In related news I have noticed that most things I search on Google don't show any ads at all. I went hunting for it and found that common household items are showing ads, but other things don't. And most certainly there is no obnoxiousness like an entire page of ads before the content.
Well, ad revenue is gonna be off a cliff in the next quarterly earnings, but I don't think that's going to be a surprise. Good thing they have so much cash saved up.
IT's clear, though, that GOOG and FB are losing major ad clients. The entire travel industry is not advertising and they spent bank trying to convince you to try some new hotel chain.
For a few quarters. They'll survive and be back where they are now when the economy bounces back (whenever that may be). They could take a 100% cut for several quarters without cutting expenses. Small ad companies are the ones that will really suffer. They don't have Google's deep pockets and diversification.
The current online experience is not remotely possible without ads. I'm willing to wager that the vast majority of content that you consume online is advertising supported, not directly supported by you. All of that is gonna start going away without advertising revenue.
Facebook will be in a great position with people having more and more phone time due to the quarantine. Might be a short term hit but a big boost down the road
Facebook doesn't live off views, they live off ad spend. Unless people continue to use it more when they have to go back to work, I don't believe FB will profit here.
Big tech companies like Google and Facebook are seeing record usage (i.e. increased costs) at exactly the same time that advertising revenue is plunging. YouTube watches are at record highs while pays per view might be at record lows. This just means that the expenses go up even as revenue falls. It's not a good thing for profitability.
That's why they've stockpiled $105B and $55B in cash respectively, though. Facebook could run the company for 1.5 years if their revenue went to zero; Google could run it for 2 years. They know how the business works and position themselves to weather and profit from downturns.
Some weaker shareholders may sell if they're only interested in quarterly numbers, but in the long term their revenues go back up to what their userbase justifies.
Maybe I am missing something, but how will it be a big boost?
Most users who use Messenger, Instagram and FB already are familiar with the platform. Them using it more during the lockdown is not introducing them to new features or new content.
It is unlike a product like Netflix, where you delve more into their content (ie international stuff u may have not ventured in) or Zoom, which some ppl may not have known about previously.
It's not funny, it's just tired and repetitious, and HN discourages joking around anyway because it leads to low quality conversations and contests over who can be funnier instead of who can contribute the most meaningfully to a conversation.
If you think a comment is inappropriate, flag it. Don't complain about it -- the guidelines ask you not to. Just flag it.
I found that guideline when looking for the 'discourage joking' guideline.
I never found the joking one, though. I don't think that it exists.
I sort of get what you mean that it's discouraged, but I don't think it's something as broad as 'joking', more like "Jokes require substance and relatability to the topic, class, and cleverness".
My larger point here is that everyone on HN knows about ad blockers and is using them if they want to be, so it's tired and repetitious to keep seeing the same smug "Well why are you even seeing ads, just use an ad blocker" comments. The ads matter, even if you aren't personally seeing them. Ads are what funds the majority of content online. Most people are still seeing them. It's reasonable to have a discussion about ads, and responses like "Just use an adblocker" are just thread derails, as we're seeing here.
It's also not 100% a joke, if you really think about what that post was saying. I'm betting most people on this site don't get the 'regular' user experience, because we are more likely to use alternate search sites and ad blockers than standard users. Honestly, had the original poster not pointed out the change in ad placements, I never would've known.
And that now has me thinking about what kind of ads people like my parents are seeing, and how that informs their worldview.
