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Comment by Splines | Hacker News Reader

That bugs me too. I like a lot of things, but I don't want to hear or see any of them in my timeline.

I used to click "Like" on various things in Facebook, but after starting to see them in my feed I immediately un-Liked them. I'm willing to tell my friends I like Logitech keyboards, but I'm not willing to see whatever posts the Logitech PR decides to write. If I'm interested to learn about what new keyboards/mice there are in the market, I'll find it myself, thanks.

Clicking "Like" used to be a fun, whimsical thing. Now it's been turned into a marketing vehicle (I don't fault FB for doing that), so now it's more like a "Spam me please" button. It feels like more of a business exchange rather than an expression of my preferences.

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This is a tricky thing. Facebook's business model, and its value proposition to advertisers to a large degree depends on oversharing, and your "Likes" are an example of this. If somebody asked me if I wanted my email subscriptions broadcast to all my friends, I would say "heck no." But if nobody agreed to share their subscriptions, then how would advertisers get word of mouth?

So they phrase it a bit differently. You don't subscribe, you "like." And your likes and dislikes are a part of your personality, which is something you want to share with your friends. The subscription is just a side effect of liking, and it allows marketers to use your name to spread their brand among your friends and acquaintances.

If they just called a spade a spade, it would be a disaster for them.

In this case, to call a spade a spade would be to call EdgeRank a spam filter, and "promoted posts" a paid option to circumvent it - right?

Nice. I'm stealing this line. :-)

But if nobody agreed to share their subscriptions, then how would advertisers get word of mouth?

By people talking with each other naturally?

This sums up very nicely the conundrum that facebook finds itself in. I read somewhere, probably on HN, an analogy that Google is like a phonebook - a place one actively is trying to seek out information and lookup things that may be purchased, so ads follow logically from this scenario. Facebook is like a yearbook or chatroom, where people are engaging with their friends, not in a search for product information or trying to shop. I'm sure this can be tweaked and messed with over time, but inevitably any attempt to try to inject shopping or advertising into communication with friends is going to be met with resistance. And that resistance level is met earlier on a mobile platform.

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