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It's not that the world "needs" Facebook. The world wants Facebook. Facebook is a social network and people want to use social networks, for various reasons. Fa

It's not that the world "needs" Facebook. The world wants Facebook. Facebook is a social network and people want to use social networks, for various reasons. Facebook happens is the biggest social networks. That's the value proposition. Everything else is pretty much irrelevant. > My take is that the value of Facebook is zero in the best case, and possibly a net negative for society at large and for individuals. You could confidently make the same claim about alcohol and cigarettes, yet both of these are good business.

ionised 8y ago
> The world wants Facebook. I haven't seen anything that has convinced me this is true. I don't consider the dopamine-driven compulsions of its users to be evidence of 'want'.
- gridlockd 8y ago
  > I haven't seen anything that has convinced me this is true. Well over a billion daily active users on Facebook don't convince you that people want Facebook? > I don't consider the dopamine-driven compulsions of its users to be evidence of 'want'. Oh, you're looking for a semantic argument, possibly diving into the meaning and consequence of the concept of free will (or lack thereof). I ain't got time for that today.
  - ionised 8y ago
    I was simply making an observation of Facebook's business model. It employs staff whose entire job consists of making Facebook's product more addictive; to keep people clicking, liking, viewing and handing over data to facilitate their being tracked all over the internet. Heroin dealers often employ people to make their shit more addictive too. Yet we don't sit here musing about how much 'value' they've added to a society that clearly wants their product.
    - gridlockd 8y ago
      To be clear, I'm not saying "good business" equals "moral value" or "value to society". Individually, if I'm a heroin user, clearly I must be valuing the shooting of Heroin higher than my own health. Again, this is moving into "semantic dispute" territory, where little insight is to be gained.
      - ionised 7y ago
        > Individually, if I'm a heroin user, clearly I must be valuing the shooting of Heroin higher than my own health. Right, which is why I think 'creating value' in and of itself is meaningless if you can't distinguish it from the kind that grants prosperity without exploitation and the kind that is simply parasitic. I consider Facebook to be the latter.

ionised 8y ago

> The world wants Facebook. I haven't seen anything that has convinced me this is true. I don't consider the dopamine-driven compulsions of its users to be evidence of 'want'.

gridlockd 8y ago
> I haven't seen anything that has convinced me this is true. Well over a billion daily active users on Facebook don't convince you that people want Facebook? > I don't consider the dopamine-driven compulsions of its users to be evidence of 'want'. Oh, you're looking for a semantic argument, possibly diving into the meaning and consequence of the concept of free will (or lack thereof). I ain't got time for that today.
- ionised 8y ago
  I was simply making an observation of Facebook's business model. It employs staff whose entire job consists of making Facebook's product more addictive; to keep people clicking, liking, viewing and handing over data to facilitate their being tracked all over the internet. Heroin dealers often employ people to make their shit more addictive too. Yet we don't sit here musing about how much 'value' they've added to a society that clearly wants their product.
  - gridlockd 8y ago
    To be clear, I'm not saying "good business" equals "moral value" or "value to society". Individually, if I'm a heroin user, clearly I must be valuing the shooting of Heroin higher than my own health. Again, this is moving into "semantic dispute" territory, where little insight is to be gained.
    - ionised 7y ago
      > Individually, if I'm a heroin user, clearly I must be valuing the shooting of Heroin higher than my own health. Right, which is why I think 'creating value' in and of itself is meaningless if you can't distinguish it from the kind that grants prosperity without exploitation and the kind that is simply parasitic. I consider Facebook to be the latter.