Ask HN: Do you think Meta could compete with AWS?
Meta has clear expertise in running huge data-centers. Do you think they could with AWS, Google Cloud, Azure and so on?
79 comments
In a business sense, absolutely not. Sure they could build it technically, but they'd lose money.
The issue isn't expanding data centers -- that's "easy". The issue is all of the software tooling, all of the gigantically massive platforms and services they have to not only build, but catch up to AWS/Google/Azure, all of which are moving targets.
AWS launched in 2002. Google Cloud (GCE) basically started in 2012 and only recently has finally mostly caught up to become a fully-fledged viable competitor, which took an entire decade. Meta would be too late to the party.
Sure they could launch something much smaller like a Digital Ocean competitor -- not a fully-featured cloud, mostly just servers and storage. But why would they? The margins are low and there's no strategic reason to do so.
The issue isn't expanding data centers -- that's "easy". The issue is all of the software tooling, all of the gigantically massive platforms and services they have to not only build, but catch up to AWS/Google/Azure, all of which are moving targets.
AWS launched in 2002. Google Cloud (GCE) basically started in 2012 and only recently has finally mostly caught up to become a fully-fledged viable competitor, which took an entire decade. Meta would be too late to the party.
Sure they could launch something much smaller like a Digital Ocean competitor -- not a fully-featured cloud, mostly just servers and storage. But why would they? The margins are low and there's no strategic reason to do so.
They had Parse (which they acquired) and shut down. It wouldn't compete with AWS, but could have competed with Firebase if they had kept it around.
On one hand, I agree with you catching in all aspects would be near impossible.
However similar to Apple, a more focused approach could be viable and profitable much more quickly.
AWS has been around for a long time, but they also have tons and tons of feature bloat, and full of redundant services with different pricing. Should I use an ELB or an ALB? Fargate, ECS, EKS, code deploy? The list of services is overwhelming and confusing to most.
A new major player with a cleanly architected design from the start with a clear path to happiness could be successful. Though Meta is full of feature bloat so I don't know if they would be the right choice to execute that vision.
However similar to Apple, a more focused approach could be viable and profitable much more quickly.
AWS has been around for a long time, but they also have tons and tons of feature bloat, and full of redundant services with different pricing. Should I use an ELB or an ALB? Fargate, ECS, EKS, code deploy? The list of services is overwhelming and confusing to most.
A new major player with a cleanly architected design from the start with a clear path to happiness could be successful. Though Meta is full of feature bloat so I don't know if they would be the right choice to execute that vision.
Your examples aren’t really that good. An ALB is a type of ELB (load balancer). AWS has multiple types, ALBs run on layer 7 and NLBs run on layer 4 of the network stack. They also have classic which are considered deprecated and NAT Gateways. None of this is redundant. Similarly Fargate is a type of long running task you could start and run on an ECS cluster. Think web service running in a container instead of a traditional group of EC2 virtual machines. Tartare tasks are also a higher level virtualization abstraction compared to using EC2 in your ECS cluster.
On the surface they all seem redundant because of the sheer breadth but when you start poking at them for a new solution that same breadth affords massive flexibility.
On the surface they all seem redundant because of the sheer breadth but when you start poking at them for a new solution that same breadth affords massive flexibility.
I think you are just helping make his point.
“A monad is just a monoid in the category of endofunctors, what's the problem?”
You can get flexibility or simplicity, pick your poison. Not all solutions have the same needs so the idea that there exists a single, simple out of the box solution for every problem is naive at best.
Yes and they were advocating for simplicity as a possible (starting) way for Meta.
Except the complexity wasn't created for the sake of creating complexity - it exists for a reason. You can go the simple route if you happen to be brand new to virtual infrastructure management. The problem is you're going to quickly outgrow your solution and then what? Besides, if you want simple you can go with Wix, Wordpress, or Digital Ocean.
I'm sure that at least some of the complexity in AWS exists because they can't go back and refactor their offerings when so many users depend on it.
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There may be "niche" areas that are still big enough to be worthwhile where AWS is not very good and Facebook could compete. The obvious example to me is Machine Learning workloads. Facebook has lots of experience here, and AWS overall isn't very good at it. There are lots of smaller niche players with better offerings, and room for a big competitor. There may also be examples in other areas.
