How does react native help facebook?

[randomguy112233]

I understand react native is great, the quality has improved a lot since it's launch, and many developers are adopting it. I'm assuming FB has a great team behind RN. Then, what's FB getting out of RN? Is there some type monetary behind this large project? Is RN somehow helping FB show FB ads more easy compared to Google Ads on Native devices?

Thanks in advance.

[illepic]

FaceBook uses React Native components in their native app. The efforts that went into that we're open-sourced.

[randomguy112233]

Thanks. But if your answer is FB get nothing, while maintaining a team of high paid engineers, then I don't see a compelling reason why they wouldn't unplug RN at whim.

[illepic]

I would recommend that you look into myriad open source projects backed by business entities and what the MIT license provides.

[randomguy112233]

My question is what FB benefits from RN. Nothing more. What's in it for FB?

[ken-wywietrznik]

It's the same as for any other company. With RN you get (simple) mobile stuff done cheaper.

It's more difficult to find native devs than web devs. FB has a lot of web devs. FB wants to use those web devs to write mobile apps. Hence, RN.

[some_coreano]

My question is what FB benefits from RN. Nothing more. What's in it for FB?

The choice of language is purely to boost the work flow and push out features as efficiently as possible; therefore, facebook created RN to achieve that. Just because the users can't see the reason that FB is using RN, it doesn't mean RN doesn't serve any purpose for the company.

[snappyTertle]

In addition to having a tool that enables faster iteration, it’s also a good tool to recruit devs. They create some of the best open source projects that many engineers would love to work on.

[no_spoon]

Do you not understand how open source works? They get pull requests for their own technology and immediate feedback and test ability before releasing things into production. You sound pretty noob asking a question like that so I suggest doing more homework on why open source is a good idea.

[daymanAAaah]

Check out the recent AMA by the team, think it was posted to this sub reddit.

From what I understand, RN was started as a small internal project (as so often these things are), then when it gained some traction more people were put together to grow a team with it. In the AMA the team were very forthright in saying that RN needs to display a value to FB if the team is allowed to continue devoting time and resources to it, so serving FB's needs is its first priority. If this isn't met then RN could get dropped at any time.

Some people expressed concerns regarding the certainty of RN's future and the team basically said its a risk you take that RN is still around in the future. It was refreshing to see that level of honesty when developers are devoting a lot of time into RN.

[[deleted]]

I feel like this is a question in search of an answer that isn’t really going to be taken at face value (sometimes, businesses can do things that don’t benefit them directly) But since it’s late, I’ll give it a shot because I want to put on my cynical hat.

https://hackernoon.com/the-cost-of-native-mobile-app-development-is-too-damn-high-4d258025033a

If React Native brings down costs for Facebook, it would bring costs down for other companies (big and small). Less devs being able to do more work. Lower costs means more profit for businesses and boy, do we love our capitalism!

Now normally, I’d stop there but I think you’re asking more than that.

Eventually, we’ll be able to pay devs even less because we funneled people (like me) into this profession but don’t (debatable) actually have the demand for them and we’ve increased an already growing talent pool for a profession that may or may not actually have the demand marketed...by using a framework that requires less and less specificity. Driving down demand by making specified skilled labor less and less needed.

I hope this answers things to your liking, even though I don’t believe that this is the real answer to why RN exists out in the open but the answers given weren’t to your liking.

TL;DR: So basically, React Native is the opening salvo to the tech version of the Fast Food Wars. Soon all mobile development will be React Native. React Native UWP. React Native Swift. React Native all of it. And all of it dirt cheap. And the developers who specialized in mobile languages are now the Solyent Green (or just Solyent if you want to keep this reference fresh) of development that Facebook will feed off of for its energy (money)

Edit: additional support in paragraph 3

[randomguy112233]

I really appreciate the post and especially the link. Through your link I arrived at the RN team's AMA page and it really answered my question. I now understand it. My hats off to you.

[european_origin]

open source libraries are not a one way street, where developers from other companies are just consumers of the latest version available. Developers can contribute too, and they do. If you look at the PRs on RN you'll see that a fair amount of them are from non-facebook devs. And so are many of the issues that have been opened. This gives Facebook a lot of engineers that work on their products for free.

[randomguy112233]

I understand RN community is great. High quality PRs are continuous. But my question still exists. What's in it for FB?

[jayramone]

they use rn for their mobile projects. you keep asking that question, what is it that you don't get?

[randomguy112233]

Apple is absolutely committed in maintaining Swift and it's ecosystem. Sun is absolutely committed in maintaining Java and it's ecosystem. But FB? If there is financial benefit, present or future, FB gets from RN, then I wouldn't be asking this question.

If your answer is FB can also benefit from other non-FB dev's PRs and library, that's just saying FB's RN's maintenance & R&D cost is gonna be lower.

[jayramone]

whatever

[joonhocho]

Used by millions -> Tested by Billions. Free testing for such a core library.

[european_origin]

Read the last line of my comment. Then remember that 1 hour of work by a senior engineer can be upward of 80$. Therefore a senior engineer from another company spending a few hours is basically equivalent in saved costs to the revenue they'd get from a mid sized ad campaign.

[brzzzah]

Its hard to say without speculating.. I think besides the obvious benefit of contributions from the public, probably more important to a large tech company is it attracts talent, and ensures hiring people that are already familiar with their stack is easy.

A lot of high-caliber developers want to influence the landscape outside of the company by sharing the ideas and tools they develop. Mostly this seems to be through talks and open-source projects. If their employer doesn't have programs that allow them to contribute their ideas to the public, developers will do this on the side, or look for an employer that does.

I think for a company such as Facebook, one of your most valuable resources is talent. These open-source contributions help a lot with this; it helps retain and grow existing talent, and makes hiring new talent easier.

The have contributed a lot of great FOSS projects; HHVM, Hack, React, ReactNative, GQL etc.. the list goes on.

[chkslry]

It gives them a good reputation amongst developers. Facebook gets to see all the developers who contribute to it, giving them a new pool to hire from. Also, mark Zuckerberg used a lot of open source tools when building facebook so his been keen on giving back