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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

#181
post #87

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 parents being on Facebook is a con not a pro.

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

#182
post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I still get a fair amount of value out of Youtube, personally. But yeah, you definitely have to wear some goggles to see through the noise. --- My rules for youtube: * Don't read the comments * Don't participate in the comments * Ignore many of the suggestions—they tend toward right-wing extremist and conspiracy theory ramblings * Stick to music, favoured clips from shows (I do love that I can watch some old Mitchell…

> Ignore many of the suggestions—they tend toward right-wing extremist and conspiracy theory ramblings Interesting, the suggestions I get are mostly sailing vlogs, featuring scantily clad ladies. I sarcastically wonder why...

Looks like I'll have to just start randomly clicking on videos like that to skew the suggestions.

I have no idea why I'm getting the kinds of suggestions I am. Thankfully they're an increasing minority as I get more music these days. And Trailer Park Boys haha.

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

#183
post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Been there, done that. However things changed, a lot. If you are not constantly posting (and pushing and click baiting) your posts won't be very visible anymore. The way to get in front of your audience on Facebook is money and that is rather expensive and due to amount of ads users have to experience these days only minimally effective. There are millions of websites, thousands at least specific to any niche, that a…

> The way to get in front of your audience on Facebook is money and that is rather expensive and due to amount of ads users have to experience these days only minimally effective.

You're missing the fact that Facebook's Ad platform has made it possible for small businesses and niche products to afford effective advertising at scale.

Previously that was a privilege available to only the wealthiest corporations that could afford to take out an ad in the newspaper or a slot on television both of which required a high minimum spend and had limited inventory.

With targeted advertising at scale, small businesses with limited budgets can run ads that are shown to only the users they care about. It's more effective, for far less money than what was previously available.

This also enables new challengers like Dollar Shave Club to compete effectively with giant established incumbents like Gilette.

> There are millions of websites, thousands at least specific to any niche, that are happy to take your ad money and provide you with highly effektiv and targetted traffic.

So now you're in the business of managing several different accounts with differing, often incompatible features, with wildly varying levels of efficiency and requirements. Not to mention your customer data is spread out across various silos and in various formats.

Or, you can go to Facebook and reach a million people instantly across their properties through a single advertising interface. You get industry standard reporting and metrics along with the fact that you can target exactly who you want without wasting money.

I simply don't think you're giving Facebook enough credit here. They have a phenomenal value proposition and you have to understand it in order to compete with it.

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

#184
post #178
post #151

Facebook seems to be taking a lot of heat these days. But I wonder: what would actually "fix" the platform? As far as I can tell, the only "solution" is getting rid of Facebook. Obviously, FB doesn't agree. Short of destroying itself (and having a competitor instantly take its place), what should they do? What can they do? Proposed solutions to their various problems: - Make the timeline less addictive, to prevent pe…

Is moderation on Facebook that large of a problem? I wonder if it’s possible to use the walled garden approach that Apple News does and apply that to Facebook: only distribute globally posts which have been moderated with a person. Moderation for local distribution shouldn’t be needed as people can self moderate at that level. It’ll be a two tier system. Edit: Is it also possible to have better moderation by having a…

It's a huge problem in non English speaking countries, like Myanmar. Overtly hateful speech remains up because Facebook cannot find enough people fluent in local languages to moderate.

Much more controversially, I think it's a problem in the English speaking world as well. A lot of disinformation could be removed from the platform with human moderators and the will to enforce. But again, even if we wanted to do that, there are big unanswered moral questions.

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

#185
post #151

Facebook seems to be taking a lot of heat these days. But I wonder: what would actually "fix" the platform? As far as I can tell, the only "solution" is getting rid of Facebook. Obviously, FB doesn't agree. Short of destroying itself (and having a competitor instantly take its place), what should they do? What can they do? Proposed solutions to their various problems: - Make the timeline less addictive, to prevent pe…

They should stop selling advertising and charge for API access to the social graph, both users and app developers. There should be a free tier with the core functionality for users. This will realign Facebook's interests with the interests of their userbase.

That would solve the problem -- but now we are back at square one, because a free competitor will emerge to replace Facebook.