Also, AWS is very complicated now, so any new entrant that can build a simpler version from the ground up will be at an advantage
Also, AWS is very complicated now, so any new entrant that can build a simpler version from the ground up will be at an advantage
Launching a simple storage and services product would be the opposite of productive. They would be wise to lean into their strengths and offer things others arent.
I've written about it before, but facebook should offer its components as a service to startup social products. https://telegra.ph/Facebook-Social-Services-FbSS-a-missed-op...
I've written about it before, but facebook should offer its components as a service to startup social products. https://telegra.ph/Facebook-Social-Services-FbSS-a-missed-op...
Never, ever host your service with a potential competitor.
Like Netflix hosted on AWS?
Who says they are even a "competitor"? This like anti-evil, spam, localization, and login services can apply to a ton of products that are not direct competitors to FB. Sure FB can and will clone just about anything, but you can say the same thing about Amazon and Google and Microsoft, at which point you shouldn't use any cloud services.
Who says they are even a "competitor"? This like anti-evil, spam, localization, and login services can apply to a ton of products that are not direct competitors to FB. Sure FB can and will clone just about anything, but you can say the same thing about Amazon and Google and Microsoft, at which point you shouldn't use any cloud services.
> at which point you shouldn't use any cloud services
You may be on to something there.
Cloud services exist first and foremost to further skew the playingfield in the direction of the larger parties because the economies of scale they create will allow them to compete with you in legal ways that you will find hard to match. That is the reason why these large companies are willing to rent out their data centers to you: you are essentially allowing them to sell you value added bits whilst reducing their own marginal costs in the process. Double win for them.
The fact that they could do even worse doesn't matter much absent proof. But for Facebook I'll make an exception: that company is rotten to the core in a way that not much else is and I highly doubt that there is a barrier low enough that they wouldn't crawl under it.
You may be on to something there.
Cloud services exist first and foremost to further skew the playingfield in the direction of the larger parties because the economies of scale they create will allow them to compete with you in legal ways that you will find hard to match. That is the reason why these large companies are willing to rent out their data centers to you: you are essentially allowing them to sell you value added bits whilst reducing their own marginal costs in the process. Double win for them.
The fact that they could do even worse doesn't matter much absent proof. But for Facebook I'll make an exception: that company is rotten to the core in a way that not much else is and I highly doubt that there is a barrier low enough that they wouldn't crawl under it.
I would argue that google didn't catch up. Their product offering is vastly smaller and is the better for it.
Not a chance. For a very simple reason: data center operations are reliant on trust between the parties hosting and the operators. If the party that operates the data center has indicated in no uncertain terms that they will be more than happy to violate trust at every junction then that party will have an uphill battle convincing potential customers that 'of course that does not apply to them'.
Keep in mind that a hosting partner has physical access to your precious hardware, something that you yourself probably don't even have. As such they are ideally placed to violate your trust six ways from Sunday and if they don't have a clean track record in that respect and you go into business with them anyway you only have yourself to blame.
Keep in mind that a hosting partner has physical access to your precious hardware, something that you yourself probably don't even have. As such they are ideally placed to violate your trust six ways from Sunday and if they don't have a clean track record in that respect and you go into business with them anyway you only have yourself to blame.
Good thing Google and Amazon are both known to be highly trustworthy and never fucking anyone over :)
That's fair, but compared to Zuckerberg they are saints in the trust department.
When they first launched their cloud products, yes. GCP launched before the shutdown of Reader and the whole "Google kills everything" meme started, and I think it would have had a lot more difficulty getting going if it had launched two years later. Similarly AWS's cloud computing launched during the time period where Amazon was blowing everyone away with their logistics and had legendarily good customer service that'd bend over backwards to ensure that customers were happy.
That's actually a very good point. Disillusionment with both, and exposure of dirty deeds, started way later. I did not think of that.
'Familiarity breeds contempt'... But Zuckerberg pre-empted that, he was quite up-front about the fact that you couldn't trust him from day -10 or so.
But even today I would trust that Google does not have a department that scans the contents for your instances for ways to improve their ad revenue, nor do I believe that AWS is secretly selling the contents of your VMs to the nearest equivalent of Cambridge Analytica.
