Meta: Shares in Facebook owner dive 20% as investors lose faith (opens in new tab)

That's more of an argument against private ownership of companies over a certain size than weird voting rules for shares. Zuckerberg has merely retained the power that he would have had if Facebook had stayed private.

If Meta does collapse due to Zuckerberg's missteps and there's a lot of very angry shareholders, it's possible that it'll result in this type of split-class voting shares becoming illegal. Financial regulations tend to be reactive rather than proactive, so things default to being legal until they very clearly are a problem.

I mean, nobody was obligated to buy minimally-voting shares of $FB.

Our legal system's default assumption is that contracts that aren't clearly exploitative are valid, and this seems pretty tame by that measure.

They have one of the worst brand reputations in tech. Their business model in general is being targeted by regulators and policymakers in jurisdictions big and small all over the world, and the various abuses of their specific platform is often used as a clear example of why. TikTok is giving them very strong competition, and their efforts to play copycat are not being received well by users. Investors are now far less enamored with tech, and capital is tight in general since the economy is in a precarious situation. Their CEO is unaccountable, and people he relied on to build a successful business to begin with (eg. Sheryl Sandberg) are gone, and he’s spending all his focus on a completely different product that lacks traction. He insists on centering himself as a personality in media, despite the fact that he is uncharismatic and his appearances tend to reinforce the brand’s negative reputation.

Even if VR is the future, there’s no indication that Meta is the company that knows how to build something people want here, let alone profit it at, but it continues to pour massive amounts of money, talent and executive attention into this, and it sounds like they’re not planning to change course.

Meta has earned its price drop.

I don't know about that. I want to see Facebook fail. I think the world would be a better place without Facebook. I am pretty confident I am not the only one who thinks that and I think the number of people who see things that way is increasing.

If I knew someone was engaging with Facebook, I would think less of them. In the same way Facebook grew due to social factors, it can also wither due to social factors.

Facebook has gotten so much negative press that I can't imagine there being anyone but mercenaries working there now.

I certainly would not invest in that.

Dictatorships work great until they don't. Dictators get high off of their yes men until they lose touch with reality and start making critical errors.

Yes and no, alternatively if investors believe the trend will continue then they will just wait for the earnings to come down and then it isn't mispriced.

or not.