> How do I, as an ordinary person, benefit from Meta's data centers?

From the taxes they provide

I've never seen a cent go to any service in my local municipality from Meta's taxes & whatever does end up in the city coffers is not big enough to have any real effect b/c those services could just as easily be financed by direct payments instead of some circuitous route of federal, state, & sales taxes from transactions enabled by corporations like Meta.

If I was in SF & working for Google or Meta then maybe you might have a point but I'm not in SF or any major metropolitan area so from my perspective the whole thing is actually a net negative.

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rcpt 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Those workers pay quite a lot of federal taxes

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measurablefunc 2 hours ago | parent [-]

Meta takes more in than whatever it pays back¹

> Meta Platforms reported annual income taxes of $25.474 billion for 2025, driven by massive profit margins and a major one-time tax charge stemming from the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA). Despite massive recorded U.S. income, Meta's effective federal tax cash rate dropped to just over 3.5% due to extensive research and development (R&D) credits, stock option tax breaks, and bonus depreciation.

https://share.google/aimode/INoZEto9gPbRPilrV

	▲	bix6 39 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		3.5% is criminal.

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simianwords 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Brief google search shows that most Meta DC's give around ~15M per year taxes on average per year. I'm not sure what circuitous route you are speaking about.

https://www.northernpublicradio.org/wnij-news/2024-12-02/dek...

https://ipmnewsroom.org/how-do-data-centers-benefit-the-plac...

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2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

[deleted]

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measurablefunc 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Meta is an unnecessary middleman, all those payments could be handled w/o them & their advertising network. Also, from your own link

> META received a 55 percent tax break as part of the Enterprise Zone Tax abatement program, which is a state initiative

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simianwords 2 hours ago | parent [-]

This doesn't make any sense.

You asked this

> How do I, as an ordinary person, benefit from Meta's data centres?

And I gave the answer. How do you think you can eliminate the middleman?

> Enterprise Zone Tax abatement program

The amount I showed was after accounting for the Tax abatement program. And its almost as if there's a reason the state wants to have this program in the first place. Almost as if it helps broader society.

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measurablefunc 2 hours ago | parent [-]

My city has bonds for all sorts of projects & it is financed by the people & federal grants. No corporations are involved in the process. It's not complicated: https://www.epa.gov/waterfinancecenter/effective-funding-fra...

	▲	simianwords 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		You asked how data centres help you personally, I answered that it was taxes. Your response is that - no you don't need the money, you can get it elsewhere. This is a kind of senseless argument, I'll let you decide whether that's the case.