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Facebook the Devourer

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Re: Facebook the Devourer

#11

Post by moocow01 »

jamesaguilar wrote: post #10

> Remember Facebook? This delusion that Facebook is somehow dramatically more replaceable than Google or Amazon is kinda amusing. There are plenty of other places to buy online and plenty of other places to search. I can't imagine the mental contortions that are required to hold both of these beliefs at once: "Facebook is replaceable," and, "Google is irreplaceable." They are both replaceable, but it would be tough i…

Everything is replaceable or at least thats how the saying goes. I think the point being made is that if Facebook/social media disappeared that it would barely make a dent in how we live compared to if Amazon/e-commerce or Google/search disappeared. At least thats how I interpret it.

Re: Facebook the Devourer

#12

Post by tptacek »

I have 340 Facebook friends (I feel like this is on the middle-lower end of typical). I scrolled down several "pages" on my timeline and saw zero evidence of any those people --- who are predominantly friends and family, or people I went to high school with --- were playing anything like Farmville. Most updates on my timeline are people sharing pictures of the city they're visiting, or of their kids.

All of these people could, instead of sharing details of their lives with their friends, instead be spending time on 4chan anonymously grinding out memes. I gather from this post that I am supposed to feel bad about that.

Meanwhile: in a major city in the US, in a market dominated by the likes of McDonalds and Walmart, your odds of successfully starting a small business that depends on a retail channel are significantly worse than 50/50. Most people don't get a shot at starting any kind of business like that, and only a vanishingly small few get multiple bites at that apple. Yet I can use Facebook today to find out about meat specials at my butcher, or someone selling artisanal pickles, or a new theater company, or someone making custom knives as their hobby hoping to try to make a living doing it. And because of the stupid blue "like" button this article rails against, these hopeful businesses can do that without paying for pointless terribly-performing ads in major newspapers or on radio stations, and can have actual conversations with their customers. And again, I gather from this post that I am supposed to feel like this is a bad thing.

So I guess I'm saying: I'm not getting the author's point.

Re: Facebook the Devourer

#13

Post by nuclear_eclipse »

> Facebook ... produces nothing of value

> If Facebook disappeared tomorrow, nobody would give a shit.

There are plenty of people who would give a shit. You may not be one of them, but there are countless people who rely on Facebook to communicate with family members on the other side of the globe, or share their private pictures and memories with their loved ones, or just to keep in touch with friends who no longer live nearby. If that's not one of the best definitions of value, by touching people's lives where it matters to them the most, then I don't know what is.

You may not use Facebook for any of those things, and that's fine, but when a billion people log into Facebook every month to communicate with their friends and family, you can't possibly think that your usage is indicative of everyone else.

Facebook doesn't need to produce new knowledge or culture to provide tangible, long-term value.

http://www.facebookstories.com/

Re: Facebook the Devourer

#14

Post by jamesaguilar »

moocow01 wrote: post #11
jamesaguilar wrote: post #10

> Remember Facebook? This delusion that Facebook is somehow dramatically more replaceable than Google or Amazon is kinda amusing. There are plenty of other places to buy online and plenty of other places to search. I can't imagine the mental contortions that are required to hold both of these beliefs at once: "Facebook is replaceable," and, "Google is irreplaceable." They are both replaceable, but it would be tough i…

Everything is replaceable or at least thats how the saying goes. I think the point being made is that if Facebook/social media disappeared that it would barely make a dent in how we live compared to if Amazon/e-commerce or Google/search disappeared. At least thats how I interpret it.

That's probably true, as indicated by the order they arrived on the scene. Social media is at a more rarified level of need. But to jump from there to saying nobody would care? I could say that computers are useless compared to, I dunno, the wheel, therefore no one would care if computers went away. Would you say that rhetoric is useful? Personally, I think not.

Re: Facebook the Devourer

#15

Post by NegativeK »

jiggy2011 wrote: post #6

This is one thing that has always made me skeptical about FBs survival. The majority of it's use seems to be for very short term things, like friends sharing what they are currently doing. There is little value in most FB posts that are years old. As opposed to wikipedia which is a gradually building blob of knowledge. Let's say FB was down for a week, many people would use G+ instead for their social networking need…

For an individual, Facebook's value is in the connections that people have formed on the site. If Facebook was down for a week, there'd be people searching confusedly for the next social platform That Everyone Uses.

