Here goes nothing.
To be honest, Facebook provides a lot of good things.
I'm wrong with the foreplay, so I will just cut to the core of why I think Facebook is a pretty fair trade-off.
Before the age of the internet and social media, almost everything is dictated by global corporations or state-owned businesses. Suppliers were the dominant entity in the supply chain as they got to decide which product would be sold on the market. However, the tide had turned as the global economy and the internet provided people with unlimited opportunities. Nowadays, anyone can have a 'piece of land" where they grow whatever the heck that they please.
It went back a few decades ago. New businesses with offbeat products don't have an effective way to find customers or build their community. This distribution barrier prevents these "nitch" products from scaling and gaining attention when competing with giant corporations.
This is where Facebook roles come into play, creating a place where anyone can connect with each other. Sellers/Producers can now find the buyer for their niche product, enabling them to thrive in size and market share.
Facebook gathers a lot of data - Everything from its own platform and other integrated sites/apps...to understand customer profiles, then goes back and targets prospective customers.
However, the difference between Facebook and other data providers is how customized the data gets and the whole process's simplicity. Vendors that have little knowledge about data models or funnels just need to give the number that works for them, and Facebook will hand that customer to them. It's like a matchmaker helps you find your perfect date.
Facebook's offer is a fair trade-off for target marketing, especially for a small and unique business from the marketer's perspective. I'm more comfortable requesting Facebook data than other sources where data is bought and sold. Well, not everyone knows how to handle raw data in the first place.
From the user perspective, Facebook is a beautiful tool to keep in touch with other people. Never did we have devices that allow us to build a community as quickly as social media, regardless of the geographical barrier. People with different backgrounds from all over the world gather on the same platform and perform the function of an actual society. We make friends, share information, or even create a market on it. Everything is seen like a forest where a thousand different types of flowers and plants bloom in their own way.
Many friends and foe may have some disagreement with me. But that good thing. Me, as a loner, got people to talk to is simply outstanding.
In addition, I would like to perceive some of Facebook's problems based on my subjective perspective.
Facebook is constantly spying on us, so does everyone else.
If we flip the page over, it is easy to see why the company is questioned about user privacy and prosperity - they have tons of our data.
However, in case you don't know, the nature of the internet is spreading our data everywhere. It could be the cookie you agree with on a website or every single click you make on a news outlet. Those data would then be processed in an analyzing unit to generate insight. Facebook is a globe-scale matchmaker, so they want to group people up, find the patent and design specific strategies to target each customer profile. And those preprocess data is not that useful to any entity but Facebook themselves unless you have first-class analyses like Cambridge Analytica.
What is the chance that multi-billion dollar combat would go out and target an individual? If you're running for the US election, then maybe, another wise, I don't think so. It simply doesn't look logical in terms of prosperity.
What is the chance that a multi-billion dollar company would go out and target an individual? If you're running for the US election, maybe, otherwise I don't think so. It simply doesn't look promising in terms of prosperity.
Privacy is the cost I have to pay to use the Facebook service for free. People think that the current price is too high, they speak up, aiming for more acceptable deals.
For consumers, Facebook is not doing anything harmful to competition.
If you call out deleting Facebook for antitrust or being a monopoly, you should throw all Apple products that you have. They're both doing what they can to keep the user in their ecosystem.
However, Consumer is still the one in the driver's seat, free to choose what product they want to use. It could be a Legion 7 over a Macbook pro or Twitter over Facebook, all up to you. Nowadays, Facebook is even struggling due to the growing competition from Twitter and, most of all, Tiktok (Tiktok is just a lite version of Only fan trailer).
If we look at things through a more positive lens, Facebook supports diversity. It helps to remove the market entry barrier for many small-scale businesses a better chance to find customers. In addition, the auction advertising model lets companies run the campaign as they desire without feeling price pressured by the advertising platform. Facebook doesn't own any users or viewers. Other competitors can freely approve that same internet user as long as they get that audience's attention.
From a professional perspective, Facebook just doing what tech giants do, buying out potential companies that could be their future competitors; the example is Instagram and WhatApps. I consider this action to reduce the competition in the advertising industry where businesses end up with fewer choices. Governor should pay more attention to limited merger and acquisition activities to preserve the competitiveness of the advertising market.
Facebook is not the actual cause of separation and polarization, but it happens to help accelerate it.
If you ask what Facebook does best, I would gladly say how it connects people. They create a platform where anyone can be reached and actively reach for anyone, like the internet itself. However, it's too share the same downsides of the internet, where entities take advantage of the platform to abuse and promote unwanted matter.
Facebook is reported to have about 4.5 billion users, of which more than 2.5 billion users access the Facebook product daily. Facebook has become the frontier of the internet. If anything happens on the internet, you will adequately find it on Facebook. However, due to its massive scale and connective nature, internet problems have also become Facebook problems.
People are usually talking about how Facebook making our society separated and polarized. But on the flip side, I think this was a consequence when people were connected to each other. On Facebook, whether you are happy, sad, or angry, you always find your comrades somewhere. And when there are comrades, an enemy is fighting over some difference in mindset or belief. Unfortunately, It's easier to hate someone than to be open and make friends. Social problems such as cyberbullying and exploiting personal information become worst due to how fast that information can spread across the online environment.
I believe that Facebook should have done a better job of screening out fake news and toxicity content. However, we should keep in mind that with that many users, mostly in developing countries, it's almost impossible for a single company like Facebook to handle it perfectly.
On a larger scale, as much as we praise the diversity of globalization, we need to be aware of how that diversity can easily lead to conflict and argument.
If you are addicted to Facebook, its kinda on you
Most of us come to Facebook for an easy and fun experience, which accompanies our monotonous routine. We ask for a quick dope of dopamine, and Facebook gladly delivers it to our fingertips.
In his famous Ted Talk, Tony Robin points out that we humans actually don't like surprises; we only want the surprise that we expected, and what is not, we call them problems. So rather than exploring new things, we tend to go back to what we know would give us pleasure. And Facebook is doing a great job on matchmaking use with those content.
The platform makes more money as we consume more content. So it's apparent that they would customize their algorithms to keep us on the app as long as possible. Facebook simply acts like a sugar baby that keeps telling you what you want to hear, feeding you what your desire. Again, the platform does not force users to watch those content; you lose to the temptation.
What is a wiser way to use Facebook?
Well, I don't think I'm qualified to give you any advice since I barely use social networks anymore. So here is an article from the University of California:
https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/how_to_use_social_media_wisely_and_mindfully
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