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Facebook pulling a bait and switch for newspapers that forces them to pay to reach an audience they used to reach for free (organic reach)? This has only happe

Facebook pulling a bait and switch for newspapers that forces them to pay to reach an audience they used to reach for free (organic reach)? This has only happened repeatedly in the history of facebook. Facebook is like a game where the difficulty rises after you've had a taste of success. And by difficulty I mean you have to pay to reach your previous levels of success. Facebook did this for those first games (e.g. Farmville), then for pages (remember the idea of advertizing for likes to raise the visibility of your page in the news feed? https://www.matthewbarby.com/facebook-likes-dont-matter/ https://www.matthewbarby.com/facebook-likes-dont-matter/), now for newspapers. All in the service of "keeping the news feed clean/relevant for users", but really it is just effective monetization of the attention of Facebook's users. Never become dependent on Facebook's feebies in any way, because you will soon be paying for them. But I figure everyone already knew this strategy of Zuck's Facebook -- it is nothing new, it is "The Strategy" over there.

tehwebguy 9y ago
I don’t know - how many posts is an individual meant to consume in a day? X friends + Y followed pages x Z average posts per day. What’s the baseline X for an average user, 100? 300? What about Y pages liked / followed, another hundred? Plus if like half the feed is “A friend liked this post: “ you have even more content to consume that you didn’t even sign up for directly.
- cat199 9y ago
  yeah wow, it's almost like if FB let you store and categorize things in a chronologically ordered list, and filter posts based on customizable preferences, people might be able to manage their feed GASP... themselves!
  - taneq 9y ago
    But then how would they know about all the highest-ranked paid/sponsored/promoted posts from Facebook's closest friends?
- TuringNYC 9y ago
  >> X friends + Y followed pages x Z average posts per day. Not sure how it works for you, but facebook feed dropped in quality about 9mo ago for me -- Without any change from my side, I usually only see "Close Friends" posts plus significant posts (high likes, live events) from all friends. I also see lots of repeats of posts I already saw earlier in the day or previous days. At first I thought, perhaps my friends have blocked me, but no -- I can see their posts if I search for them. Then I thought, perhaps you have to be mutual "Close" but even that was a no -- because I actually verified with others. All I can guess is i'm on the wrong side of some A/B test where you see the same old stuff and keep coming back hoping to see more. Except in my case, i've just stopped using it...not enough to look at on the "infinite" scroll. So for me it is more like X friends (* 0.05) + Y followed pages x Z average posts per day. I wish i could reset it somehow back to 2015 functionality.
  - mistermann 9y ago
    I'm the same, I almost never see anything new in timeline except 2 or 3 people, some who I don't even care about.
  - PeanutNore 9y ago
    I think I noticed the same change in my feed as well, but it's part of a lot of small changes over the past few years that have in general reduced the enjoyment I got from FB to the point where I deleted the apps from my phones and quit using it entirely. I've kept my account active because it's useful for getting in contact with people when I need to, but I never look at FB anymore without a very specific reason for doing so, and I leave as soon as I'm done.
bobbinsbob 9y ago
>"Facebook is like a game where the difficulty rises after you've had a taste of success. And by difficulty I mean you have to pay to reach your previously levels of success" Your analogy would sound better, and imo, reflect reality more if you swapped out 'game' for 'drug'. That is to say, Facebook is like a drug (like heroin), the more you use it the more you have to pay to get the same level of high. Don't become dependent on the freebies because that's how the dealers get you hooked.
- ameister14 9y ago
  Except that doesn't work as an analogy because the end-users are not the ones paying.
  - wu-ikkyu 9y ago
    They are paying with their data and attention to advertisements
  - sametmax 9y ago
    Drugs are not always paid with money. Services like facebook neither. But maybe drugs is a bit overkill. Like sugar maybe ?
  - vkou 9y ago
    It does work as an analogy, because the difference between heroin, and a useful product is that heroin doesn't make your life better. Becoming addicted to heroin means that not using it makes your life worse then using it, even if the net value add is negative. I often feel the same way about Facebook. I stay on because the cost of disconnecting is too high, not because its particular implementation of 'A social network' for what I pay for it (Time and ad spam) is a net gain.
    - ameister14 9y ago
      Sure, but thats not the only reason why the analogy doesn't work. The heroin analogy is B2C. The Facebook discussion is B2B.
Nokinside 9y ago
It's standard go to strategy once you control the supply chain. Maybe it should be called Walmart strategy because it was perfected by them. First they propose a deal. You get access to the massive Walmart supply channel for this good deal. Sales volumes and profits soar. Half year later Walmart buyers negotiate price little lower, then lower still. You must lower the quality of the brand little to make it. And it goes on and on. Finally it becomes almost impossible to separate from Walmart because finding another supply channel for the bulk you end up making is next to impossible. Walmart never stops squeezing once it has you.
- THE_PUN_STOPS 9y ago
  For more info on this strategy, see this study of Walmart's squeeze of Vlasic (pickles). https://www.fastcompany.com/47593/wal-mart-you-dont-know https://www.fastcompany.com/47593/wal-mart-you-dont-know
  - beingmyself2 9y ago
    How is this a Walmart problem though? This is a totally natural result of free-market competition. When two competing pizza restaurants can no longer squeeze a lower price by reducing quality or working staff harder, they move the production offshore to countries with lower costs (usually looks like slavery). If we want to stop this natural phenomenon we would need new trade agreements to provide a financial incentive to keep the production within USA. I'm not a fan of Walmart but this is not at all a fair criticism of their business practices.
    - jressey 9y ago
      Human society's categorization of Capitalism as "natural" is probably the reason most responsible for keeping us back from a better world. When you do that, greed is no longer considered a vice but a virtue.
      - beingmyself2 9y ago
        Are you implying that communism is the way forward? I think a lot of murdered people would like to have a word with you, but that wasn't real communism right? If not, please explain your "way forward" that solves the problems that capitalism doesn't while still retaining the same incentives that appeal to basic human psychology. I'm sincerely interested.
23443463453 9y ago
Facebook really is a nefarious and rather heinous and corrupting entity in all of human society. It is quite amazing how humans are following the same pattern they followed through industrialization, essentially allowing a new technology fully and totally co-opt society on manic assumption that it's a positive, while it rots out the substance and core of humanity with and ultimate implosion that came in the form of the world wars.
sametmax 9y ago
> But I figure everyone knew this about 5 years ago if not earlier. This is something that keep surprising me. This year we had stories after stories against facebook. But nothing unexpected. Only about things we said again and again would happen, for years. We wrote about it. We discussed about it with friends. But apparently, being loud and clear about something very obvious is not enough. When things are too good to be true, people will want to keep believing it is. All you have to do to keep the frogs in is to raise the temperature slowly enough so that there is no outrage.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- mrguyorama 9y ago
  I hate that frog analogy. People always use it as shorthand for "small changes over time go unnoticed" but in the actual experiment, the frogs were basically lobotomized. So how are we lobotomized? One sort of answer would be how people are convinced that their data is not important. They are convinced of this while Google and Facebook mine it to no end and the NSA stores pretty much everything you do in Utah. So maybe you don't think it's important, but Some very big players who have a lot more money and knowledge sure do.
  - prsimp 9y ago
    > One sort of answer would be how people are convinced that their data is not important. When I'm wandering through my yard watering plants, I like to imagine a world where our personal data, or more precisely access to it, is treated more like mineral rights today. Companies would be required to pay a small micro-payment royalty anytime your data was used to make them money, and you would be able to transfer/split the rights just as you could mineral rights today. This micro-payment world would supplant the current "your data is the price of admission" world we live in.
    - mrguyorama 9y ago
      We do not live in a "your data is the price of admission" world. We live in a "your data is extra gravy we monetize for free because in small quantities it is useless to you but in aggregate it has value so we will extract that value even if you've already paid for the product and legally own it"
amyjess 9y ago
At least with games like Farmville, they did it because there was a huge backlash from users who were sick and tired of their friends spamming them with game invites and cluttering up their news feeds with game updates. Facebook did the right thing.

