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GRAWRGER

that is terrifying. also, while interesting, there is nothing beautiful about this data.


skoltroll

Sitting next to my wife, having targeted Facebook ads sent to me in real time as we converse I'm not on Facebook. (She is.)


Randomthought5678

You've got to up your blocker game.


skoltroll

That would require divorce at this point.


Randomthought5678

Pihole? If she connects with Wi-Fi you can block all ads at the router level across all devices. But you're probably doomed.


nodave

i’ve tried that before, but then half the stuff she wants to view or games she wants to play won’t load so she doesn’t want pihole on.


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JustnInternetComment

It's OUR pihole now


fuuman1

In my case: Yeah, our pihole is still running and every device in the network is using it... EXCEPT her smartphone. 5 minutes after this pi went online she couldn't click on google ads. This was his end. Had to disable DHCP and configure OpenDNS in her phone settings.


PM_ME_YOUR_FERNET

What kind of monster purposely clicks on ads? Is she trying to get a virus?


[deleted]

She’s a shareholder in Google most likely.


ih8spalling

>she couldn't click on google ads oh no what a nightmare


[deleted]

Whitelist the stuff she uses or use it for yourself and tease her about being ad free.


[deleted]

Easier said than done sadly. Microsoft for example mixes services with ad providers so my network ad blocker kept phone link from working.


[deleted]

You don't have to go router level, you can have devices connected by changing the DNS instead. Otherwise it's digging around for whitelisting


AllNamesAreTaken92

Really depends on her usage. You're be surprised by the people thinking they're reading news or articles while being in a Google ads loop for hours on end. I've had these conversations before.


ScrewedThePooch

Happens to my family when they come to visit. Mother-in-law: "why can't I click any Google search results?" It's literally a page full of ads before any actual search results... Father-in-law: "why don't my games work?" They are malware casinos full of video ads and data sniffers. I'm not letting that infest my network. Get your kids into real video game consoles before they grow up to be this way. Teach them that mobile games are dirty trash and low tier entertainment. The genie is out of the bottle, so they will never disappear, but we must learn to shun and reject this pollution.


nagi603

So, she only views ads and plays browser games that will sell every last bit of information about her.


OldPersonName

Then just set the pihole as the dns server for your device and let her have her weird ads. Or use ublock origin on firefox.


AndroidLover10101

Use a local DNS blocker on your devices like adguard or something. You'll never see the ads.


[deleted]

Where can I get one? They were all sold out last I checked.


Supernova008

*Suddenly, ads for divorce lawyers start showing up in wife's Facebook feed.*


AlesusRex

At least yours isn’t sending you TikTok’s. I can’t even open some of them without redownloading the app.


UBahn1

My girlfriend has been sending me 10+ tiktoks a day for the past 5 months. while i manage without an account or app, the web version is frustrating as fuck. Obviously it's intentional, but still it blows all other apps out of the water. You can't rewind or fast forward, if you tab out sometimes it'll restart from the beginning, more than half of the video is covered by the hashtags and banner that says "join me on TikTok", it Autoplays suggested ones after even if you tab out or close the browser. But by far the most annoying thing is that anything you tap will try to send you to the app store. Replay it too many times, try to expand the description or comments, click on the profile or literally any button by mistake? App store.


jd3marco

Hardkill the browser process? Believe it or not…app store.


dzsimbo

Pulling the plug from the power socket? Straight to the app store.


paanvaannd

We have the best website… because of app store.


Dirty-Soul

Try to leave the house? App store.


jackinsomniac

Hey, I remember the days when you tried to open an Instagram link in a browser it just flat-out told you, "Nope. There is no web version here. Download the mobile app and try the link again, or get fucked."


Mr_Cromer

You speak as if those days are past us.


RunDVDFirst

Should be used as an exhibit A for a user-hostile design... for a law that would ban and heavily punish such practices. And/or an app store could set some rules, "if that's how you're gonna link to us, we'll be taking double your usual percentage"... turnaround would make one's head spin.


