this post was submitted on 16 Jan 2026
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[–] Passerby6497@lemmy.world 25 points 2 hours ago

If they can burn a billion dollars on shit everyone else knew was a failure from day 1, they can pay a fucking reasonable tax rate

[–] MacStainless@piefed.social 7 points 3 hours ago
[–] RIotingPacifist@lemmy.world 31 points 5 hours ago (1 children)

I guess the idea just didn't have legs!

[–] WanderWisley@lemmy.world 30 points 7 hours ago (3 children)

Over $100 billion down the toilet and zuck is still one of the richest people in the world wtf?

[–] hector@lemmy.today 5 points 1 hour ago (2 children)

100 billion must be in lost market capitalization, not real money, just like tesla is theoretically worth a trillion dollars, no one could recognize that money.

[–] jj4211@lemmy.world 3 points 1 hour ago (1 children)

100 billion is a touch higher than I've read elsewhere, but evidently they actually spent $77 billion 'real' dollars:

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/mark-zuckerberg-threw-77-billion-143014208.html

[–] hector@lemmy.today 1 points 1 hour ago

Good god I figured it must have been wrong as it's such a large amount of money. I wonder how much of that they borrowed and how much they paid in cash. They might be paying astronomical interest payments on all of that.

Just goes to show how we have all the wrong people in charge in the west, at every level from government to business from the ceo on down to middle managers. Zuck is case and point. Well, as someone else posted, this article about their failure has legs. Unlike his stupid metaverse, that no one seemed even slightly interested in from the start.

[–] Rooster326@programming.dev 0 points 1 hour ago

Bruh they definitely spent real money on developers and marketing.

[–] Gonzako@lemmy.world 9 points 5 hours ago (1 children)

The US economy has devolved from an economy where you gain money by making and selling things to an economy where investing in the stock market and then taking out loans on that stock to keep investing is a better way to keep making money. When was the last time someone rich became poor?

[–] hector@lemmy.today 2 points 1 hour ago (1 children)

That is one of the ways they avoid taxes. They take out loans to pay old loans and to spend on the value of their investments at good rates, and since they never realize income they never pay taxes. I think interest is even tax deductible to a degree.

Bezos in 2020, a year his wealth multiplied obscenely, paid 600 dollars. Less than we did.

As per a couple of propublica articles they published around 2021.

[–] Gonzako@lemmy.world 1 points 25 minutes ago

Dang, I pay more in taxes in a single paycheck than bezos did in a year.

[–] Balldowern@lemmy.zip 8 points 5 hours ago

Trillion is the new Billion.

[–] ExLisper@lemmy.curiana.net 105 points 9 hours ago (5 children)

If a company can dump $100B into failed project and still be profitable they have too much money. Jesus, imagine would would happen if this money went to the workers instead...

[–] JensSpahnpasta@feddit.org 98 points 9 hours ago (2 children)

It's actually crazy that you can burn $100B in a project that everybody mocked from the beginnings and still be CEO after that while having earned billions in compensation

[–] Alpha71@lemmy.world 2 points 57 minutes ago

this is what's called "holding a controlling interest."

[–] Soup@lemmy.world 39 points 8 hours ago (2 children)

Hell, it’s fucking insane that we have to earn our bonuses and they still fucking suck yet these people will get millions after fucking it all up. Imagine if a regular worker failed this hard and was like “so where’s my $15,000 Christmas bonus?”

[–] SeductiveTortoise@piefed.social 14 points 7 hours ago (2 children)

I didn't fuck up and only got a tenth of that.

[–] TheEEEdiot@sh.itjust.works 17 points 6 hours ago (1 children)

You guys are getting Christmas bonuses?

[–] ShaggySnacks@lemmy.myserv.one 9 points 6 hours ago (1 children)

I got a membership to the Jelly of the Month Club.

[–] frunch@lemmy.world 2 points 5 hours ago

"where's the Tylenol?!"

[–] Soup@lemmy.world 3 points 6 hours ago (1 children)

I didn’t fuck up and I always got the “default” $500CAD.

[–] SeductiveTortoise@piefed.social 8 points 6 hours ago

To be fair, my last company didn't pay anything because... uhm they had a record breaking year but they wanted more and thus it was nearly bankrupting them. Emotionally, I mean.

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[–] 9488fcea02a9@sh.itjust.works 10 points 7 hours ago (1 children)

imagine would would happen if this money went to the workers instead...

where do you think the money went? I imagine a lot of it went to workers salaries....

[sweating profusely] Developers! Developers! Developers! Developers! Developers!

[–] ExLisper@lemmy.curiana.net 3 points 7 hours ago (1 children)

You're right, a lot of it probably went to the devs but from what I'm reading the cash burn is so bad because it's extremely chaotic in there, lot's of bad decisions, canceled projects, lot's of directors swapping places. No idea what part of it went to low ranking devs and what went to consultants and building useless prototypes.

[–] rothaine@lemmy.zip 1 points 2 hours ago

My understanding is that Facebook's culture is very cutthroat. Throw other people under the bus, try to make your rivals' project fail, do a huge unnecessary refactor to "make a name" for yourself, that sort of stuff.

