Facebook Inc (NASDAQ: FB) saw its shares pop 8.2% as the company launched its new Facebook Shops concept and with the company receiving an analyst upgrade.
The social media giant’s push into e-commerce looks to leverage its near-2 billion users, with a focus on small- and medium-sized businesses.
The company is likely to see success in this area. With a user base of over 2 billion to tap, who wouldn’t succeed?
Personally, I’ve never been a fan of Mark Zuckerberg or Facebook’s offering – I don’t think of him as a visionary in the same mold as a Elon Musk or Microsoft’s Satya Nadella.
Taking the tack of “investing in a future I want to see”, a concept inspired by The Motley Fool’s co-founder David Garder, I certainly don’t want to see a future where Facebook dominates the cultural conversation.
I view Mr Zuckerberg as entirely dishonest – Facebook’s track record of protecting data and privacy speaks for itself (Cambridge Analytica, anyone?).
And cloning competitors’ product offerings, as he has done multiple times, displays a unique lack of innovation.
That’s not to say long-term investors won’t be able to make money in Facebook. Clearly, they have but whether they’ll continue to is another question entirely.
But for me, the regulatory risks (especially on the anti-trust front as Facebook continues to get bigger) mean I won’t be investing in it any time soon.
