It's really ironic when you think about it. One of the things people hate on FB for is enabling echo chambers in online discourse. That FB has this corrosive effect because it amplifies toxic content and radicalizes users who get pushed further and further from the mainstream.
But us FB haters don't always realize that we're also in a bubble or echo chamber when discussing it. We see nothing but negative opinions on the company and don't realize that the larger world doesn't share these thoughts.
There are so many other topics I see this applying to. Amazon work conditions; whether Apple should scan for CSAM client-side; the whole Chappelle thing.
I'm a case in point. After a decade of ignoring Instagram, I'm now a solid DAU[1]. I probably see a dozen ad impressions each day; I know I've clicked through a handful in the last month. I do what I can to compartmentalize it from the rest of my online identity, but when looking at their growth metrics, I'm one of them in the 3rd quarter.
Probably creative accounting. Nobody really knows what their "users" actually mean anymore. There's no way to really grow users from their particular baseline.
The dollars can keep going up through collusion with Google, to give just one example. Or by smothering existing uses with even more ads. Or by charging more for ads. Or all of the above at the same time. Dollars and users are not directly proportional. Particularly the low-RPU foreign users responsible for whatever non-creative part of this growth that exists, if any.