Would Plus receive more traffic? Well, yeah. But so would Twitter and other social networks. My mom, for one, would return to sending email jokes instead of resharing Facebook stuff. She doesn't know what Google Plus is. I imagine a large number of other individuals are in the same boat.

Would people return to Facebook after a week? Assuming the connections between users aren't broken, I imagine so. It'd take more than a week to reconnect to that coworker from seven years ago, but who I still enjoy talking politics with about once a month.

So, in other words: Facebook's biggest asset is that it has a crapton of momentum. Keeps its one billion users on the site more and more is going to keep that momentum up. Switching from Facebook to the new thing would be more of a collective hassle than the demise of MySpace. That doesn't mean it won't happen, though.

Re: Facebook the Devourer

#16

Post by arbuge »

Misleading analysis.

If nothing else, Facebook is obviously entertaining to many people, so this is a bit like arguing that entertainment has no value and we should just work all the time.

Wouldn't work itself be pointless in that case?

Re: Facebook the Devourer

#17

Post by uptown »

I'm interested to see how future generations perceive Facebook. For many in the current generation, Facebook became the place to reconnect with people they'd lost touch with since school ... sometimes a few years apart, but sometimes even longer. Today's children will grow up with those connections in-place. They won't need to re-connect because they'll always have been connected, so will it have the same appeal, or be used the same way?

Re: Facebook the Devourer

#18

Post by benihana »

Oh look. Another blog post decrying the evils of facebook that is in reality saying "I don't like facebook, therefor it offers no value whatsoever to anyone else," like it's some universal truth.

A lot of hacker/geek types seem 1. to hate facebook and 2. to be unable to empathize with anyone who doesn't share their dogmatic technological beliefs. Can we stop this already? Most people on facebook enjoy using it. Most people on facebook get tons of value from it. Most people on facebook aren't on reddit or hacker news, so they get a lot of new content from things lifted from those sites and posted to facebook. I don't understand why it eats at people so much that other people enjoy something they don't like.

This is just a cynical blog post by someone angry that something he doesn't like is popular.

Re: Facebook the Devourer

#19

Post by notatoad »

jamesaguilar wrote: post #10

> Remember Facebook? This delusion that Facebook is somehow dramatically more replaceable than Google or Amazon is kinda amusing. There are plenty of other places to buy online and plenty of other places to search. I can't imagine the mental contortions that are required to hold both of these beliefs at once: "Facebook is replaceable," and, "Google is irreplaceable." They are both replaceable, but it would be tough i…

Google has a search algorithm that outperforms any other. Their value proposition is that they can help you find what you are looking for better than their competitors can. Amazon has a vast network of suppliers and infrastructure. Their value proposition is that they can provide better selection and delivery than their competition. In both cases, the value is provided by the company.

Facebook is a website that lets you share text and images with your friends. Their only value proposition is that they have a lot of customers: the value of facebook is not provided by facebook. What makes them valuable is simply inertia, and if they lose that inertia they are dead. They have no technical advantage to the competition.

Re: Facebook the Devourer

#20

Post by coffeemug »

It devours everything it touches and produces nothing of value, including—ironically—their stock price.

It produces something of value to me. I live in CA, my parents live in NY. We're in different worlds. I can't possibly communicate what my world is like to them via a daily phone call. But I can share bits and pieces of info on Facebook that they see, and it's a wonderful medium for us to have shared experiences for things that otherwise would be extremely difficult to share.

It's a new mode of communication. Without it, I'd be alienated from my friends and family across the continent and in a few years we would have easily grown completely apart. With it, when I go back to visit, it's as if I never left. I can actually exchange pictures with my grandparents, and they can actually be a part of my life every day. Facebook seriously impacts the direction of my life, with respect to family and friends.

One billion people realized this, consciously or unconsciously, and made Facebook a multibillion dollar company. At this point saying Facebook produces nothing of value is as delusional as saying that about Microsoft, or Apple, or Proctor and Gamble.

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