Facebook was upfront and honest in 2008/2009, saying that their profits would not occur, until they reached a point with data collection and data value....and they could market that for the incoming profits.
When you look at the marketable data...it’s basically ‘clicks’. If you clicked on 200 items in a month....then that has value. If you went clicked just six times in an entire month....never going to a news site or a political site....your value diminishes.
I would guess here that the Facebook spiral is maybe four to eight months away, where they lose customer participation and the stock value tumbles. I’ll even go out and predict that the board demotes Zuckerberg by spring of 2019. He’ll stay around to help develop the future, but I think his CEO days are over.
You’ve seen the quizzes and personality questionnaires that appear on Facebook. They are tools of the data miners to micro target known people with more accurately pertinent ads. Millions of crazy nuts participate in those quizzes daily. It’s fricking nuts.