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>>> The ultimate problem is that Facebook doesn't want to show you good, enriching content from your friends and family. They want to show you ads. The good con
by ardy42 6y ago
>>> The ultimate problem is that Facebook doesn't want to show you good, enriching content from your friends and family. They want to show you ads. The good content is just a necessary evil to make you tolerate looking at ads.
>> That is how it is today. But does it have to be like that ? What is the minimum revenue per user required for service like FB to run.
> Minimum doesn't matter, the only question is if it's more profitable than the current approach.
Only if you think strictly inside the box.
The real problem here is one is a misalignment of incentives: Zuckerberg is managing Facebook to maximize the metric he's being evaluated on (profit and wealth), not the value provided to society.
- marcinzm 6y agoValue to society is subjective and many horrors of the past (and current) were caused by trying to optimize specific definitions of that term.
- TeMPOraL 6y agoAnd many horrors of the past and present were and are caused by optimizing for profits. So it's not like we get to side-step horror-avoidance. I'd start with treating users as partners, and not cattle.
- marcinzm 6y ago>So it's not like we get to side-step horror-avoidance. Which is my point. It's easy to say "just force them to optimize for value to society" and then ignore what that really entails in practice. And what giving someone the power to do that tends to cause. Actually solving the related problems and making things actually better is probably possible but it's messy and hard and complicated.
- ardy42 6y ago> It's easy to say "just force them to optimize for value to society" and then ignore what that really entails in practice. And what giving someone the power to do that tends to cause. > Actually solving the related problems and making things actually better is probably possible but it's messy and hard and complicated. What you describe is politics, and it's inescapable.
- int_19h 6y ago"force them to optimize" doesn't mean putting a gun to somebody's head. But it's clear that the existing socioeconomic arrangements overall incentivize companies, including Facebook, to do a lot of harm while chasing profits. Forcing them to not do so can also mean changing the arrangements to remove the incentives.
- solveit 6y ago> I'd start with treating users as partners, and not cattle. What does this mean in practice? How do you treat 2.6 billion people as partners?