Recommended: In two posts at Where's Your Ed At, Ed Zitron writes that Facebook's days of dominance may finally be numbered—and it is very much their own damn fault.
Every single terrible thing you see on Facebook — be it some sort of horrible right wing nonsense or a confusing and annoying product decision — is made in pursuit of growth. Every bit of damage that Meta has caused to the world has been either an act of ignorance or deliberate harm, at many times tweaking the product to make it harder or more annoying to use so that you will log onto Facebook or Instagram multiple times a day and spend as much time on there as possible.
This should explain why both Instagram and Facebook are so utterly abysmal to use. Meta’s company culture is one of sycophancy and user abuse, and both of these apps are deliberately engineered to get in the way of what you want to do as a means of increasing your engagement, even if said engagement is won because the thing you’re engaging with is actively fighting you.
Read it at Where's Your Ed At.
The People Deliberately Killing Facebook
Enjoy this post? Why not try the podcast version? Please download it, and also all the other episodes. Over the last decade, few platforms have declined quite as rapidly and visibly as Facebook and Instagram. What used to be apps for catching up with your friends and family are now
Edward Zitron
We’re Watching Facebook Die
Like this newsletter? You should listen to the Better Offline episode! In the first quarter of 2024, Meta made $36.45 billion dollars - $12.37 billion dollars of which was pure profit. Though the company no longer reports daily active users, it now uses another metric: “family daily active
Edward ZitronFellow Travelers highlights the best ideas and writing from across the web, with an emphasis on independent journalism and outside-the-beltway takes. Some links may require subscriptions.
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