The BEST way to satisfy the stockholders is to create a fantastic product that users love, long-term.In other words, you agree with me that a publicly traded company must make decisions that benefit the stockholders. You just think that "benefit the stockholders" should be evaluated on a long-term basis, not a short-term basis. But there are two key points that you have not mentioned:
(1) Creating a fantastic product that users love benefits the stockholders to the extent that users are a source of revenue. In Amazon's case, they are, directly; revenue comes from users coming to the site and buying stuff. (And from buying services like Amazon Prime.) In FB's case, users are, at best, an indirect revenue source: more users spending more time on FB means more ad revenue. That's a much weaker link between a good user experience and stockholder benefit.
(2) How long-term the calculation of "stockholder benefit" should be depends on the stockholder's time horizon. If I'm investing in a company as a means of giving myself retirement income in 30 years, obviously I'm interested in the company's long-term health, not the next quarter's returns. But if I'm investing on a shorter time horizon, I'm going to want benefits to show up more quickly.
Half a century ago, most stock ownership was by individuals, so the scenario of someone buying shares in, say, IBM and holding them until retirement was actually common enough to have a significant effect. But now most stock ownership is by mutual funds; my 30-year retirement income doesn't depend on how any single stock does for 30 years, only on how my mutual fund does over that time horizon. Mutual funds trade individual stocks all the time based on short-term performance, so to the companies, it looks like everyone's time horizon is a lot shorter, and they act accordingly.
I'm not looking to get rich quick. I'm looking to do cool and interesting things.
Just to be clear, I am not saying you are wrong at all in having this attitude. I am only commenting on the difference between what you want to do and what Facebook wants to do.