But even today I would trust that Google does not have a department that scans the contents for your instances for ways to improve their ad revenue, nor do I believe that AWS is secretly selling the contents of your VMs to the nearest equivalent of Cambridge Analytica.
There are stories about both, but vastly more for Amazon about doing something themselves that they saw one of the sellers on their store do. So I don't think your example holds too well.
That's true, but Amazon sellers are well aware of the fact that they are operating behind enemy lines and AWS hosting has an entirely different level of expectations associated with it. Even a single case of Amazon raiding the contents of a customer VM to benefit Amazon the retail department would likely have an incredible backlash, so much so that I doubt that over the course that they've been in business we wouldn't have had a tell-all from an employee that was let go.
I doubt if AWS would recover from the hit to their reputation if someone provided proof of this happening.
The same, by the way, goes for parties operating on either Google or Apple's app stores: they are treading on very thin ice and if either one of those ever decides to go into the market that you yourself are in and are successful in you can pretty much count on a removal from the respective app store on some pretext, even if that requires writing your very own app store rule.
I doubt if AWS would recover from the hit to their reputation if someone provided proof of this happening.
The same, by the way, goes for parties operating on either Google or Apple's app stores: they are treading on very thin ice and if either one of those ever decides to go into the market that you yourself are in and are successful in you can pretty much count on a removal from the respective app store on some pretext, even if that requires writing your very own app store rule.
I think we are more likely to see Apple enter this market than Meta. I just don't think the company has the leadership with the vision to do it. They are too focused on being central to users lives to sell ads, and seem to be betting the company on VR which anyone outside the bubble can see has no place as a central social device.
Apple on the other hand will be looking at the cloud market and be thinking how can they do it differently? Not just compete selling a commodity, be create a step change in the market. I could see them utilising their silicone expertises and some creative thinking to launch a cloud system unlike what is currently available.
Apple on the other hand will be looking at the cloud market and be thinking how can they do it differently? Not just compete selling a commodity, be create a step change in the market. I could see them utilising their silicone expertises and some creative thinking to launch a cloud system unlike what is currently available.
> I think we are more likely to see Apple enter this market than Meta
Not a chance. They're allergic to other OSes and have discontinued MacOS server.
Not a chance. They're allergic to other OSes and have discontinued MacOS server.
Apple discontinued OSX Server because almost no one used it and it had very little value add. But also because they had discontinued any server hardware with the end of the XServe line.
XServe was discontinued because they could not compete in a crowded market selling commodity Intel based servers.
All of that has changed with Apple silicone, they are in a unique situation where they can compete by producing world class hardware no one else has access too with silicone processes that they have exclusive rights too.
XServe was discontinued because they could not compete in a crowded market selling commodity Intel based servers.
All of that has changed with Apple silicone, they are in a unique situation where they can compete by producing world class hardware no one else has access too with silicone processes that they have exclusive rights too.
Amazon already has ARM servers in production. Plus, as we've all just mentioned, Apple has no server offering.
Presumably they have a server distribution for their own use though, presumably they're doing lots of automated testing. And then there's iCloud, I don't know if that's just a bunch of Linux boxes but it might be MacOS boxes.
But everyone would pay (does pay) to run CI against MacOS, and they'd be in a far better position than other service providers (as they don't provide VM images but could provide them to themselves).
Good point. But my guess is that by Apple's strategic reasoning they'd rather have devs buying (and hopefully using) Apple hardware.
On the other hand, if Apple wanted to encourage server-side Swift this would be a way to do it. I just had a shower thought the other day that with the growth of WASM, Apple could target the web as well.
But ultimately I think Apple is still more focused on building consumer products rather than developer services. I'm not sure how they'd retain their identity with such a shift in focus.
But ultimately I think Apple is still more focused on building consumer products rather than developer services. I'm not sure how they'd retain their identity with such a shift in focus.
Actually they could work on marrying design (their traditional client base) with some lighter development tools-cross platform. This could be marketed as a moat from AI. Possibly some good demand growth potential there.
Edit-the goal would be to offer a product that makes a suitably skilled designer in the tools roughly equal to a minimally viable UI developer.
