His concerns should be that he cant buy TikTok and the facebook brand name is toxic to the youth. TikTok is mostly youth.
Did you not the convenient word there? That is the key, nothing else is as convenient as facebook, so much as I don't like facebook I remain.
The people that knew Ed well enough to care will find out. And the grandparents would probably prefer an extra visit a month than a never ending photo reel.
It appears convenient but adds nothing of substance to our lives.
So yes, there is certainly value there. And it's made even more attractive by the fact that the actual cost is effectively hidden to users since they aren't actually the customers. The argument here is more about whether the cost incurred is actually worth the minor convenience.
Tangentially, I've often thought that the added convenience necessarily cheapens the interactions. Things like the automatic birthday reminders have basically outmoded the old "it's the thought that counts" adage.
They are both depriving the user of freedom to choose to compromise their privacy for convenience and asserting that the user is inherently flawed because they even thought they had such a choice. They aren't just arguing that the individual should reconsider their decision to use Facebook, they're arguing that they need to reevaluate their life.
Note, I left Facebook some year ago, and my mental health is better for it.