– This did not come unexpectedly, say two media experts. Today Mark Zuckerberg announced that Meta, the company that owns Facebook, is laying off 11,000 employees. Around 13 per cent of everyone who works in the company. “I will take responsibility for these decisions and for how we ended up here. I know this is tough for everyone, and I’m especially sorry for those affected.” The cut is the largest in the company’s history, and comes at a time of declining value and increasing competition in the market. Mark Zuckerberg announced big cuts yesterday. Here in connection with a conference in 2019. Photo: ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS / AFP Zuckerberg also said that the increase in value from the pandemic has decreased and that advertising income has decreased. All within a time of economic downturn in society. – A bubble that had to burst Snap Inc., the company behind Snapchat, is also falling in value. Snap has had a negative development throughout 2022. According to Ida Aalen, who is a media scientist, signals of this have been seen for a long time. – The large tech companies have been highly valued in relation to earnings. This was a bubble that had to burst, at least a correction that had to come. Ida Aalen is a media scientist and author. Photo: Patrick da Silva Sæther / news The values of these companies rose sharply during the pandemic. Then they were more highly valued than ever. This is what several experts are pointing to now. As early as July this year, Mark Zuckerberg warned his employees that the tech industry would face its biggest downturn yet. – Then they were unnaturally highly valued. When you return to normal times, it is seen as a big drop, says Aalen. Twitter is also falling in value “Let that sink in”, said Elon Musk when he arrived at Twitter’s headquarters on the same day he became owner of the company. Quite immediately afterwards, the news came. 3,500 people, close to half of Twitter’s employees, had to leave within a week. Musk defended the cuts by saying that Twitter had major problems with profitability, and believed that internet activists have caused large companies to boycott the platform. Volkswagen is one of the major players that has pulled its ads. Elon Musk came walking with a sink to Twitter, the same day that the purchase was a fact. Photo: AP – Facebook is dying Lena Lindgren also points to the pandemic as one of the causes. She is an author, and has written the book “Ekko – an essay on algorithms and desire”. She believes that Meta was artificially inflated in the last two years. The company has also struggled with the fact that fewer people use Facebook actively than before. A scenario they have never had to deal with before. – You can say that Facebook has been dying for a long time. Lena Lindgren in connection with the launch of her book. When Apple gave its users the option to turn off personalized ads, it hit Facebook’s advertising model directly. She also believes that the name change to Meta has damaged the company. – Mark Zuckerberg was successful with Facebook in the early 2000s. Twenty years ago, it was the need to connect people that prevailed. When Metaverse was announced last year as a virtual meeting platform after the name change to Meta, it was met with a lot of criticism. – I don’t think Zuckerberg has understood the social development today. We do not fulfill our needs by meeting each other’s avatars in a virtual space. – Twitter is in its own situation Ida Aalen also points out that Twitter has major challenges in addition to the fact that the industry is on the way down. The blue verification badges that cost eight dollars a month and the layoffs are two attempts to make the company profitable. Elon Musk has bought Twitter for 44 billion dollars. Photo: DADO RUVIC / Reuters – Elon Musk took out a loan to pay off the acquisition of Twitter. In addition, he must pay billions in interest on the loan every year. She points out that it is profitable to dismiss employees with salaries in the millions, in order to later offer the same job at a somewhat lower price. The tech industry, like several other industries, is facing challenging times.
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– A bubble that had to burst – news Culture and entertainment
