Author Topic: WhatsApp ordered to stop sharing user data with Facebook  (Read 2225 times)


rcjordan

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Re: WhatsApp ordered to stop sharing user data with Facebook
« Reply #1 on: January 08, 2021, 11:19:15 PM »
<update>

WhatsApp: Let us share your data with Facebook or else
https://www.engadget.com/whatsapp-privacy-policy-update-facebook-data-sharing-205451955.html

rcjordan

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Re: WhatsApp ordered to stop sharing user data with Facebook
« Reply #2 on: May 08, 2021, 03:24:56 PM »
WhatsApp Will Restrict Functions to Those Who Don't Accept its Terms
https://techdator.net/whatsapp-will-restrict-functions-to-those-who-dont-accept-its-terms/

ergophobe

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Re: WhatsApp ordered to stop sharing user data with Facebook
« Reply #3 on: May 09, 2021, 06:30:59 PM »
What do you see as the endpoint of all this (and by "this" I'm thinking of the other threads as well, such as the 4% opt-in rate for tracking and so forth)?

Is it just the standard cat and mouse where one party acts and the other reacts, or does someone win definitively? When I look at that 4% opt-in rate, that tells me that people are tired of it, just a lot were not tired enough to install blockers, but given a yes/no choice, they choose no.

So how does it shake out in 1 year? 5 years?

rcjordan

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Re: WhatsApp ordered to stop sharing user data with Facebook
« Reply #4 on: May 09, 2021, 07:30:18 PM »
The big sites like Facebook will likely offer a pay-for-privacy versus a free, tracked version.  Most will sign up for the free version.

ergophobe

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Re: WhatsApp ordered to stop sharing user data with Facebook
« Reply #5 on: May 09, 2021, 10:30:39 PM »
Makes sense.

Back in 2018, Washington Post calculated that FB needed to charge an average of $18.75/year to replace average ad revenue per user.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2018/04/14/would-you-pay-18-75-for-ad-free-facebook/

If you account for the fact that a large number of those 2.1 billion users are in poor countries where FB is making nowhere near $18.75/user, you get to a minimum cost of $25 year? $36?

As per the previous thread on subscriptions, there's a bit of subscription fatigue too. So now Facebook is a latecomer and if they price beyond a very small amount, they start to look as expensive as Netflix. If Facebook has to compete for dollars against Netflix or Disney+, they're just screwed, especially when you consider that the Netflix account is per household (or more).

So when Zuck says there will always be a free version, I think the translation of that is: there will be a free version or no version. There is no universe in which Facebook survives without the bulk of its revenue coming from ads.

rcjordan

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Re: WhatsApp ordered to stop sharing user data with Facebook
« Reply #6 on: May 10, 2021, 12:19:32 AM »
>bulk of its revenue coming from ads.

Well, there'd still be blind 'Wanamaker-esque' ads, though I'd guess that the per user pay-out would be a fraction of personalized ads.

ergophobe

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Re: WhatsApp ordered to stop sharing user data with Facebook
« Reply #7 on: May 10, 2021, 01:21:52 AM »
Okay, let's say that's how it plays out.

Advertisers still measure ROAS.

There's no way you can block me from tracking my ad that sends traffic to my site. I just need a custom URL for each ad or campaign, and that's dead easy and tracking blockers can't mess with that because that's baked into the way the web works. So I can always get last click attribution. I can even get more sophisticated attribution modeling because every time you come to my site, I'm setting a first-party cookie and most people are not blocking those.

All that to say that advertisers of even the least sophistication will still be able to calculate ROAS. So at that point, they adjust their bids down. If Facebook has enough eyeballs to sell, everything shakes out to a new equilibrium where we are now, but you need a lot more eyeballs, and that does not seem the way FB is headed. So it takes so many ads to make a sale that there are not enough eyeballs. Bids go down. Facebook revenue goes down and advertisers get crowded out.

Does that sound right? If so, what then?

rcjordan

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Re: WhatsApp ordered to stop sharing user data with Facebook
« Reply #8 on: May 10, 2021, 01:35:42 AM »
I'm thinking that FB will massively AI-enhance existing services and create new ones that will let it build a likely profile of users.   Reading user messages, image content, tags, marketplace posts, buy your credit card info. Etc.  Within FB, the ads could still be targeted.

But I don't see how revenue/user could be anything but down from where it is today.