The Verge reports on the internal challenges at Meta aka Facebook and how the company is trying to deal with it. Mark Zuckerberg, co-founder and CEO of Meta has painted Apple as enemy number one. I mean, why not. A slight change has lopped off billions in revenue and market capitalization. “Apple is going to be a competitor for us, not just as a product but philosophically.,” Zuck said. “It’s a very deep, philosophical competition about what direction the internet should go in.”
I am unsure what direction Apple wants to take us, but I can bet my last dollar; I don’t want to be in the future of the Internet that Zuckerberg is trying to build.
Our north star is can we get a billion people into the metaverse doing hundreds of dollars a piece in digital commerce by the end of the decade? If we do that, we’ll build a business that is as big as our current ad business within this decade. I think that’s a really exciting thing. I think a big part of how you do that is by pushing the open metaverse forward, which is what we’re going to do.
Meta’s north star doesn’t take into account value to the users, the benefit to the larger ecosystem or even the experience. Instead it is about how the company’s users time can be translated into dollars for the sole benefit for Meta. So, yes, there is a philosophical difference between them and Apple.
As someone unable to trust the founder and the company, I am not surprised that Zuck hasn’t changed. Surprisingly, he was more blatant in admitting his end goals without trying to polish the turd. It’s become pretty clear that the addiction-engagement loop perfected by Facebook without zero understanding of the consequences will not go away.
Once a shitty company, always a shitty company.
Recommended reading: How harmful is social media/The New Yorker
July 30, 2022. San Francisco