tehwebguy 9y ago

I don’t know - how many posts is an individual meant to consume in a day? X friends + Y followed pages x Z average posts per day. What’s the baseline X for an average user, 100? 300? What about Y pages liked / followed, another hundred? Plus if like half the feed is “A friend liked this post: “ you have even more content to consume that you didn’t even sign up for directly.

cat199 9y ago
yeah wow, it's almost like if FB let you store and categorize things in a chronologically ordered list, and filter posts based on customizable preferences, people might be able to manage their feed GASP... themselves!
- taneq 9y ago
  But then how would they know about all the highest-ranked paid/sponsored/promoted posts from Facebook's closest friends?
TuringNYC 9y ago
>> X friends + Y followed pages x Z average posts per day. Not sure how it works for you, but facebook feed dropped in quality about 9mo ago for me -- Without any change from my side, I usually only see "Close Friends" posts plus significant posts (high likes, live events) from all friends. I also see lots of repeats of posts I already saw earlier in the day or previous days. At first I thought, perhaps my friends have blocked me, but no -- I can see their posts if I search for them. Then I thought, perhaps you have to be mutual "Close" but even that was a no -- because I actually verified with others. All I can guess is i'm on the wrong side of some A/B test where you see the same old stuff and keep coming back hoping to see more. Except in my case, i've just stopped using it...not enough to look at on the "infinite" scroll. So for me it is more like X friends (* 0.05) + Y followed pages x Z average posts per day. I wish i could reset it somehow back to 2015 functionality.
- mistermann 9y ago
  I'm the same, I almost never see anything new in timeline except 2 or 3 people, some who I don't even care about.
- PeanutNore 9y ago
  I think I noticed the same change in my feed as well, but it's part of a lot of small changes over the past few years that have in general reduced the enjoyment I got from FB to the point where I deleted the apps from my phones and quit using it entirely. I've kept my account active because it's useful for getting in contact with people when I need to, but I never look at FB anymore without a very specific reason for doing so, and I leave as soon as I'm done.

