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Bulletins

Meta's stock plummet was no surprise, says Reddit co-founder

He told Bloomberg the company's ad model "just doesn't cut the mustard anymore."

Seven Seven Six’s Alexis Ohanian

Meta's advertising model "just doesn't cut the mustard anymore," said Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian.

Photo: Michael Nagle/Bloomberg via Getty Images

Meta's stock fell a record 26% on Thursday, wiping out more than $200 billion in market capitalization after disappointing earnings. Reddit's cofounder Alexis Ohanian wasn't shocked by the company's fall from grace, he told Bloomberg, as its digital advertising model isn't catching the eyes of ad buyers anymore.

Meta was one of several ad-heavy platforms that was hit hard by the Apple privacy updates that rolled out in May, which required apps to get users' permission before tracking activity for advertising uses. Because of this change, Ohanian said all of the "savviest marketers," have started ditching Facebook for advertising.

"The Facebook ad product — thanks to the Apple iOS changes — just doesn't cut the mustard anymore," he told Bloomberg in an interview Thursday.

Meta put the blame on Apple for its poor quarter, claiming in its earnings call that the iOS advertising changes could cost Facebook $10 billion in 2022.

Nat Rubio-Licht

Nat Rubio-Licht is a Los Angeles-based news writer at Protocol. They graduated from Syracuse University with a degree in newspaper and online journalism in May 2020. Prior to joining the team, they worked at the Los Angeles Business Journal as a technology and aerospace reporter.

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