Not long ago, with the announcement of its fourth-quarter earnings, Meta stock price plunged 26 percent, evaporating $240 billion (about 1.5 trillion yuan) in market value, the largest drop in U.S. history for a public company.
Although Facebook is still very profitable, with Q4 revenue up 20% year-over-year, it is clear that investors lack confidence in Facebook’s future. This lack of optimism stems from a lack of user growth, the impact of Apple’s privacy policies, and a meta-universe that is still very murky.
A few months ago, Facebook changed its name to Meta. The company behind the social network hoped that this name change would help reduce the scandals and controversies it was involved in. However, the reality is that this name change has not gone the way the company envisioned.
Facebook has lost $500,000 million since its name change
In fact, the company has lost $500,000 million since the name change. Recall that the company’s stock market value plummeted 30% earlier this month alone.
The name change was not the cause of these problems at Facebook or Meta. Although the company saw it as a red herring, it didn’t actually serve to distract from its privacy problems. Moreover, Apple and Google have made various privacy changes in recent months that significantly affect the social network’s business model.
Their business model is based on collecting as much data as possible, which is becoming increasingly difficult with the new privacy measures. There are new features like the ability to block the social network’s trackers, preventing them from obtaining user data.
Since Facebook became Meta, the company has lost around $100 billion per month. The name change isn’t the main reason for that, but it came at a time when the social network saw its business model threatened. They’re now trying to focus on the Metaverse, which seems to be off to a good start, but it’s not something that’s generating revenue right now.