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> But I think every web designer knows that putting even the slightest barrier between the user and the content drives away vast numbers of people. I have a pe

> But I think every web designer knows that putting even the slightest barrier between the user and the content drives away vast numbers of people. I have a pet theory that these business models paper over the vast worthlessness of many modern technologies. That the value of Facebook is not in it's technologies or network, but rather in the arbitrage of the value of data when combined. We pay for the nearly worthless service of facebook, with our nearly worthless data. Facebook combines that data with other data from other people, and create data that is extremely valuable for advertisers. The important bit of this theory is that Facebook is presumed nearly worthless. What that means is that outlawing their combining or collection of data from users wouldn't cause their service to transition to a pay-per-user model, but rather would completely dissolve the product, which nobody would miss.

gbalduzzi 1y ago
Even if the data collected by Meta is really worthless (and that is a big if), Meta shows content to a billion(s?) of people everyday. That alone is definitely not worthless lol
- delusional 1y ago
  Showing content to users that don't value watching the content is worthless. There's no inherent worth to showing content. My argument is that users consider the content worthless, and therefore any attempt to monetize the the showing of the content directly will end up failing.
- array_key_first 1y ago
  The only reason the content works, at all, is because it's completely free and ad driven. The truth is the content on Facebook is basically worthless and basically nobody wants to watch it. But humans are stupid. If you tell them something is free, they're gonna use it, even if they don't want to use it. If Facebook cost even 1 dollar a month, I can garuantee those videos views would fall off a cliff.
jfengel 1y ago
Entertainment is a value. People spend a lot of money on movies and video games, and I don't think we'd call them worthless even though they produce nothing.

gbalduzzi 1y ago

Even if the data collected by Meta is really worthless (and that is a big if), Meta shows content to a billion(s?) of people everyday. That alone is definitely not worthless lol

delusional 1y ago
Showing content to users that don't value watching the content is worthless. There's no inherent worth to showing content. My argument is that users consider the content worthless, and therefore any attempt to monetize the the showing of the content directly will end up failing.
array_key_first 1y ago
The only reason the content works, at all, is because it's completely free and ad driven. The truth is the content on Facebook is basically worthless and basically nobody wants to watch it. But humans are stupid. If you tell them something is free, they're gonna use it, even if they don't want to use it. If Facebook cost even 1 dollar a month, I can garuantee those videos views would fall off a cliff.

jfengel 1y ago

Entertainment is a value. People spend a lot of money on movies and video games, and I don't think we'd call them worthless even though they produce nothing.