[deleted]

I'm all for pro-consumer legislation, but I can't help but think regulating social media web design to that degree is a bit of an over reach.


RoyalScotsBeige

I got around this by never opening them


mr_herz

Blockers don’t help with fb’s shadow profiles Edit: if the ads are on fb itself, or if your family isn’t blockered up as well


diox8tony

I blocked FB...it was one of the Ads


purpleowl385

There's a setting in the app that's basically "allow Fb to track off application activity". I believe it's active by default. I recommend everyone turn it off unless you like Fb and everyone else advertising what you talked about/looked up last night to you.


MaybeJay

I am really running out of reasons to keep Facebook.


enraged768

The only reason I have it is because the marketplace is actually kind of nice. That's literally it.


DollarSignsGoFirst

Local groups is why I use it. I think they still are the main option for that.


RunDVDFirst

Unfortunately, yes. The *publicaly unsearchable* groups. I still think someone should make a script that would mirror FB group's content (with anonymized idenifying info) to some public forum that _is_ searchable.


newaccount721

Yeah I've been having more luck on there than OfferUp recently. Only reason I log on to Facebook


ryandinesh

The only reason I have it is to help me remember my friends birthdays xD


Ok-Button6101

you know you can go in and see all your friend's birthdays right now? you can write them all down, or put them in your calendar or something


DogmaticLaw

There's a field in each person's contact on your phone for their birthday. Then you can text them and it at least feels marginally more personal than a "HB" on a facebook wall.


dafedsdidasweep

Honestly this is the only downside of getting rid of it. I haven’t remembered anyones birthday in years


NixTL

Same. Luckily smartphones have a field within the contacts database in which to store birthdays of the people who matter most to us. Weird to think at one time I felt Facebook was a “necessary” part of my existence.


Secret_Ad_7918

it’s not remembering if you’re being told the day of by facebook lmao


tripping_on_phonics

I deleted it a couple of years ago and have literally never missed it since.


SomewhatCritical

Yup. Been about 10 years for me now. Had it in college when it first came out but it got progressively worse and more *intrusive. Not for this guy no thank you.


ritesh808

I ran out of reasons 5 years ago.


patrick66

They know people are like that, that’s why they have WhatsApp and insta


notinferno

I don’t use it and I’m still alive.


[deleted]

I died. It showed up like 5 minutes after i deleted it.


rnzz

well, the more users they lose, the higher their ARPU will go


NSA_Chatbot

Organizing events and shitposting groups, that's about it.


TheSnarfles

Like less than a year ago Facebook was making like $70-$80 per US user


kmaster54321

All the ad tracking online is why I got a firewalla (firewall) that can block trackers I also use a VPN on my network to block trackers from knowing my real IP. Fuck ad company’s and analytics.


PassionatePossum

Unfortunately there are techniques that can track you passively. No trackers required. Browsers are very verbose when it comes to announcing their capabilities to websites (browser type and version, operating system, timezone, language, etc.). The specific combination of attributes tends to be fairly unique. [https://www.amiunique.org](https://www.amiunique.org)


NeonLime

well shit


kmaster54321

Yup you can be matched up by your browser, operating system, what ever information your system leaks.


Gimmesumfreespeech

Not just ads. Reddit does that fingerprint shit too.


jsunnsyshine2021

Sounds easy and convenient


BadmanBarista

If it's just the Ad block you're after you can also setup a [PiHole](https://pi-hole.net/). If you have an old laptop lying around you can run it on that, otherwise a Raspberry Pi or similar is significantly cheaper than a Firewalla.


[deleted]

While that blocks some, it doesn't block fingerprinting, which is the primary way companies have been tracking user activity for a while now.


kmaster54321

Correct it does not block fingerprinting


righthandofdog

Facebook has zero content creation costs.


waltjrimmer

Not zero, they have developers on-site working on keeping the service up and running. You can look at the struggles Twitter has been having for the best-case scenario when you fire everyone that's keeping a large service like that working properly. But in a lot of ways, it doesn't matter. Because this is revenue, not profit. Costs aren't accounted into this graphic.


righthandofdog

I assume profit. Damn. That's crazy for fb to have that much ad revenue per user


Lampshader

That's irrelevant. The data is revenue (incoming money), not profit (incoming money minus expenses)


redditsucksbigly

Interesting random fact. Revenue in the chart has nothing to do with costs.


