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Facebook is the worst thing that's ever happened to the internet

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Re: Facebook is the worst thing that's ever happened to the internet

#111

Post by dopamean »

iooi wrote: post #87
packetpirate wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Before Facebook, if people wanted to organize conversation and cooperation on an information technology platform, the options were to pay $X00-$X000 for a proprietary system, get lucky enough to know about mailing lists, have someone who knew sysadmin do it basically for free, or have everyone learn how to use something like IRC. Did you just drop off the planet between 1995 - 2005? Poor Myspace... everybody just f…

Your parents were on ICQ? And AIM? They set up a Myspace account? Facebook is easy to use and accessible everywhere. This is coming from someone that hasn't had a Facebook account since 2009. GP makes great points and the title to this submission is pure clickbait.

My whole family was on ICQ when I was a kid. This may not actually be true but my understanding back then was that ICQ was pretty popular internationally (most of my family lives outside of the US).

Re: Facebook is the worst thing that's ever happened to the internet

#112

Post by vinceguidry »

mattnewton wrote: post #109
vinceguidry wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those forums were expensive. It wasn't until I had been contributing to them for years until I thought to ask just how much a vBulletin license cost. And phpBB was hard to administer, had security problems, which were exacerbated by the lack of experience of forum administrators. And you had to maintain hosting, which wasn't a trivial expense back in those days.

There were ample ad supported solutions that were pretty painless. Source: set up several invision free forums for my friends in 5th grade. Never touched a server and had no idea what we were doing, but used it constantly to stay in touch.

I'm not saying there weren't options. But you had to hear about them and learn how to use them, and then people would complain endlessly about your choices anyway.

Facebook democratized social networking.

Re: Facebook is the worst thing that's ever happened to the internet

#114

Post by pricees »

Dirlewanger wrote: post #82
paulsutter wrote: post #35

I laughed out loud when I saw (twitter.com) at the end of the title

Declared worst thing in the world...on the 2nd worst thing in the world.

I was going to say this but figured it would be downvoted, post-haste.

Re: Facebook is the worst thing that's ever happened to the internet

#115

Post by cm2012 »

herbst wrote: post #108
cm2012 wrote: post #94

I'm a Facebook advertiser. I can attest that there's lot of good products where the only cost effective and scalable way to reach your target market is through Facebook. Want to reach teachers with a time saving app? FB is the best way. Want to offer a SaaS tool to small businesses? FB is the best way to get it in front of them. Etc. FB ads don't have 0 utility for consumers. A lot of products just couldn't reach the…

Sure this is just personal preference however Facebook always was a huge waste of money if I sold anything worth while (like my SaaS und stuff) however it worked kinda great to sell cheap China reimports and other shit like that. Not to mention that it gets more expensive and less effective every year. And all those 'bugs' where clicks count from the wrong countries and all the other horrible stuff the Facebook adver…

It's possible to lose or make money on any channel, but here's a chart of where you can target different types of audiences: https://www.kevinlordbarry.com/uploads/3/6/5/4/3654649/marke...

FB is the only online player with any significant scale in that bottom right quadrant. And that's pretty much the ballgame for putting products in front of specific audiences.

Re: Facebook is the worst thing that's ever happened to the internet

#117

Post by parthdesai »

x3n0ph3n3 wrote: post #100
parthdesai wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>what keeps Google from being an adversary in your perspective? If you visit a country where you don't speak the native language, Google maps will help navigate through the country or city. Even help with public transport. Youtube helps with DIY videos or programming talks. I wouldn't have discovered Khan academy without google. And before you say DuckDuckGo is an alternative, i have DuckDuckGo installed and i prefix…

I guess you've never been to South Korea, where Google Maps is crippled by law. You have to use a domestic app like Navier if you want to get around.

I guess you haven't been to Prague or Berlin or Toronto or NYC or Chicago where it works perfectly. Sure, It doesn't work everywhere but chances are it will work in a given city and if it doesn't, you can fall back on some domestic app. Would Navier work in Toronto?

Re: Facebook is the worst thing that's ever happened to the internet

#119

Post by askafriend »

hopfscotch wrote: post #16
swoongoonz wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I somewhat disagree with his assessment of influencers. Can they be annoying? Yes. Are they providing real value for companies to be able to connect with tribes of people? Yes. The influencer has single handedly upended the advertisement industry and taken money away from traditional media is a big way. I think it's given more jobs to people who don't work on Madison Avenue and maybe don't have technical skills, but…

> providing real value for companies to be able to connect with tribes of people Listen to yourself holy shit

Is it not real value for companies to be able to connect with tribes of people that then may become the biggest proponents of your product?

Take fashion, a very tribal concept where each subculture has their own take on it. If you're a fashion brand wouldn't you want to find a way to reach the subculture you're a part of?

As much as you might want to deny it, marketing matters and more of it is coming online because more people are going online more often. It's just shifting to where the people are.

It's easy to dismiss ideas or the way people express them. But if you're going to do it, contribute a complete thought that has value and moves the conversation forward instead of just dropping a "Listen to yourself holy shit". This isn't Reddit.

Re: Facebook is the worst thing that's ever happened to the internet

#120

Post by herbst »

cm2012 wrote: post #115
herbst wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure this is just personal preference however Facebook always was a huge waste of money if I sold anything worth while (like my SaaS und stuff) however it worked kinda great to sell cheap China reimports and other shit like that. Not to mention that it gets more expensive and less effective every year. And all those 'bugs' where clicks count from the wrong countries and all the other horrible stuff the Facebook adver…

It's possible to lose or make money on any channel, but here's a chart of where you can target different types of audiences: https://www.kevinlordbarry.com/uploads/3/6/5/4/3654649/marke... FB is the only online player with any significant scale in that bottom right quadrant. And that's pretty much the ballgame for putting products in front of specific audiences.

Well I moved on with them locking my last account last year. Agreed it's not as easy to discover different platforms for different ad projects but I do definitly get a lot more for my money now.

I would argue Facebook is the easiest but I doubt its the most efficient in any way.

Edit:// before anyone thinks locked means I did something unethical. No they locked it because I travelled to different countries and I wasn't able to open it again. After I spend thousands of dollars on ads they didn't help.

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