Meta prints money as an ad company but clearly resents being one.
VR was a ~$100B+ attempt to buy pivot, and it’s generated ~single-digit billions in revenue. The tech worked maybe, but the vibe sucked, and the problem was that people don’t want to live or work there. Also, Meta leadership personalities are toxic to a lot of people.
Now they’re doing the same thing with AI e.g., throw money at it, overpay new talent, and force an identity shift from the top. Longterm employees are still well paid, just not AI gold rush paid which is gunna create fractures.
The irony is Meta already had what most AI companies don’t in distribution, data, and monetization. AI could have been integrated into revenue products instead of treated as a second escape from ads.
You can’t typically buy your way out of your business model. Especially with a clear lack of vision. Yes, dood got lucky in a couple acquisitions, but so would you if you were throwing billions around.
>clearly resents being one.
Do they? It seems to me that they're just aware that social media and the internet is trendy and they need to be out there ready to control the next big thing if they want to put ads on it. Facebook has been dying for years. Instagram makes them more ad revenue per user than FB but it's not the most popular app of its class.
I imagine Whatsapp contains a lot of potential revenue.
A lot of potential revenue to be exploited by agentic AI, if you do things exactly right.
I may attribute this to a single individual in charge. I think he is very mad that he is an advertiser.
I for one have been trying to use the term “ad tech” in lieu of “big tech/faang/etc.” for a couple of years now hoping it will catch.
Doesn't really make sense though because only two of "FAANG" actually get significant of their revenue from advertising?