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[–] resipsaloquitur@lemmy.world 6 points 6 hours ago

Don’t worry. The billions Zuck dumped into crypto and NFTs will pay for the billions he dumped into VR.

He’s a genius, dontchaknow.

[–] monad@anarchist.nexus 34 points 9 hours ago* (last edited 9 hours ago) (3 children)

Great News!

Nobody should use or support anything Meta. As a matter if principle.

[–] hector@lemmy.today 1 points 1 hour ago

The only reason I log in now is marketplace. Which I need.

[–] clutchtwopointzero@lemmy.world 17 points 9 hours ago (3 children)

The whole concept was dead on arrival. Second Life never took off and it was perplexing to see that Meta thought it could make it work.

[–] JensSpahnpasta@feddit.org 7 points 8 hours ago (2 children)

I mean - it kind of does work. There are millions of people socializing in online games. Playing World of Warcraft with their friends or people they met there. Building crazy things on a Minecraft server while forming friendships. Playing on that Counterstrike Server for decades with the same people. Forming that guild or that clan in an MMORPG. There is something that does work. Not sure why Zuckerberg wanted VR to be part of that and that Facebook touch of poo is also not helping, but trying to build "World of Warcraft for your aunt" is not the worst idea.

[–] thedirtyknapkin@lemmy.world 1 points 1 hour ago

i guess, but it woulf require the least likely people to adopt a new and expensive technology. think about how long it took for the older generations to catch on to the internet and smart phones. they may be glued together now but it took 20 years and every single other person on earth getting one to make it happen.

warcraft for your lonely aunt is a fine idea. making that vr was poorly conceived. it would have to work on a phone AND be more compelling than just taking on call or text.

but also, the early adopter types that are more or less necessary to get something like this off three ground were never going to like it. that's us. you can't create a new tech market segment that wasn't explicitly asked for without at least considering the nerds. meta has negative trust among nerds. we all saw this as the marketing and data collection tool that it is meant to be.

it was never going to happen. at least until they have full control of all of our devices and platforms and can just say we need it to continue existing in society now. that or b2b contracts are the only ways i could see this ever taking off. it would take some serious marketing voodoo bullshit to convince any sizable businesses that this would increase profits.

[–] snooggums@piefed.world 18 points 8 hours ago

Games have something to do with socialization as an extra benefit.

The meta shit was conceived of as 3d advertising with socialization as an extra benefit.

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[–] artyom@piefed.social 7 points 8 hours ago (2 children)

Yeah, but I mean there's "you shouldn't use this because Meta is bad" and then there's "no one wants to use this because it is, on a fundamental level, an incredibly stupid idea and I can't believe anyone thought this would ever catch on."

[–] hector@lemmy.today 1 points 1 hour ago (1 children)

Facebook itself sucks now. It is not a feed of your contacts' posts, it's all groups, I have no control over that feed, unless I look up each friend individually I only get to see what they choose to show me, which is maybe one every 10 listings on the feed. It's super glitchy, especially from my phone, posts just disappear with no trace, I am unable to use it in a dozen ways that they never bothered to fix. It's getting worse as well. Total garbage.

And they are losing critical mass, as they suck more people leave, it's mostly the older people that are still using it all the time that I've seen. We need a fediverse alternative, hopefully where it can interact with other forums on the fediverse like lemmy and mastadon.

[–] artyom@piefed.social 1 points 34 minutes ago

I think you might need a reality check. Facebook has 3 b-b-billion monthly active users. It's the most used social media platform in the world, by a large margin. Followed in second way behind by Instagram, Meta's other social platform. So it doesn't suck enough for those people to quit using it.

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[–] Voroxpete@sh.itjust.works 22 points 9 hours ago

But what about the zero people who used it? Whatever will they do?

[–] Valmond@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 4 hours ago

A ha ha ha ha ha ha, .... inhales ... Aaa ha ha ha ha ha ha ha

[–] Maeve@kbin.earth 36 points 10 hours ago (1 children)
[–] cheese_greater@lemmy.world 9 points 9 hours ago* (last edited 7 hours ago)

I was struggling to think where i recognized that bit was but you just solved that. They want rent, never for you to own anything, much less anything tangible that cant be taken away or revoked or forced to surrender or relinquish

Appl does the same with music and videos and audiobooks and books They want to license it to you and for you to have zero access to the actual files and brainwash entire ongoing new generations to not even understand a file system/owning real files and knowing where to get basically any file you want. The whole notion of a file having tangible value and operable

[–] db0@lemmy.dbzer0.com 57 points 12 hours ago

Lol at all the companies who got rugpulled again because they trusted Zuck's promises. Get rekt bozos.

[–] oh_@lemmy.world 2 points 6 hours ago

They made it for work too? TIL.

[–] PerogiBoi@lemmy.ca 8 points 9 hours ago (6 children)

Meta Horizon Worlds is a giant unlicensed and unmoderated daycare.

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[–] Diplomjodler3@lemmy.world 25 points 11 hours ago

But this time it will be totally different! They'll learn to love our AI slop! Trust me, bro!

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