrictive zoning that limits housing supply to astronomically expensive single-family homes.
1. http://fortune.com/2018/03/19/uber-self-driving-car-crash/
No, a small part of the IT community, whose overly represented on HN, is increasingly afraid of tech companies.
Around me I can tell you nobody cares about my worries. They think it can't possibly lead to anything dangerous. And that's in the rare case they though about the issue at all.
We are having a really bad housing crisis in coastal cities, and obviously the Bay Area is leading the pack. NIMBY voters and short sighted government officials are stagnating developers from building more units. Just a few weeks ago the city council in Portland rejected two housing projects that would've generated thousands of units and hundreds of affordable housing units.
When the public sector cannot solve the housing problem it is no surprise that the private sector will step in and play a bigger role. It's not surprising to see tech companies leading the way because their HQs are in the Bay Area. If potential employees don't wont to work for you because the area that the office is in has an astronomical COL that is an existential threat to your company.
s/cannot solve/actively created/
Developers would build 100,000 housing units this year in the Bay Area, that would sell for double the national median housing price, if it were legal for them to do so.
Zoning and land use restrictions are the cause of high housing prices in the priciest cities. Those are legal, not market or technological, restrictions.
In this hypothetical scenario, they will have to take steps to ensure this doesn't happen again, which comes with a hefty pricetag in itself, so provided this data there is only one question -- where to relocate the HQ?
There is no better place than the SF Bay Area, so logically it stands to reason that they take the same steps to progressively expand their current HQ rather than relocate.
Not only that but this new FB community can be a testbed for applying the same pernicious digital surveillance mentality to the physical world. Truly, it will be the place to measure how much privacy people will give up for real-life benefits (eg: rent).
1) Walt Disney tried utopian with Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow (EPCOT) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EPCOT_(concept) The property became the Walt Disney World Resort but some of the architecture is from the EPCOT concept. Later Michael Eisner tried something similar with Celebration, Florida https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Celebration,_Florida
2) Traditional paternialism was social engineering attempt where employers wanted to control their workers force middle-class ideals to working-class. It was seen as moral and religious responsibility for owners to do this. Company Towns were build to achieve this goal. Modern version might push certain lifestyle and values.
3) Zucktown and Alphabet City may be just a realization that it's cheaper and easier for everyone if employers turns into property developer and builds housing than just increase wages.
You get sixteen likes, whattaya get?
Another day older and deeper in debt
St. Peter don'cha call me, 'cause I can't go
I owe my soul to the company store
Seems like there would be a lot of aspirational lifestyle overlap.
http://thedollop.libsyn.com/320-the-wobblies-go-to-everett
I can't think company towns are a good idea, this stuff creeps me out.
Now, things are different. Facebook is building the set for a real life Truman show [1], Fahrenheit 451 (the temperature at which book paper catches fire, and burns..) has found stiff competition in the rise of censorship on the 'net, 1984 is treated as a user manual by those who prefer to see the world in terms of 'good' and 'bad', Brave New World is just another story - nothing to see there, move along. Where institutions like the EU are trying to dissolve national borders and national identities without offering a believable identity in return, leaving the population grasping for a handhold and ready for recruitment by any strong identity group which catches their favour.
There is supposed to be a Chinese proverb saying 'may you live in interesting times' , to be directed at those one considers to be their opponents. While the proverb seems to be made up, times are interesting in many ways.
However, for what I believe will be the most prescient fictional warning about where society is currently headed, see Sleep Dealer[1].
Holy shit!
I always thought this project, S. Lake Union (Amazon), Toronto Waterfront (Google), Diridon Station San Jose (Google) was these large companies' response to no private developer or gov't entity building a city they thought was needed... in other words it's just a normal city built by a large company. It's not too different than one of these crappy master planned communities where I live like http://stonegatereno.com/ or http://damonteranch.com/ .
Though, they're likely to be attractive to employees who want to live within walking distance.
Sure your rent doesn't actually go up, but you are going to need to get a job that pays pretty well.
The Bay Area's land-use policies are directly responsible for the absurdly high housing costs and terrible road congestion. Too many jobs are in office parks, too many houses are in far-flung and low-density areas.
If Facebook can build 1000 apartment homes that would allow their employees to walk to work, they stand to benefit in huge ways. If that development can help subsidize 200 apartment homes for people who have been displaced by the skewed housing market, all the better.
At least that's how I read their motivations.
I imagine Facebook has similar considerations. Housing and traffic are major issues in Silicon Valley.
Plus, the types of companies we're talking about have wads of cash that they're not returning to shareholders (yet). Real estate investments could provide better returns than a a number of other financial instruments. Win-win. :)
though not FB, I know someone in California who lives in company-owned housing. the person recently decided to leave the company. sure enough, the company is indeed forcing them to move out too.
