Author | Lightnews

Benedict Evans @thebenedictevans.bsky.social · 1d

The funny thing about this thread is all the people who are very toxic, very sure they're right, and say things that ten seconds in Google would have shown them aren't true. There are still people who believe in Cambridge Analytica!

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Benedict Evans @thebenedictevans.bsky.social · 1d

You should read that link. For the first time. Then you would know that Cambridge Analytica didn't buy data from Facebook.

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Benedict Evans @thebenedictevans.bsky.social · 1d

Yes, she's the only person who still believes Cambridge Analytica was a thing, bless her.

Benedict Evans @thebenedictevans.bsky.social · 1d

Yes, 'sells data' and doesn't sell data' are the same thing and you have to be pedantic to suggest that's kind of a convoluted piece of logic

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Benedict Evans @thebenedictevans.bsky.social · 1d

Cambridge Analytics did not buy data from Facebook, didn't actually do anything, and is best thought of as a hoax.

Ten seconds in Google would have told you this. You're so sure, and so wrong, and never even once bothered to look. Do you still think MMR causes autism, too?

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Benedict Evans @thebenedictevans.bsky.social · 1d

'Selling your data' and 'not selling your data' are the same thing. Sure.

Benedict Evans @thebenedictevans.bsky.social · 1d

No, they don't so that.
Imagine having such strong opinions about something you've never bothered to spend any time at all looking at

Benedict Evans @thebenedictevans.bsky.social · 1d

This is untrue. Ten seconds in Google would have told you this. You're so sure, and so wrong, and never even once bothered to look.

Benedict Evans @thebenedictevans.bsky.social · 1d

This is untrue. Ten seconds in Google would have told you this. You're so sure, and so wrong, and never even once bothered to look.

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Benedict Evans @thebenedictevans.bsky.social · 1d

Generally, in the English language, if I sell you something, then you have it.

In your usage, if you give me money and I do not give you X, then I have sold you X.

At best, that's a wild abuse of language, and there is 'no universe' in which that's the only meaning.

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Benedict Evans @thebenedictevans.bsky.social · 1d

It's self-selection of idiots

Benedict Evans @thebenedictevans.bsky.social · 1d

This is hilarious
I said that SF is a small place with not much going on... and the local newspaper wrote a story about it. It proved my point just absolutely perfectly.
But also... it's been a decade, and you still care so much that a total stranger didn't like SF, and yet you never realised this?

Benedict Evans @thebenedictevans.bsky.social · 1d

There are two different questions
Does Facebook sell your data? No. People insisting on this are simply idiots.
Does it have data? Well yes, that's how it works. But what data? Why do you care? is it sensitive data? Does it matter? It depends, and it's not an absolute.

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Benedict Evans @thebenedictevans.bsky.social · 1d

Also - wow, what a lot of really toxic people left Twitter for Bluesky.

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Benedict Evans @thebenedictevans.bsky.social · 1d

"Facebook sells your data" is such a strange little cult.
Not only do you persuade yourself that "sells user data" is a good way to describe a system in which no-one gets user data - you persuade yourself that this bizarre pretzeled logic is so obvious that one who says 'um, what?' is a moron

Tim Onion @bencollins.bsky.social · May 28

Been trying to pop onto Threads more to see what's up and I've just encountered a strong contender for Wrongest Paragraph Ever Written.

benedictevans
8h
The whole ‘AI IS THEFT AND PLAGIARISM!’ panic reminds me a lot of the time when people used to claim that ‘Facebook sells your data!’
Facebook doesn’t sell your data. There is no sense in which that slogan was true. Facebook does other things that you might not like, but they’re new things, and complicated, and working out precisely what they mean is a lot more difficult than shouting a nice simple slogan, even when that slogan is objectively untrue.
benedictevans
8h
LLM training data is more complicated than ‘theft’ and it certainly isn’t plagiarism. It raises lots of questions, but those questions are more complicated than slogans and trigger words.

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Benedict Evans @thebenedictevans.bsky.social · 1d

And here you have hundreds of people all chiming into say "yes, if I buy an ad, and get no user data, then Facebook has sold me some user data! Anything else is nonsense!"
It's a cult.

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Benedict Evans @thebenedictevans.bsky.social · 1d

And so, you twist yourself into strange little pretzels to persuade yourself that not selling data and selling data are the same thing....
Indeed, you persuade it's so self-evident that 'not X' and 'X' are the same thing that anyone who says that's a weird idea must be a moron. Think about that.

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Benedict Evans @thebenedictevans.bsky.social · 1d

I find this whole topic fascinating.
If you buy an ad on FB, and I see it, you don't get my data. You don't get ANY user data. You didn't buy user data, and FB didn't sell it.
You know this!
If FB sold user data, you would have it.
But you're also totally sure that Facebook sells user data.

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Benedict Evans @thebenedictevans.bsky.social · Aug 4

I make many mistakes on social media, but I have always avoided making personal attacks on people.

As ir happens, I very rarely think people are fools, but I often think they're wrong. That is not the same thing.

Benedict Evans @thebenedictevans.bsky.social · May 20

As far as I can see usage has been flat to down for a year.

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Benedict Evans @thebenedictevans.bsky.social · May 5

By extension there are some companies that aren’t suited to venture scale, but there are also some that only really work at that scale, and if you try to keep them small and handcrafted, then you get into just as much trouble.

Benedict Evans @thebenedictevans.bsky.social · May 5

There are lots of different kinds of business and a ‘venture-scale startup’ is only one.
The problems come when the entrepreneur isn’t suited to or doesn’t want to built that, or the business itself isn’t suited to that, and sometimes the entrepreneur or the VC fool themselves.

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Benedict Evans @thebenedictevans.bsky.social · May 5

The average venture exit is seven years and the fund life is 10 years. They don’t want quick success- they want you to build a giant business over 7 to 10 years.

The best analogy is that VCs sell rocket fuel - if you don’t want to build a rocket ship, you shouldn’t buy hydrogen peroxide

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Benedict Evans @thebenedictevans.bsky.social · Apr 24

It’s interesting how consistent survey data on LLM usage is. Something like 10% of people are using this every day or so, another 15 or 20% every week or two, and then about 50% have looked at it and not come back.

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Benedict Evans @thebenedictevans.bsky.social · Apr 15

This is a good expression of the bemusement that people who build companies have for the whole 'enshittification' idea (if they thought about it at all).

Do you want to build something that's used a lot by a lot of people, or are you running an unambitious lifestyle business?

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