Edit-the goal would be to offer a product that makes a suitably skilled designer in the tools roughly equal to a minimally viable UI developer.
> I just had a shower thought the other day that with the growth of WASM, Apple could target the web as well
Lol you don't remember how Apple's been specifically trying to hold back web technologies to encourage native apps? Embracing WASM is completely against everything they've been doing for the last decade.
Lol you don't remember how Apple's been specifically trying to hold back web technologies to encourage native apps? Embracing WASM is completely against everything they've been doing for the last decade.
> if Apple wanted to encourage server-side Swift this would be a way to do it.
Apple wants money. Encouraging/discouraging server-side Swift (by itself) is orthogonal/irrelevant to making money.
Apple wants money. Encouraging/discouraging server-side Swift (by itself) is orthogonal/irrelevant to making money.
Apple loves disrupting and differentiating in the consumer market. Not so much in the developer market, though. XCode, swift, etc. have always felt more like a means to an end (consumer apps for iDevices).
Apple is a consumer company. They have no interest in dealing with businesses since they position themselves as a luxury good
I think you may be wrong here. There is a consumerisation of the enterprise IT and Apple is happy to grab a big piece of that cake (and not unsuccessful) when it comes to push their devices into the business market. If they had no interest in dealing with businesses, they'd not invest in enabling companies to manage large fleets of Apple devices.
https://support.apple.com/guide/deployment/welcome/web
https://support.apple.com/guide/deployment/welcome/web
Eh, I don’t think apple is doing that specifically for businesses as much as to unlock businesses to give their employees a luxury perk.
Even if that was true (which I believe it is not), wouldn't that already constitute "interest in dealing with businesses"? They want businesses to buy iDevices and use them for business purposes. Whatever you think on this, you should perhaps rethink after taking a look at Apple's own reporting and their press releases concerning business and enterprise customers.
https://techcrunch.com/2018/01/20/apples-enterprise-evolutio...
https://techcrunch.com/2018/01/20/apples-enterprise-evolutio...
Doesn't Apple itself use AWS and GCP?
I think you are correct. Most of the other replies seem to think that what Apple would do is like EC2 on up, but what you are saying is “would do something different”, so not EC2.
In a sense they have started to do this in small steps… iCloud Sync, and the new cloud-based service built into Xcode.
I think we would see Apple do more things like GCP’s original vision of App Engine, focused on improving the delivery story for Xcode developers. Write swift actors that run not on the device, but in the cloud. The code could be shipped as part of your app and run in the context of the device user. Or they could offer a shared compute that is, again, integrated into your App Store submission somehow, or maybe is a separate submission, but tied into your Xcode project.
I don’t see them offering a generic hosted VM solution. As you said, it’s too commodity and not worth iterating on for Apple.
In a sense they have started to do this in small steps… iCloud Sync, and the new cloud-based service built into Xcode.
I think we would see Apple do more things like GCP’s original vision of App Engine, focused on improving the delivery story for Xcode developers. Write swift actors that run not on the device, but in the cloud. The code could be shipped as part of your app and run in the context of the device user. Or they could offer a shared compute that is, again, integrated into your App Store submission somehow, or maybe is a separate submission, but tied into your Xcode project.
I don’t see them offering a generic hosted VM solution. As you said, it’s too commodity and not worth iterating on for Apple.
While AWS, GCP and Azure are all moving towards offering more higher level services(?), I think it is fair to say that when "competing with AWS" is on the table, people associate it with IaaS/PaaS offerings.
Providing more cloud services for the niche of mac developers is not "competing with AWS", is it?
Providing more cloud services for the niche of mac developers is not "competing with AWS", is it?
I think it is more likely that we will see an Apple Coffee Machine.
I could see them utilizing their silicone expertises and some creative thinking to launch an espresso capsule subscription unlike what is currently available.
This, or any other first world problem that Phil might run into on a Sunday morning :)
Why would they choose to not focus their expertise on where they make metric tons of money already? What's more compelling about competing with AWS, Azure and GCP on IaaS margins than to keep on doing what works? I expect Apple to expand into more and more consumer products to augment their existing offering, not start something completely unrelated.
