"Let's say you run a restaurant. Facebook decides that they aren't getting enough money from local restaurants, and thus choose to greatly reduce the exposure o

"Let's say you run a restaurant. Facebook decides that they aren't getting enough money from local restaurants, and thus choose to greatly reduce the exposure of content that users share with their friends about restaurants that aren't paying them. You aren't even a Facebook user, but your competitors are and do pay them. Mentions of their restaurants actually get higher visibility than normal content and go viral, while mentions of your restaurant get no exposure at all. Your restaurant dies, while your competitors thrive." This is no different to word-of-mouth reviews, that came from people who found out about a restaurant from a paid advert in a newspaper in 1950. If your restaurant didn't list in the paper (i.e. you didn't want to pay the premium for the advert) then you were at an immediate disadvantage.