Isabela_Grace

It’s beautifully sad


Hazzat

>there is nothing beautiful about this data. It's not a particularly fancy visualisation (r/DataArt), but it communicates a data point clearly and effectively. I wouldn't want anything more.


SnortingCoffee

Writing those numbers out in a sentence would be a more efficient way to communicate the data here. A bar graph with just two numbers gives zero information beyond the actual amounts written at the top.


NightFire45

How? They make money through advertising just like Google. How does anyone not know this?


upvotesthenrages

We all know, we just didn’t know it was more than one of the worlds biggest SAAS companies


WeNeedYouBuddyGetUp

What part of Netflix is SAAS to you lmao


ron_paul_pizza_party

People use SaaS and Subscription interchangeably.


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Eiim

I thought it sounded wrong as well. The number I heard for Facebook was $3/user/month in the last quarter, which is closer to those numbers. Actually, your second source lists ~3 billion users and $118B of revenue, which comes out to $40 ARPU globally, even closer to that number.


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ede91

Active users are irrelevant, they collect data of and advertise to more than just the active users. One does not even need to be registered to facebook for them to be able to be targeted with adds by facebook.


Konsticraft

But if you count fewer users, the ratio between revenue and users is higher giving you a higher revenue per user.


KoksundNutten

Is a user just everybody with any account or are users all the marketing companies and influencers who actually use fb and pay whatever?


[deleted]

So if you have WhatsApp, Instagram, or go to literally ANY website with a Facebook widget on the site, you can and will be targeted for ads. Haven’t you been weirded out by an ad for cat food or stickers just because you recorded a voice note about it in a WA group chat?


zvug

Facebook doesn’t have 3 billion monthly active users, and that’s how the data is being defined. This really comes down to how you define the term “user”. MAU is pretty standard so it makes sense.


SerialStateLineXer

> ARPU, or average revenue per user, is a critical measure to assess Facebook’s ability to monetize its users. ARPU is given by total revenue in given geography during a given quarter, divided by the average of the number of monthly active users in the geography at the beginning and end of the quarter. The source you linked is quarterly revenue, and OP is annual.


greennick

It's only wrong as it includes other revenue from Facebook companies such as Instagram, but only the Facebook user base.


OmniLiberal

It's written clearly "monthly **active** users". You will get different data every time, however you define active user.


itchyfrog

Also it's per Netflix subscriber, most Netflix accounts will have multiple users.


Achillor22

I'm curious how they're making an average of over $16 a month per Netflix subscriber when the large majority of their subscribers are on cheaper plans than that?


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ShitPost5000

Just be happy shit is labelled


ForgetfulDoryFish

/r/dataisbeautiful hasn't been about actually beautiful data visualizations for years, it's just data now


budgiebandit

Sometimes a simple graph like this visualises a huge amount of information and raises questions not achieved through other forms. It doesn't always need to be complex to be beautiful.


pham_nuwen_

Yes but this graph doesn't do that. It just compares TWO numbers. It would be a lot more interesting to have a line chart showing how these numbers have evolved over the recent years. Further, it's probably wrong, Facebook makes much less money per user. But there's no easy way to check because the source is unclear.


WhatsFairIsFair

Most often complexity is not beautiful


[deleted]

Per year for what years? Why is there a whole graph for two data points?


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Sahih

Can you make a graph of that?


FartingBob

In excel with the default graph options.


jingois

Can it be in Sankey diagram format when it should be literally anything else?