Why would they choose to not focus their expertise on where they make metric tons of money already? What's more compelling about competing with AWS, Azure and GCP on IaaS margins than to keep on doing what works? I expect Apple to expand into more and more consumer products to augment their existing offering, not start something completely unrelated.
Nope. Pick a large AAA always online gaming company and ask the same question and I think the answer is the same. Just because a company runs a ton of IT infrastructure doesn't mean they would automatically be capable of running VM's for others.
As an aside, I would not trust data security on any solution Meta comes up with, their business model and ethos is user data for sale.
As an aside, I would not trust data security on any solution Meta comes up with, their business model and ethos is user data for sale.
Am kinda surprised Steam didn't create a value-ad turnkey game server solution on a third party or own cloud. Or maybe that exists? Been out of gaming for awhile...
I believe Steam/Valve offers their SteamNet for third parties, which is basically a non-IP VPN centered around low-latency. As an additional advantage, the network itself only allows you to talk to a game server when authorized, so attacking game servers is way harder, since the game server (software) itself doesn't have internet connectivity any more and is only reachable through that VPN.
Not in a million years would I trust Meta with my servers and data
No. I worked there, and saw the services available to developers. There's a dizzying array, and many of those services are quite excellent. However, they're deeply intertwined with each other and often quite idiosyncratic. That's going to be a hard sell in a market where people are already used to the Amazon or Google or Microsoft versions.
There's a lot of automation, but it's mostly for the team running the service itself. If you're a user of a service, you're likely to be quite reliant on knowing a member of that team to get new allocations or resolve problems. This is fine for developers within a single org, but building out the self-service and multitenancy necessary to make it palatable to outside users would be a major undertaking even if all the oxygen weren't being sucked out of the rest of the company by metaverse stuff.
Lastly, that capacity is already being actively used and they're barely keeping up with building out enough new capacity. Where are the resources going to come from to support outside users?
It just doesn't make sense for them to try, technically or logistically or culturally. The last thing they need is more distractions.
There's a lot of automation, but it's mostly for the team running the service itself. If you're a user of a service, you're likely to be quite reliant on knowing a member of that team to get new allocations or resolve problems. This is fine for developers within a single org, but building out the self-service and multitenancy necessary to make it palatable to outside users would be a major undertaking even if all the oxygen weren't being sucked out of the rest of the company by metaverse stuff.
Lastly, that capacity is already being actively used and they're barely keeping up with building out enough new capacity. Where are the resources going to come from to support outside users?
It just doesn't make sense for them to try, technically or logistically or culturally. The last thing they need is more distractions.
Ex-Facebooker Ex-Googler here. IMHO? Absolutely not. Infrastructure just isn't in FB's DNA.
I've never worked at Amazon but my understanding was that AWS was born from bezos deciding one day that the whole company would adopt a microservices architecture and the basic technology for that became AWS. This is quintessential eat your own dogfood. They were first to market and committed a lot to it so they became dominant.
Google (IMHO) only ever really entered the cloud space because they were afraid of AWS becoming so large that Google would cease to be a price-maker in the hardware space and would be a price-taker. I think I read at one point Google was purchasing 1 in 10 hard disks produced globally. That gives you a lot of power to set prices and secure supply if you're smart. Google didn't want to lose that position to Amazon so Cloud became a means of creating demand for more hardware.
Internally, Google services run on what can only be described as a data center OS (ie Borg). You set resource constraints like how much memory and how many CPUs your processes need and there's a scheduler that makes sure you only share resources on a server with other processes within total constraints. There's more to this like flex resource scheduling but it'll do for this example. IIRC Linux's cgroups, which form the basis of this, were contributed to Linux by Google.
Even so, my understand was that Google Cloud was relatively inefficient through all the networking and cloud VM/resource layers. This was years ago so may no longer be true and I have no idea how this compares to Amazon. But Google is prepared to get through that for other reasons. Still, Google doesn't use Cloud internally (unlike Amazon).
Facebook does some things very well, particularly produce deployment. You really can push a diff to master and it just gets auto-deployed to prod 1-4 hours later. What's more you have a bunch of UI frameworks such that developing a fully-functional UI that fits the FB style is amazingly quick.