There are paid social networks out there. Nobody uses them.

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

#186
post #122

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…

I'm from that generation, all my friends were on MSN. That was the equivalent of Facebook at the time, everyone was there. It was still not at all what Facebook is. I did school works on MSN but there was no history or always on conversations. We scheduled being on MSN to works on something. MSN was the equivalent of a room. Facebook is the equivalent of a board, you put it there and you let people read it whenever t…

> and people are much more prone to ignore them

I think this is the key that separates Facebook from group emails. Facebook got people into the habit of checking something regularly, so regularly that you could expect that if you post something today, they'll see it within a few days. People never had that habit with email, which is a lot more like mail: you check it when you're waiting for something specific. But you check Facebook when you're bored and want to be entertained with short paragraphs or videos or by participating in gossip.

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

#187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree much with your premise here. The capabilities that social media have provided are extremely valuable. That said, I disagree with your conclusion. The issues that have come from Facebook and others are due to centralization, commodification of user data, the proliferation of echo chambers and advertising. Universal accessibility isn't the culprit, although that has generated issues on it's own as well.

Just out of curiosity, what capabilities do you think are extremely valuable? This isn't an attack or anything, I ask with sincerity.

This part could go with some rephrasing. Otherwise, first thing to come to mind is Twitter. Connecting directly to journalists and representatives, current events as they unfold in real-time, seem invaluable to me. Despite being in the era of the tweeting POTUS, and one where trust in the media is at a low, this still appears to be a net positive capability.

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

#188
post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Been there, done that. However things changed, a lot. If you are not constantly posting (and pushing and click baiting) your posts won't be very visible anymore. The way to get in front of your audience on Facebook is money and that is rather expensive and due to amount of ads users have to experience these days only minimally effective. There are millions of websites, thousands at least specific to any niche, that a…

> The way to get in front of your audience on Facebook is money and that is rather expensive and due to amount of ads users have to experience these days only minimally effective. You're missing the fact that Facebook's Ad platform has made it possible for small businesses and niche products to afford effective advertising at scale. Previously that was a privilege available to only the wealthiest corporations that co…

> Previously that was a privilege available to only the wealthiest corporations that could afford to take out an ad in the newspaper or a slot on television both of which required a high minimum spend and had limited inventory.

> With targeted advertising at scale, small businesses with limited budgets can run ads that are shown to only the users they care about. It's more effective, for far less money than what was previously available.

So more or less like Adsense? Or any other Web based ad company? I mean I totally get your point but scalable targetted ads is nether new nor exclusive to Facebook.

The huge difference is Adsense for example limits the visible ads to less than is normal on Facebook.

> So now you're in the business of managing several different accounts with differing, often incompatible features, with wildly varying levels of efficiency and requirements. Not to mention your customer data is spread out across various silos and in various formats.

This is assuming there aren't dozens of platforms doing exactly that already. Adsense too gives you targeting but you help the content creators while doing so.

Facebook is a interesting ad platform. However if you add that they are the only ones on that level that don't even pay their content creators it's simply to expensive. And as said before kinda unethical in my POV.

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

#189
post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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).

Yes, ICQ was popular just before the internet went full on mainstream, MSN and Yahoo messenger followed it up, followed by a brief Google chat and Skype stint and then a void filled up by the social networks and eventually the mobile messengers like WhatsApp.

MSN being killed is still so weird to me, I get that The Netherlands is a small country, but they had full 100% market dominance, after MSN got killed I bet some researcher could have seen people in The Netherlands just had a communication dip for a year or two.

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

#190
post #151

Facebook seems to be taking a lot of heat these days. But I wonder: what would actually "fix" the platform? As far as I can tell, the only "solution" is getting rid of Facebook. Obviously, FB doesn't agree. Short of destroying itself (and having a competitor instantly take its place), what should they do? What can they do? Proposed solutions to their various problems: - Make the timeline less addictive, to prevent pe…

They should stop selling advertising and charge for API access to the social graph, both users and app developers. There should be a free tier with the core functionality for users. This will realign Facebook's interests with the interests of their userbase.

I don't think this is a good solution. They would be going from metaphorically "selling" user data via ads to literally selling user data.
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