danpalmer (u/danpalmer)

danpalmer commented on Mark Zuckerberg freezes AI hiring amid bubble fears telegraph.co.uk/business/... · Posted by u/pera

olyjohn · 3 days ago

Didn't they just buy it though? Then they proceeded to fuck it up just like they did to Facebook.

danpalmer · 3 days ago

Depends on your interpretation. Maybe? I think there's a fair case that Instagram wouldn't be what it is today if it wasn't bought by Facebook.

You could also level a similar question at Google about YouTube. I believe YouTube is one of Google's great successes (bias: I work at Google), and that it wouldn't have become what it is now outside of Google, but I think it would be hypocritical of me to not accept the same about Instagram.

danpalmer commented on Mark Zuckerberg freezes AI hiring amid bubble fears telegraph.co.uk/business/... · Posted by u/pera

jmyeet · 3 days ago

It's important to analyze decisions within the context at the time, not the modern context.

When Facebook went into gaming, it was about the time they went public and they were in search of revenue. At the time, FB games were huge. It was the era of Farmville. Some thought that FB and Zynga would be the new Intel and MIcrosoft. This was also long before mobile gaming was really big so gaming wasn't an unreasonable bet.

Waht really killed FB Gaming was not having a mobile platform. They tried. But they failed. We could live in a very different world if FB partnered with Google (who had Android) but both saw each other as an existential threat.

After this, Zuckerberg paid $1 billion for Instagram. This was a 100x decision, much like Google buying Youtube.

But in the last 5-10 years the company has seemed directionless. FB itself has fallen out of favor. Tiktok came out of nowhere and has really eaten FB's lunch.

The Metaverse was the biggest L. Tends of billions of dollars got thrown at this before any product market fit was found. VR has always been a solution looking for a problem. Companies have focused on how it can benefit them but consumers just don't want headsets strapped to their heads. It's never grown beyond a niche and never shown signs that it would.

This was so disastrous that the company lost like 60%+ of its value and seemingly it's been abandoned now.

Meta also dabbled with cryptocurrencies and NFTs. Also abandoned.

Social media really seems to have settled into a means of following public figures. Individuals generally seem to interact with each other via group texts.

Meta has a massive corpus of posts, comments, interactions, etc to train AI. But what does Meta do with AI? Can they build a moat? It's never been clear to me what the end goal is.

danpalmer · 3 days ago

You're right about Instagram, I did forget them. That was a huge get. Was that skill or luck though?

danpalmer commented on Mark Zuckerberg freezes AI hiring amid bubble fears telegraph.co.uk/business/... · Posted by u/pera

foxylad · 3 days ago

Cory Doctorow has a compelling theory that the megatech companies have to appear to be startups, or else their share price reverts to normal multiples. Hence the continuous string of increasingly over-hyped "game-changing technologies" they all (not just Meta) keep rolling out.

VR, blockchain and LLMs have their value, but it's a tiny fraction of the insane amounts of money being pumped into these bubbles. There will be tears before bedtime.

danpalmer · 3 days ago

This may well be true, but my point is more that Facebook/Meta/Zuckerberg seem almost uniquely unable to turn the startups into great new businesses, when compared with the other big tech companies.

Amazon added cloud and prime, Microsoft added cloud, xbox, 365, Google added Chrome, Android, cloud, Youtube, consumer subscriptions, workspace, etc. Netflix added streaming and their own content, Apple added mobile, wearables, subscriptions.

Meta though, they've got an abandoned phone platform from years ago, a half-baked Metaverse that is being defunded, a small hardware business for the Quest, a pro VR headset that got defunded, a crypto business that got deprioritised, and an LLM that's expensive relative to open competitors and underperforms relative to closed competitors... which the tide appears to be turning on as the AI bubble reaches popping point.

danpalmer commented on Mark Zuckerberg freezes AI hiring amid bubble fears telegraph.co.uk/business/... · Posted by u/pera

xuki · 3 days ago

For the past 15 years, mobile has been the main revenue source for Facebook. As big as Facebook is, they're at the mercy of the 2 competitors: Apple and Google. Apple has been very hostile to Facebook, because Facebook make a shitload of money off Apple's platform and they refused to pay a certain percentage to Apple - unlike Google who is paying 20B a year to access iOS users. Apple tried to cut Facebook off with ATT on iOS 14, but it didn't work.

Because of this, Zuckerberg has to be incredibly paranoid about controlling his company destiny, to stop relying on others' platforms to deliver ads. It would be catastrophic for Facebook to not be a main player for the next computing platform, and they're currently making a lot of money from their other businesses. Zuckerberg is ruthless and he is paranoid, he has total control of Facebook and he will use all the resources to control the next big thing. I think it comes down to this: Zuckerberg believes it's cheaper to be wrong than to miss out on the next platform, and Facebook can afford to be wrong (to a certain extend).

danpalmer · 3 days ago

> For the past 15 years, mobile has been the main revenue source for Facebook. As big as Facebook is, they're at the mercy of the 2 competitors

Before mobile was this big, Facebook tried their own platform and bottled it. This was during the period that the market was still diverse, with Windows phones, Blackberries, etc.

