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Comment by MissTake | Hacker News Reader

A myriad of small businesses also use Facebook as their public facing website.

Only out of convenience. There are many alternatives, and search engines will find them. And (although it won't happen) if Facebook were ordered to shut down, hundreds of entrepreneurs would offer alternatives for "small business web presence"

So millions of small business owners would have to pay for something they get now for free

And just like they found Facebook they can, and will, find something else. And maybe they learn something about trust in that type of service the next time around.

Maybe they have no interest in finding something else. Maybe they aren't interested in your opinion and don't see you as someone they are want to learn lessons from.

Maybe understanding the problem as outlined is important. Neither of the two sentences you've written make any sense in the context of what I said.

There are plenty of cheap and better alternatives.

And those business owners are free to choose those alternatives at any time they please. You are not free to make that choice for them.

And? This is the same argument the south made while supporting slavery. I’m not saying the two are equally bad, but this is just simply not a valid argument if you ignore the surrounding context.

Small businesses have complained about being buried in search results for long years. In some industries like restaurants, scammers create a higher-ranking website that looks like the real thing, in order to skim revenue.

Not everyone has SEO-fu, and hiring a contractor is an additional cost for small businesses. At least on Facebook one normally finds what one is looking for.

There is nothing technical that says this is how it has to be. A "business directory" that is vetted and paid for (like the old "Yellow Pages" used to be) could be trustworthy.

Angie's List started out this way but I think it has been corrupted since the merger with HomeAdvisor. I could be wrong about that.

Establishing trust would be the tricky part. People are so used to 80% of the internet being scams and clickbait. But that certainly goes for Facebook pages as well.

I find that truly mystifying. I won’t go through the hassle of opening an account on any platform just to see some dumbed down website. I can’t be the only one, can I?

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