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This is how Facebook operates. Open up the platform until everyone piles on and basically ruins it, then tighten it back up and start charging those same people
by dchuk 10y ago
This is how Facebook operates. Open up the platform until everyone piles on and basically ruins it, then tighten it back up and start charging those same people to do what they were previously doing for free.
They did it with games (they became basically spam until they locked it down). Then when they opened things up to advertising, you could basically run any ad you want to any offer you want. Then they tightened that down once it got adoption. And now they're going to lock the news feed back down a bit.
It's interesting how well they've pulled this off without poisoning the well and alienating their user base.
- NegativeLatency 10y agoPersonally I've been alienated, and many of my non techie friends have been too, but the network effect is just too strong and pulls you back in when old-so-and-so plans their birthday party or whatever.
- itchyouch 10y agoThat's it. I use it purely for answering invitations to events and a handy address book. Otherwise my social media time is away from FB, though, I still spend time on FB in the form of Instagram.
- ryanSrich 10y agoInteresting. I don't think I've ever used Facebook for anything productive (like RSVPing to something). My newsfeed is a complete and utter wasteland, but there's something interesting and addicting about it. It's like watching a car wreck. It's awful, but you can't look away.
- adrianratnapala 10y agoI find Facebook pages visually ugly -- unpleasant to look at at a level that has nothing to do with my opinions about the site. But that's just me. I find that British tabloids like the Sun look similar -- and they are designed that way to attract rather than repel eyeballs.
- BillyParadise 10y agoIf you think Facebook is ugly, remember Myspace.
- HemanHeartYou 10y agoAre you telling me the floating bling gifs and music videos was ugly?
- pmontra 10y agoIt's not just you. Maybe FB is not an example of brutalist design [1] [2] because it's more polished that true brutalists are. It's just a plain vanilla site. Instead of thousands of different layouts on myspace and even on blogger, it's a one size fit all design. A white and blue page should be enough for everybody, and it seems it is, especially when it has the size of an app on a phone. Remember that the vast majority of its users didn't have any web property before their page and feed on FB. They don't find anything missing. [1] http://brutalistwebsites.com/ http://brutalistwebsites.com/ [2] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-intersect/wp/2016/05/09/the-hottest-trend-in-web-design-is-intentionally-ugly-unusable-sites/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-intersect/wp/2016/05...
- newscracker 10y agoFacebook is overall ugly in appearance with a bad layout, bad column widths, bad fonts, bad font sizes...the list grows. Lot of clutter in a small space is how I see it.
- tyfon 10y agoI deleted my FB account several years ago and you'd be surprised how many actually find my email when they want to invite me for something. If someone can't be bothered to send me an email I'm not too concerned about going to their party.
- jacobush 10y agoThey (FB) prey on us with perceived or actual low enough social standing for us to not be found by email.
- Jaruzel 10y agoMy email address is so obvious, in fact you can even work it out from my user id, however that still doesn't stop my so-called 'friends' telling me they didn't know how to contact me during my FB detox periods. Some people just don't want the friction that having to actually send an email, brings. Go figure.
- pantalaimon 10y agoI don't view going to parties as a chore, I actually enjoy them - so I don't want to miss out. It's nice to see what events your friends are interested in too. And for spontaneous events (wanna hang out in the park this afternoon?), facebook group chat is still the common denominator, although that might change with facebook forcing people to install their messenger in order to being able to use it on mobile.
- 10y ago
- ctack 10y agoThankfully facebook events never really took off in my social groups. Currently it's just a couple of Watsapp groups (core friends/activities/classes) and an increasingly daunting email thread for a wedding later this summer. Although your comment makes me wonder if there is a space for a more specialised 'events' app. Maybe this is where the Google/Apple calendars are vaguely headed.
- protomyth 10y agoStrangely, I thought Foursquare with its checkins would add event scheduling (future checkins), but I guess they went a different way.
- wodenokoto 10y agoFrom a business point of view that is okay. You're not one of the users that brings money directly to the fb platform but you help keep the network effect in place. Obviously Facebook can't be all things to all people, so these types of complaints doesn't really show that Facebook is weak, but rather that it is strong and has a lot of auxiliary users that helps keep core functions valuable.
- fatihdonmez 10y agoFacebook did the same with buy more like and promote posts features. I have written a blog post about it two years ago. That's why I don't get into their bandwagon as customer anymore. http://fatihdonmez.me/facebook-marketing-black-hole/ http://fatihdonmez.me/facebook-marketing-black-hole/
- zkhalique 10y agoThey've also done it with app developers!
- bemmu 10y agoI think of this as their "killing you softly method". If they want to discourage some activity, they don't just kill it outright, instead just slowly turn down the dial on some virality-affecting coefficient.
- intoverflow2 10y ago> It's interesting how well they've pulled this off without poisoning the well and alienating their user base. Who says they haven't? Just because people endure it for now because everyone else they know uses it doesn't mean they'll all stick around. Re:ads. So shocked people still bother to buy them at all, seen companies throw 7 figures at it with only a fraction of an investment back from it (1 mil invested got about 80K of product sales IIRC). Always advise wayyyy against it these days.
- dchuk 10y agowell, they still have well over a billion active users. They've alienated some, but it's barely a blip on their radar it seems.