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If I had a dollar for every doom and gloom X is Y post, I could finally buy that beach side villa in Danang and sip ca phe sua da's until I get diabetes. What

by jawngee 13y ago

If I had a dollar for every doom and gloom X is Y post, I could finally buy that beach side villa in Danang and sip ca phe sua da's until I get diabetes. What I find particularly curious about this post is how much this particular author wants to climb back into his mother's womb. I'm not being flippant or glib, re-read the post if you didn't catch it the first time around. He wants technology to think for him, he wants technology to coddle and embrace him so he doesn't have to think for himself. Google will drive him places, google will read his emails and predict his wants and cater his technology consumption to his whims, google will blast his retinas with all the contextual information he'll ever need without having to retain it or know it for himself. He's hoping for the technical equivalent of an antimitotic sac with Google branding all over it, washing him with vital information nutrients. He also doesn't seem to get Facebook from a socioeconomic standpoint. Facebook doesn't need to do all of these things that Google might do. Facebook just needs to let you feel not lonely when you are feeling lonely. Facebook just needs to connect you with those you aren't necessarily really connected with. Facebook, like it or not, is a new form of communication the same as the phone was, email is, SMS is, etc. The market will decide the value of that.

chrischen 13y ago
You're conflating facebook with social networking. We've had social networking since before the internet was created, and one of the first things to have been done on the internet was social networking (message boards, email, instant messaging, etc). Facebook is simply one implementation of social networking. There were others, and are still others. For example, email, instant messaging, forums, still exist, as well as new stuff like Pinterest, tumblr, twitter. Facebook's size is due to network effects, not necessarily because a company like Google is incapable of technically matching facebook's product, or because facebook is dominating with its product. For example, Google was able to grab over 50% of the smartphone market share when it focused its efforts on Android. But, it basically has an insignificant share of the social networking market with Google Plus. Why? It's probably because social networking is more winner-take-all. But this doesn't mean Facebook has won, as the barriers to entry for creating the technical product of a social network is simple. This means facebook has limited control of its users. We grant facebook the monopoly, and it really has limited opportunity to screw us or extract money from us, for once they go over the line, we'll all spill over like water to something else like Google Plus.

by jawngee 13y ago

chrischen 13y ago

You're conflating facebook with social networking. We've had social networking since before the internet was created, and one of the first things to have been done on the internet was social networking (message boards, email, instant messaging, etc). Facebook is simply one implementation of social networking. There were others, and are still others. For example, email, instant messaging, forums, still exist, as well as new stuff like Pinterest, tumblr, twitter. Facebook's size is due to network effects, not necessarily because a company like Google is incapable of technically matching facebook's product, or because facebook is dominating with its product. For example, Google was able to grab over 50% of the smartphone market share when it focused its efforts on Android. But, it basically has an insignificant share of the social networking market with Google Plus. Why? It's probably because social networking is more winner-take-all. But this doesn't mean Facebook has won, as the barriers to entry for creating the technical product of a social network is simple. This means facebook has limited control of its users. We grant facebook the monopoly, and it really has limited opportunity to screw us or extract money from us, for once they go over the line, we'll all spill over like water to something else like Google Plus.