But on the infra side, everything I saw was a disaster. There were still different specs of servers and each server AFAIK only runs one thing. There's none of the resource constraining stuff Google has. So how would you deploy Cloud to such infra? The answer is you wouldn't because you'd have to rebuild it from scratch and/or create completely different infra to what the rest of the company uses.
FB's approach has always beeen to build things quickly and not worry about efficiency. That's not the recipe for success in a low-margin business like cloud.
I've never worked at Amazon but my understanding was that AWS was born from bezos deciding one day that the whole company would adopt a microservices architecture and the basic technology for that became AWS. This is quintessential eat your own dogfood. They were first to market and committed a lot to it so they became dominant.
Google (IMHO) only ever really entered the cloud space because they were afraid of AWS becoming so large that Google would cease to be a price-maker in the hardware space and would be a price-taker. I think I read at one point Google was purchasing 1 in 10 hard disks produced globally. That gives you a lot of power to set prices and secure supply if you're smart. Google didn't want to lose that position to Amazon so Cloud became a means of creating demand for more hardware.
Internally, Google services run on what can only be described as a data center OS (ie Borg). You set resource constraints like how much memory and how many CPUs your processes need and there's a scheduler that makes sure you only share resources on a server with other processes within total constraints. There's more to this like flex resource scheduling but it'll do for this example. IIRC Linux's cgroups, which form the basis of this, were contributed to Linux by Google.
Even so, my understand was that Google Cloud was relatively inefficient through all the networking and cloud VM/resource layers. This was years ago so may no longer be true and I have no idea how this compares to Amazon. But Google is prepared to get through that for other reasons. Still, Google doesn't use Cloud internally (unlike Amazon).
Facebook does some things very well, particularly produce deployment. You really can push a diff to master and it just gets auto-deployed to prod 1-4 hours later. What's more you have a bunch of UI frameworks such that developing a fully-functional UI that fits the FB style is amazingly quick.
But on the infra side, everything I saw was a disaster. There were still different specs of servers and each server AFAIK only runs one thing. There's none of the resource constraining stuff Google has. So how would you deploy Cloud to such infra? The answer is you wouldn't because you'd have to rebuild it from scratch and/or create completely different infra to what the rest of the company uses.
FB's approach has always beeen to build things quickly and not worry about efficiency. That's not the recipe for success in a low-margin business like cloud.
They have no good reason to because AFAIK Microsoft and Google are still bleeding money with their cloud divisions because they have to hand out huge free credit grants to gain new customers.
https://www.theinformation.com/articles/why-openai-spent-bar...
"When Microsoft in 2019 said it had invested $1 billion in OpenAI, the high-profile artificial intelligence startup agreed to develop its products exclusively using Microsoft’s Azure cloud servers."
https://www.theinformation.com/articles/why-openai-spent-bar...
"When Microsoft in 2019 said it had invested $1 billion in OpenAI, the high-profile artificial intelligence startup agreed to develop its products exclusively using Microsoft’s Azure cloud servers."
The move fast and break things aspect might be a knock against them.
But since Facebook has been trying to diversify I too am curious why they haven't tried their own cloud products yet.
But since Facebook has been trying to diversify I too am curious why they haven't tried their own cloud products yet.
"Break things" is now dropped from the official company values ;) it is now just "Move Fast" along with "Focus on Long-term Impact"
Breaking things can have long term impact.
There is a huge difference between running infrastructure on behalf of a single, well-intentioned business and running infrastructure that needs to deal with high density, adversarial multi-tenancy.
Not saying they can’t do it if they really committed, but the premise of the question that “they already have technical expertise” is flawed.
Btw, this is the similar learning curve that Google went through (and arguably still going through) when they decided that they could expose their awesome infra to external customers.
Not saying they can’t do it if they really committed, but the premise of the question that “they already have technical expertise” is flawed.
Btw, this is the similar learning curve that Google went through (and arguably still going through) when they decided that they could expose their awesome infra to external customers.
No, they would be almost 2 decades behind on building the required services and capturing market share. While they could make up the time on the tech side eventually, the market share is a very hard grind that they would not be able to pull off. Google has been trying and failing and they also have a decade head start now.
It's a pretty saturated market. It would be hard to break in.
