Die Facebook, die.
Parler was a competitor to Twitter, and you saw how that played out. The next competitor is going to have to deal with that quandary.
Why does there have to be a competitor? I think we will do fine without social media.
It's a bit of a "rules for rulers" paradox: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rStL7niR7gs&ab_channel=CGPGr... in the sense that power structures exist independently of whether we like them or not.
From another perspective, I also think the benefits of Facebook are ephemeral. Yes, many people use these platforms right now for turning themselves into commodities; but other platforms and methods certainly exist, are longer lasting, and you don’t have to worry about a sudden ban.
People who manage to monetize $platform are probably tiny, tiny %.
Also there are negative consequences of using social medias.
Noone needs Facebook, it serves no valid purpose for the human race. Same with Twitter. We don't need them, and we don't need competition for them. They should go away with no replacement.
Source: was Facebook engineer. Listened to Fuckerberg make one too many all-hands speeches about engagement. Resigned several years ago.
Even if you could come up with some alternative or even decentralised way of doing that, this doesn't change the fact that you're addressing the purpose of Facebook, rather than proving your claim that "it serves no purpose". At university (pre-Facebook) I had a friend who ran a Facebook-like server for sharing photos amongst our group of friends. That need was already there and strong enough he wrote code for it.
Also, the original use case of Facebook was for Mark and his buddies to rate the attractiveness of their female classmates and share inside information on them. Despicable.
> Fuck small businesses. Fuck big businesses too. Death to capitalism.
Perhaps you’d enjoy Venezuela. As a small business owner myself I don’t take too kindly to this comment, but would like to offer some advice.
Maybe go out and start a business or cause your passionate about and that interests you. This anti-capitalism / business attitude negativity is toxic for you. I’ve traveled pretty decently all over the world and yet to find a country that provides the opportunity of the US. You can literally do most anything you want, and it sounds like you being a previous FB employee you are super smart and probably not desperate for income in the short term.
Since you didn't, however, you should know that your advice is pointless. Everything you've achieved will be lost. All your loved ones will die, along with your enemies. All the same is true for me.
Your original comment made out that Facebook has no uses at all. I think you were just trying to really emphasise your point that it's a net benefit overall, but you've ended up saying something totally different. I know that sounds pedantic but it undermines your point because most people will read its literal meaning (like I did) and then just think, oh, this comment is factually incorrect.
I quit fb around 2015 or so and it bit me when dealing with groups/events and social exchanges. Meetup wasn’t as big and it’s still not as good as fb since less people use it.
Fb marketplace is more useful for me than craiglist usually, but both are good to check.
Additionally, I’ve never grasped what those Facebook features supposedly used for private communication elevate them over simple email use in general. I’ve found them more cumbersome to deal with than email, to be honest.
Interesting. Can you elaborate? Like is DuckDuckGo using some of Yandex’s open source? Or the Bing search API?
Billions of people find value in facebook and use it daily. Who are you to make that call?
I'm not making that call, I'm making a prediction and hoping it comes true, and contributing to a discussion that may possibly, in some small way, contribute to it coming true. If you look around this thread, you'll notice some other people that seem to be aligned to this. I'm not the first to point these things out, and I won't be the last. As a former Facebook employee, I have a responsibility to speak up.
On the broader point, you're making a strong assertion. Facebook is probably the most popular consumer product in the history of the world (apart from maybe Coke). You brush off what they do as just providing services that others had provided before Facebook "gobbled" them up, or providing some services that no one really needs or can be trivially replicated.
It's a big claim and there's a huge payoff if you're right. There are thousands of companies trying to pick away at facebooks services, but despite that Facebook usage and engagement grows every quarter.
You can speak up and make your prediction and hope it comes true. But it looks like wishful thinking at this point and it's underlying premise is wrong IMO. Trying to challenge Facebook or encourage others to do so with that framework won't work.
How much of that growth is through aquisition though? Facebook was losing photo sharing, so they bought instagram, they were losing messaging, so they bought WhatsApp.
Its all well and good to say Facebook has value, and thats because they are using a behemoth (almost, but not quite monopolistic) position to squeeze competitors.
Take Facebook Marketplace, it has a huge number of posts that probably equals Craiglists - and they did that because they already captured peoples attentions. And they'll do it with their next product - hell they are still pushing their Portal picture frame on people.
A friend of mine's 85 year old mom post her activities daily on FB. Great joy and peace of mind for my friend, as they live ocean apart. The old lady wouldn't gonna stop using FB, or wait for a different platform that suits your world view.
By all means, work on a better solution, don't just speak up if you feel strongly about it. My apologies if I don't take it very well idealistic view that disregards other people's way of life.
Facebook can't claim credit for natural human activity just because Facebook's network effects give most people no choice in what digital city to live.
I do agree that there isn’t a alternative for fb groups. And marketplace is better than Craigslist in my area.
I haven't used it for ten years, can't say I miss it.
https://mattstoller.substack.com/p/facecrook-dealing-with-a-...
As soon as I see a dumb typo like that the rest of the article imo is now trash
The legal aspect may include legislation to forbid governmental organs and/or employees (of note) to use platforms such as FB and Twitter to disseminate and or engage the "public". If they engage the "public" then the platform must be open to "public" without restriction.
Toxicity, violent rhetoric, racism, conspiracy theories, and lies in general all seem to thrive on social media. The Streisand effect is also a real thing. But there doesn't appear to be a meaningful overlap between the two after about a month.
Infowars gained a huge number of people when that guy was deplatformed, but that kind of nonsense needs a constant influx of new people when people eventually get burnt by believing something like Sandy Hook never happened, Q is real, Jews and black people are the cause of all your problems because you're special, etc and hard evidence gets presented. People wise up and peel off.
Look at how attacked any right wing site is - they go after their ISPs, their CDNs, their DNS registrars, their hosting companies.
The Internet has got to the point that you cannot even operate a business if it goes against the "values" of big tech, or they chop all your arms off.