I see this as roughly equivalent to amortized big O complexity. If I push to a vector repeatedly, sometimes I will incur a significant cost O(n) of reallocation, but most of the time it's still O(1).
Similarly, if Meta violates the law, and is infrequently fined a small fraction of their revenue by a small number of governments, in general it will not be a big deal for them.
You also have to ask "how much is the specific thing in the lawsuit worth to Meta?"
I don't know how much automatically opting everyone in to automatic photo tagging made Meta, but I assume its "less than 100% of their revenue".
Barring the point of contention being integral to the business's revenue model or management of the company being infected with oppositional defiant disorder a lawsuit is just an opportunity for some middle manager + team to get praised for making a revenue-negative change that reduces the risk of future fines.
Work like that is a gold mind; several people will probably get promoted for it.
They didn’t make $60B in Q4 2025 in Texas. 1.4B was 100% profit from Texas for years, that a big fine.
I see this as roughly equivalent to amortized big O complexity. If I push to a vector repeatedly, sometimes I will incur a significant cost O(n) of reallocation, but most of the time it's still O(1).
Similarly, if Meta violates the law, and is infrequently fined a small fraction of their revenue by a small number of governments, in general it will not be a big deal for them.
You also have to ask "how much is the specific thing in the lawsuit worth to Meta?"
I don't know how much automatically opting everyone in to automatic photo tagging made Meta, but I assume its "less than 100% of their revenue".
Barring the point of contention being integral to the business's revenue model or management of the company being infected with oppositional defiant disorder a lawsuit is just an opportunity for some middle manager + team to get praised for making a revenue-negative change that reduces the risk of future fines.
Work like that is a gold mind; several people will probably get promoted for it.
Big for Texas, not for Meta.
It’s under 5 hours of GDP for Texas. It’s a big fine, but not a huge deal for either party.
4 replies →