The situation I was in was quite a bit more complicated than this, involving national level athletic training and working for a company that was both associated personally with the team as well as the sport in general. I was living in team dorms and having problems with the team so suddenly everything was in jeopardy. I do not recommend it...
Facebook as a physical community is a truly terrifying place to imagine. I'm not sure a Black Mirror episode could even properly capture it.
Zuckerberg: "If I can't be president of the US, I can at least be president of the HOA"
This "company store" stuff is unwarranted negative sentiment. They're just apartments. Along with new housing you do want to have parks and stores.
They've likely hired professional real estate developers who will follow all the same laws, with more money.
The free food and games and gyms are already there (at work).
So I'm not seeing how this will be different in practical terms from other large apartment complexes?
And you think they're suddenly taking on the very complex and muddied problem of real estate because they have passionate feelings about the housing crises?
What if Facebook is literally just building apartments and renting them out to anyone?
Then you spin off the real estate arm into a subsidiary and use dividends to pay the employees. Same thing, right? Then you realize you can just sell the subsidiary and invest the cash into something with a better risk / reward profile.
And then you ask yourself why did a software company spent several years managing a real estate project.
I think it’s just boys playing toys. Big, expensive toys. Heck, I would do that too if I had the money.
Henry Ford tried to force the American way of life in Fordlândia. He failed. George Pullman wanted Pullman, Chicago, to be a sin-free town. He also failed.
Modern company towns live under the specter of many past failed projects.
Maybe "Zuckerburg" isn't supposed to be any kind of utopia. But why should Facebook succeed in building a town, specially when it's supervised by a corporation that profits on knowing everything it can about people?
I know I'd never want to live there. It would always feel like online trackers covered in stucco.
People are working to fix it, though: https://yimbyaction.org/join/
> Google will build 5,000 homes on its property under an agreement brokered with Mountain View in December. Call it Alphabet City as a nod to Alphabet, Google’s corporate parent. The company said it was still figuring out its future as a landlord, and declined further comment.
There's no question that the Alphabet/Google company town should be called Alphaville.
That said, pretty much every politician has an excuse to talk about facebook rather than other things. So, that’s what you’re likely to see.
Sher.l Sand..g COO FB wikileaks email "And I still want HRC to win badly. I am still here to help as I can. She came over and was magical with my kids."
The article does mention some criticism. But all of it seems entirely reasonable and expected when you know the history of “company towns”.
Is this a unique bonus mainly offered in the Valley versus the rest of the world?
The pioneer in this field has certainly been Adriano Olivetti in the 1940/1950s, back when Olivetti was an amazingly successful company. They were market leaders in typewriters, so much that they bought the US-based Underwood, and they were pioneering computers in the 1960s.
Olivetti built a "quasi-socialist" company campus in Ivrea (outside Turin, Italy), which was really innovative for its time. Kindergarden, schools, services, etc, all available to Olivetti workers and their families. Think of it as a combination of a Google or Facebook campus, with an Italian, pragmatic, honest twist.
Now, let's get back to Facebook's proposed "campus" or "community".
I see a few problems here:
1) providing rent to FB employees is a form of employee retention - you have a strong incentive not to leave Facebook, or you will lose a rent likely more affordable than outside the campus, and your neighborhood friendships.
2) Most of these campuses are done to project an image of an amazing, cool company. Therefore, expensive architects plan expensive buildings in a way that cannot be easily replicated elsewhere. When building costs are "subsidized" by the need of "grandeur" of a company, it's the wrong incentive at play. Look, for a counter example, at the Nightingale project [1].
3) Many architects and thinkers have written about the subject. In particular, Christoper Alexander and Leon Krier, among others. The short summary of their conclusions is that "top down" almost never works; "bottom up" does. In essence, you have to plant the seed, provide initial resources, and get out of the way, letting people and communities figure out how they want to organize their life. A good counter example? The planned city of Brazilia. I studied it, and visited it, and it's an urban design nightmare. [2] - so much so that, to cite just one metric, Brazilia has 4 to 5 times the number of pedestrian accident (in proportion of the population) of other Brazilian cities.
I could go on and on, but let me just conclude with this: most of these company-driven initiatives are dead from the start, and they are set to produce only aberrations. I hope I'm wrong, and I hope to see something different emerge over time.
[0]: https://www.fabrica.city/
>About 12,000 of its 25,000 employees work in Menlo Park. In a decade, it will have space for 35,000
so they are planning to build 15 of these Zucktowns in Menlo Park in the next 10 years?
A name change and their first burbclave wont be too far behind.
maybe also look backwards? e.g. British East India Company, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Company_rule_in_India