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Comment by atq2119 | Hacker News Reader

> Facebook cares a great deal about its users--advertisers.

You're confusing users with customers. The customers are advertisers. The users overwhelmingly aren't.

Well, the only active users I see anymore are engaged in advertising even if not necessarily for profit. (Self) Promotion always was one of the draws of fb.

Really? I have not used FB in like 5 years. One of the things it had for it compared to Instagram and Twitter is how it was not celeb or micro-celeb oriented.

Has that changed?

In my experience, the people doing self-promotion on FB are generally not trying to be famous, they are trying to drum up customers for their own or their friend's business.

So no one is really trying to get you to "follow" them, they just hang around neighborhood groups to see if they can find someone who needs a caterer or a contractor.

Speak for yourself, i know loads of people who use it to keep in touch with family and friends and posting updates every once in a while.

There’s a lot of stuff wrong with FB but it’s fundamentally a useful thing where there’s no great alternative (being vaguely aware of what not-so-close acquaintances are doing)

> a useful thing where there’s no great alternative (being vaguely aware of what not-so-close acquaintances are doing)

It has also basically eaten Craigslist where I live (Baltimore)

My wife and I were not Facebook users five years ago, but our neighborhood organizations are on Facebook, and so are the best places to find secondhand stuff. So we're Facebook users.

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