‘The OG App’ Devs’ Facebook Ban | WFH Vs. NYC Real Estate | Calif. Pay Law is GO

Welcome to The Long View—where we peruse the news of the week and strip it to the essentials. Let’s work out what really matters.

This week: A third-party Instagram app causes ructions, remote work causes office slump, and more on Cali’s salary transparency law.

1. Meta Vs. OG

First up this week: The OG App, a replacement for Meta’s official Instagram app, has been banned from the Apple App Store for “violating Meta’s policies.” To make things worse, all the devs have had their personal Facebook and Insta accounts nuked.

Analysis: This is what happens when you block ads

On the one hand, banning their accounts seems like a petty response to reverse engineering an API. On the other hand, Meta lives and dies by its ad revenue, which was threatened by a fast-growing new app.

Karissa Bell: Meta cracks down on ad-free Instagram client

“Clearly breaking Instagram’s policies”
“The OG App,” which promised an ad-free feed more like the original Instagram experience, has been pulled from Apple’s App Store just one day after it officially launched. … “This app violates our policies and we’re taking all appropriate enforcement actions,” a Meta spokesperson said.
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The spokesperson declined to elaborate on what those actions were, [but] the developers of The OG App said their entire team had been permanently banned from Facebook and Instagram as a result of their ties to the service. … The OG App had been in the works for more than a year [and] had racked up more than 10,000 downloads before its removal. … The app featured customizable feeds without Reels, suggested posts and other newer features that have at times been controversial among longtime Instagram users.
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Meta’s policies have long barred third-party Instagram clients, and in recent years the company has filed a number of lawsuits against developers. … It seems the creators of the OG App were clearly breaking Instagram’s policies. The company doesn’t offer a public API for developers to build their own versions of Instagram.

Banned from Facebook and Instagram? That seems petty. @destroystokyo doesn’t sound surprised:

If you ever reverse-engineered anything from Meta you would know that they do anything they can to make your day worse … and force you into submission with their apps that gather everything they can to get a buck from you. … Meta doesn’t care about making you happy. They don’t want you to see posts of your friends. They want you to see as much as promoted and personalized content as possible, and they will shut down everything that takes power from them.

On the other hand, lorem1 ipsum2: [You’re fired—Ed.]

Privacy proponents should cheer for this. Legally Meta must take down the app to comply with FTC’s order: … “The FTC says Facebook violated the order … by failing to adequately assess and address privacy risks posed by third-party developers. … Facebook didn’t screen developers or their apps before giving them access to massive amounts of data that users had designated as private.”
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This isn’t a simple DNS-level ad-block, its acting as a proxy where the app developers can intercept and see all data. Their website doesn’t even have a privacy policy.

2. Remote Work Means Empty Offices

In midtown, offices lie empty (because we’re all continuing to work from home). Cue much hand wringing and worrisome fretting about long-term knock-on effects.

Analysis: Market change is a constant

And it’s your fault. You wanted to carry on working from home and this is the result—landlords losing money, ancillary businesses going bust and tax revenues falling hard. I hope you’re satisfied (he writes from the home office he’s worked out of for 20 years).

Natalie Wong, John Gittelsohn and Noah Buhayar: Empty Offices Reveal a Global Property Dilemma

“Businesses that depended on daytime worker traffic”
In the heart of midtown Manhattan lies a multibillion-dollar problem. … Blocks of decades-old office towers sit partially empty, in an awkward position: too outdated to attract tenants seeking the latest amenities, too new to be demolished or converted. … It’s a situation playing out around the globe as employers adapt to flexible work … and rethink how much space they need.
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The US is likely to have a slower office-market recovery than Asia and Europe because it began the pandemic with a higher vacancy rate, and long-term demand is expected to drop around 10% or more. … Lower tenant demand because of remote work may cut 28%, or $456 billion, off the value of offices across the US.
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Empty offices have led to a cascade of shuttered restaurants and other street-level businesses that depended on daytime worker traffic. And falling building values mean less property-tax revenue for city coffers. … Office use also has ripple effects on other important parts of the economy, from the transit system to retail and hotels.

With not a lot of sympathy, here’s GrumpySteen:

There’s a very easy fix: Let the banks foreclose on them and auction the properties off. The market will revalue the properties and force prices back in line with reality. … The properties will sell for a value that reflects the reduced demand.

These billionaires and hedge funds wouldn’t give a **** if you or I went bankrupt and lost our houses. In fact, they would swoop in like vultures fighting over a carcass. Don’t ask us to give a **** when they suffer the same fate.

Everything’s changed for faeriechangling:

I feel like 5 day a week commutes for white collar workers will go extinct. It’s just too wasteful of an institution to perpetuate itself forever.

3. Job Ads Must State Pay Range in California

A few weeks ago, I told you how California is bringing in a state law to force salaries to be published in job ads. Well, here it is.

Analysis: And not a moment too soon?

In general, this sounds like a fair idea. But what about the inevitable unintended consequences?

Allison Levitsky: Newsom just signed California pay transparency bill

“Doesn’t make clear”
The Golden State is joining New York City, Colorado, and Washington in requiring employers to disclose pay ranges in job ads. Gov. Gavin Newsom signed Senate Bill 1162 into law. … Employers with 15 or more workers will be required to include pay ranges in job postings, and those with 100 or more … will have to report median and mean hourly pay rates by job category and “each combination of race, ethnicity, and sex.”
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Sen. Monique Limón (D-Santa Barbara) … introduced the bill in February. The TechEquity Collaborative’s chief programs officer, Samantha Gordon, praised the law. [But] The bill received pushback from the California Chamber of Commerce and the Society for Human Resources Management.
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SB 1162 doesn’t make clear how the law applies to companies that employ workers remotely.

Last time we talked about this, people were generally supportive. But not ravenstine:

As much as I understand why people would want this, I’m not sure that I do. It’s bad enough that wages are stagnant, but now we’re making it more difficult for people to effectively sell their desired pay to prospective employers?

A big reason why my pay increased substantially is … because I asked new employers for way more than what I was paid before, and this worked in part because their job posting didn’t include a salary range, thereby not leading to a situation where I ask for what I think my time is worth and get laughed at because it’s beyond a listed number they will inevitably low-ball on.

Let’s have less of the zero-sum game theory, or something. So says Pascoea:

I fail to understand why people are so ****-hurt over this kind of information being made available. … I have to assume people are concerned that others will find out that they are severely overpaid, or that their peers are severely underpaid and leveling the playing field will take money out of their pocket. I’d argue that without this information being published you, as an individual, have no actual clue if you’re underpaid or overpaid. … I feel like I’m paid on the higher end of my team’s range, but I sure as hell don’t know that.
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[And] wouldn’t it make things easer when the employer’s expectations are up front? If you see the job is listed for 100k and you need 150, that saves you a bunch of time.

The Moral of the Story:
Misery acquaints a man with strange bedfellows

You have been reading The Long View by Richi Jennings. You can contact him at @RiCHi or tlv@richi.uk.

Image: Logan Weaver (via Unsplash; leveled and cropped)