Facebook Backlash
Facebook's obnoxiousness has not only lead to natural attrition (and a decade in users), but it started a movement called #DeleteFacebook... and some prominent names like Apple Co-Founder Steve Wozniak decided to lead by example and delete his presence. It doesn't have much momentum yet, and there isn't a good alternative despite a few I list at Alt-Tech section, but it's a strong hint that customer are taking notice and momentum is building.
I don't think any of the competitors have a viable platform yet, and one of the problem of these alternatives is that they're only going to filter for edge cases at first -- and that means the ratio of extremists/activists will be higher than in FB itself. So combatting partisan echo-chambers, with a new echo-chamber, is a big millstone around their neck. And the other platforms can be anti-competitive under the excuse of protecting us from the racist/bigots on those other platforms (while ignoring the ones on their own).
Either way, the point is that many customers aren't thrilled and they're starting to look for alternatives or quit. Whether that's enough to ruin Facebook today, is irrelevant to me. It shows that Facebook is like Quark: a tech company that made a hugely successful desktop publishing / Page Layout application, that was the dominant player for 10+ years -- but were such jerks to their customers that when Adobe finally made InDesign to compete with it, Quark's entire market moved over in a few years because they were so tired of dealing with Quark. Facebook is desperately trying to re-live the Quark-Effect.
Facebook is 3 things: bad interface, bad management, and biased policies. I want a social network that gives me control of what I see and share -- both to my friends and to advertisers. I realize they need to make a buck, and my information is their product, but the point is you can still give users the illusions of control. But Zuckerberg seems to have falling into the egocentric pit that many young billionaires do, they think because they timed things well, and worked hard, and got lucky that they're smarter than everyone else. This makes them arrogant, less mature, and slower to grow than the average human: Dunning-Kruger, inflated by being surrounded by yes-men. |
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