bobbinsbob 9y ago

>"Facebook is like a game where the difficulty rises after you've had a taste of success. And by difficulty I mean you have to pay to reach your previously levels of success" Your analogy would sound better, and imo, reflect reality more if you swapped out 'game' for 'drug'. That is to say, Facebook is like a drug (like heroin), the more you use it the more you have to pay to get the same level of high. Don't become dependent on the freebies because that's how the dealers get you hooked.

ameister14 9y ago
Except that doesn't work as an analogy because the end-users are not the ones paying.
- wu-ikkyu 9y ago
  They are paying with their data and attention to advertisements
- sametmax 9y ago
  Drugs are not always paid with money. Services like facebook neither. But maybe drugs is a bit overkill. Like sugar maybe ?
- vkou 9y ago
  It does work as an analogy, because the difference between heroin, and a useful product is that heroin doesn't make your life better. Becoming addicted to heroin means that not using it makes your life worse then using it, even if the net value add is negative. I often feel the same way about Facebook. I stay on because the cost of disconnecting is too high, not because its particular implementation of 'A social network' for what I pay for it (Time and ad spam) is a net gain.
  - ameister14 9y ago
    Sure, but thats not the only reason why the analogy doesn't work. The heroin analogy is B2C. The Facebook discussion is B2B.

Nokinside 9y ago

It's standard go to strategy once you control the supply chain. Maybe it should be called Walmart strategy because it was perfected by them. First they propose a deal. You get access to the massive Walmart supply channel for this good deal. Sales volumes and profits soar. Half year later Walmart buyers negotiate price little lower, then lower still. You must lower the quality of the brand little to make it. And it goes on and on. Finally it becomes almost impossible to separate from Walmart because finding another supply channel for the bulk you end up making is next to impossible. Walmart never stops squeezing once it has you.

THE_PUN_STOPS 9y ago
For more info on this strategy, see this study of Walmart's squeeze of Vlasic (pickles). https://www.fastcompany.com/47593/wal-mart-you-dont-know https://www.fastcompany.com/47593/wal-mart-you-dont-know
- beingmyself2 9y ago
  How is this a Walmart problem though? This is a totally natural result of free-market competition. When two competing pizza restaurants can no longer squeeze a lower price by reducing quality or working staff harder, they move the production offshore to countries with lower costs (usually looks like slavery). If we want to stop this natural phenomenon we would need new trade agreements to provide a financial incentive to keep the production within USA. I'm not a fan of Walmart but this is not at all a fair criticism of their business practices.
  - jressey 9y ago
    Human society's categorization of Capitalism as "natural" is probably the reason most responsible for keeping us back from a better world. When you do that, greed is no longer considered a vice but a virtue.
    - beingmyself2 9y ago
      Are you implying that communism is the way forward? I think a lot of murdered people would like to have a word with you, but that wasn't real communism right? If not, please explain your "way forward" that solves the problems that capitalism doesn't while still retaining the same incentives that appeal to basic human psychology. I'm sincerely interested.

23443463453 9y ago

Facebook really is a nefarious and rather heinous and corrupting entity in all of human society. It is quite amazing how humans are following the same pattern they followed through industrialization, essentially allowing a new technology fully and totally co-opt society on manic assumption that it's a positive, while it rots out the substance and core of humanity with and ultimate implosion that came in the form of the world wars.

sametmax 9y ago

> But I figure everyone knew this about 5 years ago if not earlier. This is something that keep surprising me. This year we had stories after stories against facebook. But nothing unexpected. Only about things we said again and again would happen, for years. We wrote about it. We discussed about it with friends. But apparently, being loud and clear about something very obvious is not enough. When things are too good to be true, people will want to keep believing it is. All you have to do to keep the frogs in is to raise the temperature slowly enough so that there is no outrage.

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
mrguyorama 9y ago
I hate that frog analogy. People always use it as shorthand for "small changes over time go unnoticed" but in the actual experiment, the frogs were basically lobotomized. So how are we lobotomized? One sort of answer would be how people are convinced that their data is not important. They are convinced of this while Google and Facebook mine it to no end and the NSA stores pretty much everything you do in Utah. So maybe you don't think it's important, but Some very big players who have a lot more money and knowledge sure do.
- prsimp 9y ago
  > One sort of answer would be how people are convinced that their data is not important. When I'm wandering through my yard watering plants, I like to imagine a world where our personal data, or more precisely access to it, is treated more like mineral rights today. Companies would be required to pay a small micro-payment royalty anytime your data was used to make them money, and you would be able to transfer/split the rights just as you could mineral rights today. This micro-payment world would supplant the current "your data is the price of admission" world we live in.
  - mrguyorama 9y ago
    We do not live in a "your data is the price of admission" world. We live in a "your data is extra gravy we monetize for free because in small quantities it is useless to you but in aggregate it has value so we will extract that value even if you've already paid for the product and legally own it"

amyjess 9y ago

At least with games like Farmville, they did it because there was a huge backlash from users who were sick and tired of their friends spamming them with game invites and cluttering up their news feeds with game updates. Facebook did the right thing.