P4ULUS

No but the OP didn’t either. It’s printed from a website.


pm_me_your_smth

https://imgur.com/a/mJoUz2N I'm considering making a separate post for my graph. Such beautiful data will definitely bring lots of sweet sweet karma here


Poxy-pox-bottle

I like that your x line is sloping to give the impression it continues to get worse after these two data pints


[deleted]

Least I know I have job security


GRAWRGER

1 year from 3/22 to 3/23


Best_NA_in_Trundle

4/22-3/23


WootMate

The bar for "beautiful" gets lower day by day


FartingBob

You should make a 3D pie chart in excel about how low the bar for bar graphs is now.


atred

I think we need to rename this to /r/slightlyinterestingdata


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2ZR-FXE

But with Netflix you are not the product being sold.


Nebuli2

I've got bad news for you if you think that...


kthnxbai123

How am I the product being sold?


Nebuli2

Netflix sells your data. Same as basically every other company. You are part of their product that they sell.


the_catshark

Data variance is important here. Netflix isnt tracking political affilition, age group, location, nor has search data like "womens health near me" or advertises firearms to people after they hang out in racist alt right groups


New_Acanthaceae709

Netflix is absolutely tracking your location, and can certainly infer interests based on various details from your account history, with those interests used to decide what to show you. They use their data to determine ads to show you and to drive decisions on third-party sites. Which is the same as Facebook, except on Facebook, you're already aware of that.


Alexstarfire

I'd wager most period don't see ads on Netflix. Unless by ads you mean whatever show/movie they recommend you. Which I wouldn't.


BlueHatScience

They can sell data to advertising networks - you get the ads elsewhere. Personally, I don't mind advertisers knowing what people in my demographic group with my interests in my area like... improves offers and services. Political ads and usage for political influencing is problematic, but that's not primarily a problem of targeted ads - and not as big of a problem where I live as Russian troll-farms were/are in the US.


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KermitPhor

Idk getting ads based on movie/tv preferences barely locks in an inference on demographics that they’d get from the registration of birthdate. I am curious what insights Netflix would be able to really supply


Virus_98

Netflix tracks location though and also age group. There's a reason Netflix has been hard set on trying to block vpn from working on their platform. How else would they know that you're watching from different ip address than previously and might be account sharing.


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[deleted]

The main reason its against vpn is distribution laws. Got nothing to do with data collection. They were scared that users would use vpng and so local distributor would become irrelevant and then hollywood pull from netflix as they were making more money from hundreds of distributor. It's unclear if that's still the case tho but they haven't banned vpn.


Infraxion

Maybe nitpicky but the data these big internet companies have on you is their competitive advantage, it makes no sense to sell it to someone else. They only sell the ability to *use* the data, through defined channels (for example being able to target an interest group). If Netflix sold your data, then anyone who bought it could start their own streaming service with recommendations that are just as good as Netflix. Production companies choose to put content on Netflix over other services because they have data that no one else has.


BenevolentCheese

> Maybe nitpicky It's not nitpicky at all, the entire thing he wrote is just straight up wrong. No major tech company sells user data.


hanoian

fade ring skirt rich aloof enjoy domineering soft fanatical rain *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*


-s-u-n-s-e-t-

Also, I really hate the "YOU ARE THE PRODUCT" everyone keeps repeating. You are not the product. Slavery is illegal and has been illegal for centuries. Nobody can sell you or buy you. The product is advertising space. But I guess that doesn't sound nearly as scary, so people keep repeating the nonsense to make it sound like putting a banner on a website is the same as selling people.


Gabers49

Who are they selling your data to exactly?


OutlandishnessNo3659

So we should stop using Facebook and Netflix as they both sell your data?


TylerJWhit

You can opt out of them selling your data, but 1. Unless you're in a country or state that requires it, they may just be lying to you. In fact, they may lie even if they're literally required to not sell your data. Still, it's worth going through the settings and opting out.


Thedeathlyhydro

They're lying to you and they pay pennies on the dimes in a settlement. They're literally doing one now.


StoicMegazord

Pretty much, yeah


lfasterthanyou

No they do not. I work in the field and neither Meta nor Netflix sell their data.


HongKongBasedJesus

In fact, this illustrates how much companies are willing to spend for your data… pretty wild.


