META’s value proposition to Ad Buyers was permanently impaired by Apple’s implementation of permission-based Ad tracking which has negatively impacted META’s price per ad metric for almost two years (see chart and table below).

Further adding to META’s Ad woes, Google will phase out third-party cookies next year and replace them with its Privacy Sandbox. While it is difficult to quantify the impact of Google’s forthcoming cookie change to META’s price per ad, the transition to Google’s Privacy Sandbox will not be positive for Meta. This is not news to Meta, and therefore I am surprised as to how slow META has been to look for alternative revenue sources such as subscription revenue-generating products.

I don’t see how 2024 will be anything but negative for META shares. Muted revenue growth is here for some time (at least through 2024), and the company has already made deep cost cuts – that one-trick pony is played out. META can’t cut its way to prosperity.

---

• Asset Management
• Economy
• Investing
• Leadership
• Phones
• Social Media
• Software
• Strategy
• Technology