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Meta's Revenue Shrank For the First Time In Its History (engadget.com) 48

Facebook parent company Meta has just reported its earnings for the second quarter of 2022, and it was another quarter of shrinking profits. Engadget reports: Total revenue of $28.8 billion was only down one percent compared to Q2 one year ago, but net income dropped 36 percent to $6.7 billion. Making almost $7 billion in profit is not a bad quarter for anyone, but the size of the decline compared to a year ago is pretty significant. And, according to the Wall Street Journal, this is the first-ever drop in revenue for Meta / Facebook -- so even though we're only talking one percent, it's still noteworthy.

Revenue from advertising and Meta's "family of apps" was essentially flat year-over-year, and Reality Labs (home to hardware like the Meta Quest and other metaverse-related initiatives) actually grew 48 percent year-over-year to $452 million. But Reality Labs accounted for a $2.8 billion loss this quarter, a 15 percent larger loss than Q2 one year ago. At this rate, it seems likely that Reality Labs will lose Meta more than the $10 billion it cost the company in 2021. Indeed, the company said it expects Reality Labs revenue to be lower in the third quarter. [...] In June, Meta said that it had 2.88 billion daily active users in its family of apps (which includes Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and Messenger) and 3.65 billion monthly active users, both of which are up four percent compared to a year ago. Facebook-specific growth was smaller, though -- average daily and monthly users only increased three percent and one percent, respectively.
Further reading: FTC Files To Block Meta's Virtual Reality Deal
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Meta's Revenue Shrank For the First Time In Its History

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  • by p51d007 ( 656414 ) on Wednesday July 27, 2022 @06:44PM (#62739760)
    Until it does the way of AOL, Myspace and others.
    • No 5th Super Yacht for Zuckerberg!
    • by sabbede ( 2678435 ) on Thursday July 28, 2022 @06:59AM (#62740868)
      You mean, "replaced by something that gets much bigger and arguably worse"?
    • by jellomizer ( 103300 ) on Thursday July 28, 2022 @07:46AM (#62740996)

      Meta biggest revenue maker is Facebook, and Facebook is for Old people, and the Algorithm has been so refined to promote info that gets our attention and causes us to react to something, has created a uncanny valley type of condition now. Where when we go onto Facebook we get too much stressful contents. Look at what stupid thing that US Representative said that shows how out of touch the entire party that you don't normally vote for is. Or how a legal action that you really wouldn't care about would somehow have dire effects on the whole world! You seem to be interested in a new hobby, well then let us show you the dangers and hazards of that, while we sell you more stuff for your current hobby.

      A lot of people are dropping Facebook, or just kinda ignoring it lately because I am not seeing what my College friends are up to, or how my extended family is doing. But pages of Sponsored content which seems legit, but are mostly just deceiving likes meant to anger me. The only time my actual person I know post is when they post something political and gets into arguments.

      It just isn't worth it. As people tune out of Facebook, they are not getting the Ad Impression thus less revenue.

  • by wakeboarder ( 2695839 ) on Wednesday July 27, 2022 @06:55PM (#62739790)

    Yay!

    • Re: (Score:2, Funny)

      by ayesnymous ( 3665205 )
      Might take a while to completely die. The legions of 40-60 somethings who are too set in their ways and won't leave Facebook will take another 20-40 years to die off.
      • They just need to change the timeline to add more and more clickbait to drive "engagement" and soon you won't see anything from your friends. You won't realize they are still there.

      • Facebook replaced the white pages, maintaining personal phone books, e-mail, SMS, bulletin boards, to some extent yellow pages, and more. Oh, it's also the only FaceTime alternative nearly everyone has. So long as the 40-90 community is willing to have free accounts, then 13-40's people can contact then (probably to mooch money or nag them).

        I hate Facebook, even turned down VERY lucrative job offers from them on principal. But, it has become the defacto standard. If it does eventually die, the market will
      • Facebook is very popular in South-East Asia among young people.
      • There's still hope for a more deadly Covid variant.