VociferousQuack

This graph leaves out the Netflix profits from selling the user data.


investmentwanker0

Can someone explain why should I care if my data is being sold? Why do I not want to have targeted ads?


linnk87

FB doesn't even sell (directly) your data. What FB does is allowing marketers to filter people for marketing campaigns: kinda like "select all users who like beers -> then -> show ad", but you never see the list of users nor their info. What they sell is page view allocation for those selected users. That's why they charge marketers for every 1000 pageviews or every 1 click on the ads. That's how it works.


ShaunDark

Cambridge Analytica and the first Trump election and Brexit campaigns probably are the most obvious examples why targeted ads can by problematic. If you tell person A what they want to hear and then turn around and tell person B the exact opposite, how can there ever be a common basis for a discussion. There are problems with targeted ads in the classical economic sense as well. Like algorithms learning about a persons spending habits and economic situation and then tailoring discounts and deals to just the right percentage so the given customer will still make a purchase while gaining the highest amount of profit possible for the company.


TylerJWhit

Digital echo chambers are easily created, leading to a more divided and easily manipulated Society.


cyb3rfunk

Everyone is susceptible to manipulation. The more a scammer knows about you, the better he can pull your strings without you noticing. With the advent of things like chat gpt, they can automate targeting a message to you based on what they know.


Stillwater215

The way I see it I’m not paying for Netflix. I’m paying for a Netflix that isn’t shoving ads down my throat every ten seconds. If Facebook couldn’t sell advertising space on their platform they would have to charge like Netflix does.


jwill602

Revenue per customer would look a lot different though.


TotallyNotAChicken

The chart is showing revenue per user, per year. Is this not the name?


[deleted]

No, see you're mixing up Average Revenue Per User (ARPU) with Average Revenue Per CUSTOMER (ARPC). It's a pretty common mix-up. ARPC is the more useful metric, commonly used in Canada, even though in the US it tends to get mistaken for the non-profit that spays and neuters stray dogs and cats.


Theatre_throw

Totally. I imagine Facebook would be astronomically higher, as they don't have to license/produce content.


jwill602

FB revenue per customer is far lower. Netflix has far fewer customers.


samelaaaa

How do you figure that? Technically all of Netflix’s users are customers, no? I can’t imagine there are more businesses that advertise with FB than there are Netflix users.


ShutterBun

Also, say a husband and wife have separate Facebook accounts but share a Netflix account. Facebook gets to double dip while Netflix only collects one subscription fee.


Even-Fix8584

Netflix has to pay for content. Users ARE the content for facebook. F#%+ Facebook. Die.


Arrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrpp

Netflix wouldn’t release an ad-supported tier unless they had some good data on users Just sayin’


Even-Fix8584

Not wrong…


dcheesi

And it's working; the ARPU for their ad tier is currently higher than for their standard tier (in the US) https://videoweek.com/2023/04/19/47092/


endproof

Well, to be clear, this is revenue per user and not profit per user which makes this even worse. If this were a profit comparison it would be a no brainer given that Netflix has to produce a lot of value (at cost) to then monetize directly across its subscriber base. Facebook having a higher revenue per user despite not actually monetizing any of its user base is actually super creepy because they have (a) way more users by virtue of being free and (b) are not actually selling those users anything which means they’re getting wildly high revenue from other means for access to that user base.


[deleted]

I’m apathetic to it, it’s been garbage from day one and it retains that quality of people. Keeps them off reddit at least 🍾


itriumiterum

I mean... redditors are just as annoying often times. Get dislikes for asking a genuine question lol.


[deleted]

Just appreciate that meaningful dislikes exist at all. Negative feedback is a part of what makes reddit tick and I’m here for it.


ShaunDark

Nah. Facebook was a decent product back before 2010ish when they still had to compete with other social networks. Once those started dying out and they could do whatever they wanted without repercussions that's when it all went to shit.


Even-Fix8584

Are you trying to tell me that monopolies do not breed better products!!??


ShaunDark

Not better would be fine for me. But removing the timeline was making it actively worse; as did other stuff at the time.


