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I don't think Facebook has any "secret sauce". The integration and scale is certainly impressive, but there's no part of the functionality which is at all mysterious to me. Unlike, say, Google Search, everything on Facebook appears pretty straightforward.

They did open-source HHVM, React, GraphQL, and Cassandra, which are the closest things I can see to a secret sauce.



Their ad-targeting infrastructure likely has some secret subtleties to it.


Meh, not really. Cookies all the way down.


They can and do jump the incognito mode regarding ad cimplaints. I have proof.


You’ll be surprised how many ways there are to track you even in Incognito


nah... after working in Internet Marketing I am convinced the only way to not be tracked is to simply not use any device or credit card.

That situation is so rare someone meeting those criteria could be tracked by the lack of that data


Other companies do this too, so it doesn’t qualify as secret sauce.


These comments so much remind me of the infamous Dropbox comment when they launched: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9224

Well, looks like you just have to assemble known parts in specific order to make something users like.




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