They also tried to make mobile web a thing for a few years past when it was obvious that native apps were the way forward.

danpalmer commented on Mark Zuckerberg freezes AI hiring amid bubble fears telegraph.co.uk/business/... · Posted by u/pera

danpalmer · 3 days ago

Zuckerberg either doesn't have the resolve for changing the business, or just keeps picking the wrong directions (depending on your biases).

First Facebook tried to pivot into mobile, pushed really hard for a short time and then flopped. Then Facebook tried really hard to make the Metaverse a thing, and for a while, but eventually Meta stopped finding it interesting and significantly reduced investment. Then AI was the big thing and Meta put a huge amount of money into it, chasing after other companies, with an arguably novel approach compared to the rest of big tech... but now seems to be backing out or at least messaging less commitment. Oh and I think there was some crypto in there too at one point?

I'm not saying that they should have stuck with any of these. The business may not have worked in each case, and that's fine, but spending billions on each one seems like a bad idea. Zuckerberg is great at chasing the next big thing, but seemingly bad at landing the next big thing. He either needs to chase them more tentatively, investing far less, or he needs to stick with them long enough to work out all the issues and build the growth over the long term.

danpalmer commented on Home Depot sued for 'secretly' using facial recognition at self-checkouts petapixel.com/2025/08/20/... · Posted by u/mikece

bgwalter · 4 days ago

You scan faster than a trained cashier? Do the self-checkouts in the US use RFID? Here in the EU I have to scan, clumsily and slowly.

danpalmer · 4 days ago

I spend less time in the self-checkout queue than in the cashier queue. Overall much faster. And I don't think that's just because the shops have chosen to have more self-checkouts, it's a matter of floor space - self checkouts are much denser so they can get much more throughput.

danpalmer commented on Home Depot sued for 'secretly' using facial recognition at self-checkouts petapixel.com/2025/08/20/... · Posted by u/mikece

ProllyInfamous · 4 days ago

Home Depot's self-checkouts are using this facial ID to build/maintain their shoplifting database — this tracks thefts by the same person across multiple visits, and is used over time to build up a case against errant self-checkout-ers (i.e. to get them above a theft threshhold, at which point prosecution becomes easier).

There is also CCTV AI (whether artificial intelligence, or actually indians) which can intervene with your self-checkout process to "remind" you that you didn't actually scan everything.

danpalmer · 4 days ago

> i.e. to get them above a theft threshhold, at which point prosecution becomes easier

This feels like it should be illegal. Holding back on reporting or prosecuting until you think you're more likely to get a conviction or a bigger conviction, feels close to entrapment.

To do otherwise is just unnecessarily vindictive, showing that it's the punishment that matters more than the prevention.

danpalmer commented on Still want to be a London cabbie? economist.com/britain/202... · Posted by u/helsinkiandrew

jonwinstanley · 4 days ago

It’s not yet guaranteed that Uber will kill off black cabs but who knows.

I read that all Uber rides are subsidised by the huge amount of investment they’ve received as they try to gain market share. Maybe at some point prices will return to similar to cabbies?

Also I find Uber to be sometimes manipulative, they regularly lie about how long it will take for your car to arrive and how surge pricing is enforced.

I’m not saying I don’t use Uber, I do, but I’m not certain Uber is definitely going to win long term.

danpalmer · 4 days ago

I think this was all true 10 years ago, maybe still 5 years ago, but Uber is a public company now, their pricing has gone up, they're not necessarily subsidising anymore (although this fluctuates and depends on the region as they try to balance the marketplace).

danpalmer commented on Still want to be a London cabbie? economist.com/britain/202... · Posted by u/helsinkiandrew

danpalmer · 4 days ago

The article mentions Waymos and other self-driving taxis, but I think this is also a generational issue.

I would never consider getting a black cab because my perception is that they are expensive, opaquely priced, and with little oversight. I'd instead get an Uber where I know the price up front, it's cheaper (I think), and I can get in touch with someone if there's an issue.

My parents though got black cabs for years so would probably consider it over Uber, or at least alongside Uber as an option.

Uber killed the black cab, it just takes decades to change the habits of millions of people.

danpalmer commented on AWS in 2025: Stuff you think you know that's now wrong lastweekinaws.com/blog/aw... · Posted by u/keithly

danpalmer · 4 days ago

Lots of this seems to boil down to: AWS shipped something that was barely usable, but then iterated.

That's a reasonable approach, but the fact this post exists shows that this practice is a reputational risk. By all means do this if you think it's the right thing to do, but be aware that first impressions matter and will stick for a long time.