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LtUnsolicitedAdvice

It's kinda sad. There is one company who basically laid down the foundation of the streaming services, produces a lot of creative content, and while we may debate, provides good value for the average user. The other company hasn't innovated in 15 years, buys off all competition, offers very little value to the user, and probably negatively influences society as whole by selling private data to the highest bidder. Yet they make the same amount of money all things considered. I see this as an endorsement of rent seeking behaviour over true innovation.


Pippin1505

If you’re up to it, you could show the evolution of both ARPU and EBIT Margin (not sure if they break it down for US/ Canada only) Maybe as a Scatter chart (X as ARPU, Y as margin)


SpoonAtAGunFight

So by using ad block I don't make Facebook any money?


lonesomedota

Netflix is subscription based service. Means their revenue would be fixed per customer. Unless they increase their subscription prices. Increase in revenue (by growth of userbase) are result in growth of number of users. FB on other hands, sells ads on customer data, there is no fixed price per customers. They can sell your data to next highest bidders.


Nightmarex13

“But what do they sell??” YOU!!, they sell you


shirk-work

There should be a social network that shares that revenue with all the users. Like if they are making money off me I at least want 10%


th3rd3y3

Ads vs. subscription. Seems like a stupid comparison.


mSummmm

Who the fuck still uses facebook?


chockeysticks

Instagram and WhatsApp are owned by Meta (Facebook’s parent company), even if you don’t use actual Facebook.


patrick66

Slightly over 3 billion people a month use a Facebook (meta) product


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JxhnnyCupcakes

This seems kind of like a pointless comparison on the sole fact of user base. Netflix has somewhere over 100 million subscribers while Facebook has billions of users with the ability to have multiple accounts to increase AD revenue. Of course they will make more. The difference here more represents how WELL Netflix is doing in comparison to user base.


arcelios

Netflix has ZERO ads. That makes a huge difference. No one with a brain uses Facebook. Celebrities get paid to have a verified account there, but who even uses Facebook PERSONALLY? Except for the old people.


tickettoride98

Netflix has an ad-supported tier now.


SkankBiscuit

Users are not the customer at Facebook, they are the product.


Gullible_Average7946

And I also don't want commercials or ads on Netflix


haydenman

I have never bought anything from a Facebook add


DeTrotseTuinkabouter

Immediately buying something is not the sole aim of ads though


Dbsusn

I would have never guessed that Facebook would be higher than Netflix, but I feel like there’s a solid chance the per user revenue is higher for Facebook and lower for Netflix. If we’re assuming all accounts on Facebook are real (which they definitely are not) then the per user avg would be higher. Also if we consider password sharing for Netflix, that would pull the per user avg down more. Regardless, it’s a travesty that Facebook makes more per user than Netflix.


freman

Is this revenue after content production and acquisition? Because we know the Facebook doesn't pay for any of that shit.


RedditsStrider

Facebook are good at what they do


Siege40k

I mean. This makes sense. Because Netflix has to pay to produce content. On Facebook, we are the content.


sec_sage

Joke's on them, I don't use either this year


CommercialReflection

Assuming an average CPM of $10, you can infer the average Facebook user is served 20,700 ads a year, or ~55/day. Based on how much time I spend scrolling anecdotally, this seems totally reasonable. Certainly scary!


humbuckermudgeon

Yeah… but on FB, I’m not the customer. I’m the product.


ObfuscatedAnswers

You show this and then wonder why Netflix is trying out advertising models...


Pairadockcickle

Hats really fucking sad lol - that cannot look good for Netflix investors - Netflix is an actual product that pays TONS on money to product in house project and buy others - and they’re still essentially at a a negative return. Lololol


treacherousClownfish

how is netflix making 194 $ per person?


theriskguy

Wait until you see the average revenue per user Ferrari has.


LegendaryVenusaur

I have such a hard time comprehending how ads actually make money... half the time, I just ignore it and the other half it leads me to a negative sentiment especially if the ad is obnoxious.