> I wish I could see actual updates from people instead of being kept abreast as to what piece of third party content they've liked at some point in time, what

> I wish I could see actual updates from people instead of being kept abreast as to what piece of third party content they've liked at some point in time, what third party content they're sharing, etc. This nicely captures the problem. Facebook (and probably most social media systems - I'm looking at you LinkedIn) are primarily interested in keeping you up to date with Facebook via the medium that is your human relationships. So Facebook wants you to know what your friends did on Facebook today so that you might do that same Facebook thing. This increases Facebook interactions which in turn become more information to propagate to others on Facebook. In the limit there is no need for Facebook because all anyone is ever doing is Facebook.