Meta, Facebook’s recently re-named parent company, has just experienced the biggest one-day value drop in history. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t cackling in glee.
Meta lost AUD$332 billion (US$237 billion) of its market value overnight, which is a simply inconceivable amount of money. Honestly, it makes me want to renounced the internet and become a fully off-grid alpaca shepherd.
I don’t know a load about Wall Street other than what I learned in that Leonardo DiCaprio film. But I do know that having shares in your company — which is one of the most powerful in the world — drop by 26.4 per cent is probably a bit yikes.
Plus, Mark Zuckerberg saw his personal wealth drop by AUD$40 billion ($US29 billion). The fact that a single person can have $40 billion to lose is both absurd and evil, but that’s capitalism baby!
There are a couple of factors likely contributing to Meta’s drop in shares, one of the most significant being TikTok. The video sharing platform isn’t just providing us with good good memes, but maybe the decline and fall of the Facebook empire.
Zuckerberg said that Reels, Meta’s answer toTikTok, is still growing in a conference call on Wednesday.
“Over time we think that there is potential for a tremendous amount of overall engagement growth,” he said, as per The Sydney Morning Herald.
“We think it’s definitely the right thing to lean into this and push as hard to grow Reels as quickly as possible and not hold on the brakes at all, even though it may create some near-term slower growth than we would have wanted.”
The company also cited Apple’s new privacy features, which impact advertisers’ abilities to track user data and target ads to them.
Meta’s seen a slight drop in Facebook users: the first time it’s declined in the history of the app.
David Wehner, Meta’s Chief Financial Officer, named increasing competition from other apps as one of the reasons.
“We believe competitive services are negatively impacting growth, particularly with younger audiences,” he said.
Or maybe Facebook’s just a shitty app full of extremists and rude people on private groups? IDK.
I would’ve deleted Facebook many moons ago if it wasn’t for the absolute treasure trove of good shit on Marketplace.
Sucks to Zucc, I guess,