    • by Luckyo ( 1726890 )

      Sadly, this is probably more among the lines of "recession coupled with severe supply chain issues meaning inventory is sold out even with minimal advertising, so everyone is spending less on advertisements".

      • I don't think so, FB is a millennial only trend

        • by Luckyo ( 1726890 )

          This is Meta in its entirety. That means that it includes things like instagram, which is nearly universal among women of all ages.

          • Yeah, I know, but most of that is FB and I don't think that moving into VR/AR is going to help them at all. It's certainly not going improve their revenue.
            • by Luckyo ( 1726890 )

              I was just addressing the false claim of "Meta being millenial only thing". Instagram for example is so huge in world of modern Westernised women, that I would struggle to identify anything that is even remotely as universal for this huge category of people.

              It's not as monetized mainly because Meta pools data from all its services (except in EU where it has contractual obligation with anti-monopoly bureaucracy not to) and then it deploys ads where they can get best returns in their estimates.

              I.e. gather dat

              • I never said meta is a mellenial only thing, I said FB was
                • by Luckyo ( 1726890 )

                  Point being that even if FB itself is, Meta runs itself as a company that has multiple social networks, and income from FB incorporates advertising from data that came from other services.

                  I.e. "one part of Meta specialized in this one demographic" may be true, but Meta as a whole has multiple services with different specializations, such as Instragam and women. Those overlap, covering most of humanity in total. I.e. arguing that FB has limited audience is not an argument against the point you replied to.

  • Time for the U.S. taxpayer to cough up more money to save this struggling company. Just like Intel and other chip companies need tens of billions of dollars to survive.

    • I suppose you expect those poor executives to turn the heating off in one of their swimming pools this winter or something?
      You're also not thinking about how those scary Chinese are taking over the online dance video market are you?
  • They sure do make a lot of money for a company I've never bought anything from.

    • by ItsJustAPseudonym ( 1259172 ) on Wednesday July 27, 2022 @07:22PM (#62739848)
      That's because they sell "us".
      • Apparently, we aren't worth anything then. Anyway, the "selling us" argument is applicable to everything that has advertising. Newspapers, radio, tv, whatever. Hardly comparable to say slavery.

        • I have listened to a lot of OTA radio, watched a lot of OTA TV, and bought lots of newspapers in my life. I can say with 100% confidence that not one of those providers has sold any of my personal information to a third party. I'm pretty sure you don't get what people mean when they say "you are the product".
          • On the other hand, I would not be surprised if those stations and their advertizers used the services of data brokers to target ads to people most likely to watch/listen to those programs.
        • They had a dip in revenue. They're still taking billions. So "we" are still worth billions. Just perhaps not as much as Facebook is trying to lie about.
  • They'll allow all the misinformation they are now blocking to increase their revenues at the cost of a democracy or two.
  • by Chas ( 5144 ) on Wednesday July 27, 2022 @11:39PM (#62740272) Homepage Journal

    Nothing of value will be lost.

  • Too bad they had to take Oculus down with them.
  • Maybe because of the grossly buggy update they rolled out early this month, that doesn't work on an actual computer (it will suddenly start scrolling by itself, and you can't stop it)? Maybe because people don't *WANT* pop-up windows to follow a thread?

    In the immortal words of that great philosopher, B. Bunny, "Eh, what a maroon!"

  • Public: “If the technical definition is [lower income coming in] , you’re saying that’s not [revenue shrinkage]?”

    Zuck: “That’s not the technical definition. There is an organization called the [Super Important Internet Society] that looks at a broad range of data in deciding whether or not there is [Lower income]. And most of the data that they look at right now continues to be strong. I would be amazed if they would declare this period to be a [lower income period], ev

  • Metastabook is in remission. Five year survival rate for facebook zombies increased.

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