Not only that, Facebook is designed to lock users inside their services as long as possible. The web, to billions of users now, is simply Facebook. The only way to make people leave Facebook and visit your website or app is to PAY Facebook to promote your page and posts so that users visit your services. It's the biggest carefully designed theft of time and effort of all time. Facebook must be destroyed or at least weakened by the power of governments now or never.
Also most social websites were designed on free labor by users like Quora and Reddit (at least the new corporatist reddit)
Just stop using it then. I’ve never used it as they are amoral, and don’t feel I missed much. Facebook will fade away in time, like MySpace,yahoo,aol,etc.
Various companies from AOL to Apple tried this in the 90’s (e.g. eWorld) - it’s the natural tendency for large corporations to corral their users. Arguably the windows attenpt to kill the web, and later mobile app stores are a continuation of this trend.
They all failed in the end, as the open web is more attractive, but there will always be gatekeepers, because most people don’t want to build their own platforms, they just want to read and share their stuff.
At least reddit lets you get some pageviews without forcing you to pay. Facebook's pages and likes are a total scam. It's impossible to reach users without paying, while it takes a lot of effort to create the network of likes. That's double effort for zero benefit.
I agree that reddit is still the fairest social website even after the many changes they did to monetize their services, which isn't wrong btw since it's in the end a business, Quora is now nothing but a big spam and self promotion website but fortunately they don't have the power to force users to stay in their circle of influence like Facebook. ProductHunt doesn't need a comment, it's a shameless cheesy website designed as "pay for shilling" scheme.
“Facebook makes just a hair under $635,000 in profit for each of its 25,000 employees. Alphabet, Google’s parent company, makes about $158,000 per worker. (At Walmart, it’s $4,288.) These calculations often get spun as representing a victory for automation and algorithms—machines, rather than humans, creating value. But the truth is, these media companies have billions of people working for them—they’re just not on staff.”
The difference is that the vast majority of users are unaware that their content is making other users stay within Facebook as long as possible and feed it with more data to make money for Facebook alone.
The production of the shows my kids enjoy goes something like this: Unpaid redditors post original material to amuse their online friends. Unpaid moderators keep the subreddit functioning by cleaning out spam and abuse. Reddit gets a little money from ads posted on the subreddit. Then a YouTube channel called Sorrow TV—apparently a one-man operation run by a 20-something guy—harvests the best posts and creates the video. YouTube, which is part of Google, runs more ads, while collecting valuable data about the viewing patterns of users like my kids. YouTube shares some of the money it makes with SorrowTV, based on a formula that Google controls and can alter at any time.
Except that:
The barriers to entry to breaking-out in the screen writing or acting biz are much higher than it is to upload YouTube videos. Anyone can post to Facebook or Reddit, so why should the pay be higher than more selective and prestigious jobs that have a more rigorous screening processes?
YouTube allows content creators to profit from their work through ad revenue sharing, premium subscriptions, and super-chats.
Facebook allows content creators to post external links to their websites, such as stores.
Reddit moderators, especially for popular subs, have an enormous amount of power and influence, and such postilions are highly sought after. If being a Reddit mod is so bad, why is there so much competition for mod spots? They are not the victims at all. The users are much more likely to be victims by having to adhere to arbitrary rules and censorship imposed by mods.
Facebook and other social media rely on that heavily and make their users do as much work for them as possible.
The constant stream of notifications makes it easier. Instructions can be presented as „tips”: upload a new photo, greet new users on your fanpage, reply to this message.
Some users are getting paid in just likes, but an increasing number receives very tangible business opportunities or direct compensation.
This is getting very close to employment territory. But unlike real employment, social media get to set the rules.
Facebook should have a revenue sharing program for its users. Google and youtube have kinda bern doing that and it helped create some kind of synnergy.
Also most social websites were designed on free labor by users like Quora and Reddit (at least the new corporatist reddit)
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