Meta is now the worst performer in the S&P 500 this year | Hacker News Reader

Meta is now the worst performer in the S&P 500 this year

cnbc.com

32 pointselsewhen8 comments

I am pretty sure the golden age of the social media giants is over. The future will be a more fragmented landscape of specialized services and I don't believe Meta is in a position to buy their way into it.

Facebook/Instagram/etc are not going anywhere in a hurry but they have reached their peak.

And why couldn't a giant company decide to own "a more fragmented landscape of specialized services"?

They could, but it would be to the detriment of their core business - engagement. Facebook doesn't want to fragment into million different servers the way that (for instance) Discord does, even though that is how a lot of their users might prefer.

Twitter has it even worse - their whole schtick is a huge chattering town hall. Advertisers and brands want this, users increasingly don't.

I tried to express this in a blog post[0] but the gist is that in their quest for engagement the big social media networks have evolved down a path that is not as attractive to users. The environment (the internet using population) is changing but the big social networks cannot change to meet new needs without ditching the things that make them money.

[0] https://sheep.horse/2022/11/social_media_is_not_dying%2C_yet...

It feels as though the online community is about to circle back in a cyclical way, to semi-private forum-like communities. Atleast that's my wishful thinking. I remember being involved in a local bowmaking (archery) forum almost a decade back. The quality of posts there was something I remember fondly to this day.

Breaking Points covered Jim Cramer, who was pushing Meta as a Buy, admit he made a big mistake about it, interesting to see him publicly eat crow and apologize like that (I'd share the original video of his but couldn't find it): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mtQumB0WQDY

I've been considering buying Meta shares on its way down this year (did buy a single share), but kept getting Google and Apple (as well as some ETFs) instead, really glad I didn't at this point. Converted my one share into another Google stock instead and ate the loss.

I still want to believe that they'll turn their future around and I'm happy to see them push VR so much as I'm a fan (and own a Quest 2), but it's hard to invest in them at this point, beyond buying apps from their store at least.

Maybe they'll turn things around and now's a great time to buy, but I'm not sure. Things really seem to be stacking up against them at this point.

I’m sure they’re doing better in the metaverse though.

I heard everyone there recently got legs. Sounds like a great way to get around.

Why anyone would buy shares of stock that don’t have voting rights, a dividend, or share buybacks is beyond me.

Where is your return on capital supposed to come from?

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