I think this is the biggest challenge. What's their edge (no pun intended)?
AWS, Google Cloud, Azure etc are not best thought of as datacentre operators. It's the software that makes the cloud. AWS doesn't even operate all their own datacentres. The fact that they do operate many of them is primarily for cost efficiency; they can deliver the same product regardless.
All things considered, I do not see why they couldn't. Much like when Amazon first got into that business, it would likely require them to make some infrastructure changes, hire some people, etc. But there is no logical reason why they could not offer a competitive option.
However I do think that from a business standpoint it would feel a bit out of place, or even desperate, for Facebook to get into that space. A more logical approach might be for them to do something more like acquire Wix and allow businesses to have pages that were more dynamic than just a Facebook page. Allow for more direct e-commerce, etc. (and take a cut). If that was successful, they could grow into more datacenter type services as a logical extension.
However I do think that from a business standpoint it would feel a bit out of place, or even desperate, for Facebook to get into that space. A more logical approach might be for them to do something more like acquire Wix and allow businesses to have pages that were more dynamic than just a Facebook page. Allow for more direct e-commerce, etc. (and take a cut). If that was successful, they could grow into more datacenter type services as a logical extension.
Facebook buying Wix or the equivalent would be an admission there is an internet outside their walled garden. It's not going to happen, they are too hooked on the idea that their platforms are the internet and users shouldn't venture outside them.
Ask any advertiser who has used Facebook, the in app browsers are actively hostile to leaving the app and make conversion more difficult.
Ask any advertiser who has used Facebook, the in app browsers are actively hostile to leaving the app and make conversion more difficult.
I agree it would be an admission of failure. But so would trying to compete with AWS, IMO. So if they are so out of ideas that they theoretically need to get into that business then doing in in stages would look less bad. At least that is my theory. I’m sure this whole meta verse thing is going to take off any day now.
I highly doubt it as I know other cloud providers smaller than GCP and Azure have trouble with some clients as they want to move to AWS. Cause well the buzzwords.
Realistically, Meta doesn't exactly have a great track record with user data and privacy. So I doubt a lot of companies would be willing to join.
OVH was created in 1999 and I would say is less well known than AWS probs meta have a similar client to IBM Cloud or OVH.
Realistically, Meta doesn't exactly have a great track record with user data and privacy. So I doubt a lot of companies would be willing to join.
OVH was created in 1999 and I would say is less well known than AWS probs meta have a similar client to IBM Cloud or OVH.
Why would anyone want that? Personally, I'd like to see some huge collective/co-op form to create an Amazon competitor a TRUE Amazon competitor (all their major profitable verticals -- esp FBA, Fullfillment, and Ecommerce, with AWS just a cherry on top.).
I think they could, at least on a technical level. I don't think they would for business reasons, but there's plenty of smaller companies they could buy up if they didn't want to start from scratch.
[deleted]
Maybe? But do they want to? Here's the thing with being a founder led company: You still think it's your toy, your vision, and you know best.
If the goal was to make money, Meta may be interested in cloud computing. Some of the biggest open source projects powering the internet are out of Meta. They have some understanding of developers and know how to interact with them and what they want / need. But alas, cloud computing isn't making the world a more connected place or whatever Zuckerberg thinks he's doing, and until he steps down, the focus required for this type of shift would be difficult to pull off.
If the goal was to make money, Meta may be interested in cloud computing. Some of the biggest open source projects powering the internet are out of Meta. They have some understanding of developers and know how to interact with them and what they want / need. But alas, cloud computing isn't making the world a more connected place or whatever Zuckerberg thinks he's doing, and until he steps down, the focus required for this type of shift would be difficult to pull off.
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I was using Parse until Facebook acquired them in 2013, then abruptly shut down the platform a little over a year later.
No, I do not think Meta could compete with AWS.
No, I do not think Meta could compete with AWS.
Is "silicone" now an acceptable word to describe microprocessors? I'm familiar with its use regarding body modification, but...
Not in a million years. Meta is an unorganized mess under an incompetent leadership, while AWS already hosts half the net for a reason.
i would absolutely never trust Facebook-run infra, ever, in a million trillion years
No.
no. lol
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