Because while FB definitely doesn't like that this is happening, it will certainly cement their position. 3rd party ad services that are less tech/ML-forward are way way more reliant on the ID tracking than Facebook is, and this actually will probably cement them as the only game in town. This is a very complicated situation.
I don't believe this is a realistic take on open-source. There's not a single successful modern OSS project that's not basically controlled by a single organization (or was not at some point in its conception). Control can take multiple forms: most of the time, it's directional to the project, since the roadmap of the company managing the project dictates what gets done. Sometimes, it's in the form of how you can use the project. The great thing is that you can always fork the project and create a version for which the new rules/direction does not apply. The challenging part is making that a project where active development is actually happening.
Certainly, there's things like the Linux Foundation that serve as places where projects can live without formal control by a single organization, but in practice, orgs that commit most of the code control things (for better or for worse - I'm not saying this is a good thing)
> I don't believe this is a realistic take on open-source. ... The challenging part is making that a project where active development is actually happening.
Well, yeah, that’s just the most obvious gut reaction everyone has when they first hear about open source software: Why in the world would anyone put work into software that’s free for everyone to use? My impression is that open source advocates have put tons of work into explaining why this can and does actually work and can result in software that’s better than proprietary alternatives.
If you're at the point you're spending money on ads and need to track them, you can spend $10 on a domain name? Lots of these platforms also give away free domain names.
It's not about whether or not it's foolish - the point is buying and setting up a subdomain, handing SEO, etc. is often more complex than some small business owners want to deal with.
Your point about commoditizing an existing market segment is extremely underrated.
Companies should use open source where the existing solutions are blackbox but also commoditized. If everyone's doing it but keeping their doors closed, you have a chance to create an open standard. If it's successful, all the black box companies have to adapt it and basically have now wasted a bunch of time
The numbers that are reported are reported by the company. When Pornhub says "118", they're telling you they really didn't try particularly hard. When FB says 84 million, that tells you there's a whole team writing algorithms to detect and report. It's nearly impossible to determine the actual numbers
The reality is that this is being made out to be way more insidious than it is. Platforms should work with authorities so that bad actors like known terrorists can’t use a free platform to organize.
To the crowd who says “well you can do bad stuff if you pay” - If terrorists are paying for Zoom, they’re leaving a paper trail for the FBI. Free platforms are ripe for abuse because they’re free.
People doing high-profile illegal activities will always be able to use simple open-source software, that cannot be stopped.
Terrorism is not a valid reason - well, perhaps unless you're going to take the jump to including a Chinese national that says 'Tiananmen Square' to their wife in a random call, as some 'Law Enforcement' will.
This is easily the most vacuous of all the comments here. You just take statements and call them disingenuous or obvious lies with not even a shred of backup
An aspect of this which has not been very well engaged with is how people see Facebook and its products outside of America. A common response to this from pundits is that it's an American company and therefore American values and perspectives matter more (as if American perspectives are the definitively superior kind). Without question, Facebook-owned products have democratized communication in third world countries (like India for example) and empowered those people to take advantage of the internet and its convenience. There's more than can go into a HN comment here, but an example is street side stores that have hugely expanded their audience by taking orders on Whatsapp. It just wasn't accessible to do this before, and Facebook has made that happen.
At some level, much of the criticism of Facebook (especially DHH) don't even try to put into words what Facebook "breach" they're upset about. Is it Cambridge Analytica? Is it one of the drummed up NYT pieces? If you care about this problem, yelling and waiting for someone to break up Facebook isn't a solution. We need discourse to identity what realistic changes we as a community expect.
