Because social media sites like Facebook literally said they're going to make the world better, by connecting more people and empowering more ideas.

It was all bullshit of course, but people did believe it, myself included. Just 15 years ago the outlook of social media was much more optimistic.

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supportengineer 11 hours ago | parent | next [-]

They could have gone down the path of being a service with a monthly subscription. Instead of making the customer become the product.

Imagine an alternate universe where, since you were paying them, they kept you safe and secure online, and kept the bad actors away.

	▲	9rx 9 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		The only offering that possibly might have been compelling enough to charge for was Messenger if it existed in a vacuum, but there were already numerous services offering much the same for free (e.g. MSN, ICQ, AIM), and when others realized that is what the people actually wanted, many more immediately threw their hat in the ring (e.g. iMessage). There would have been no practical hope of it making it as a paid service.
	▲	crummy 10 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		assuming they were able to acquire customers and dominate the world with that business model, would that have prevented them from doing algorithmic feeds and promoting clickbait and poisoning politics and the rest? sure, people would have been able to cancel their monthly facebook subscriptions if they didn't like that stuff. but we can effectively do that now just by not using it.

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9rx 14 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

> Just 15 years ago the outlook of social media was much more optimistic.

Those who forget Usenet are doomed to repeat it, I suppose.

> It was all bullshit of course

Or, more likely, what was dreamed of ended up being incorrect. Like we learn every time we try social media, people don't actually want to be social online. That takes work and the vast majority of people don't want to spend their free time doing work. They want to sit back, relax, and be entertained by the professionals.

As before, businesses can only survive if they give others exactly what they want, which doesn't necessarily overlap with what is good for them. A fast food burger isn't good for you, but it is a good business to be in because it is something many people want. Arguably small communities like HN with exceptionally motivated people can make it work to some extent, but that is not something that captures the masses.

It's not coincidence that those who tried to make a go of social media ~15 years ago have all turned into what are little more than TV channels with a small mix of newspaper instead. That is where the want is actually found at the moment. Social media didn't work in the 1980s, the 2010s, and it won't work in the 2080s either. It's is not something that appeals to humans (generally speaking).

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RyanHamilton 13 hours ago | parent [-]

Can you provide an example of where facebook tried to do what most people would consider good that also required any >1% kind of sacrifice or risk on their part? My impression is their moto was win at any cost and ask forgiveness later (not because we mean that either but because it will reduce the legal penalties and make us look like normal humans.) In some ways watching Mark reminds me of the infamous cigarette cartel testifying.

	▲	9rx 10 hours ago \| parent [-]
		> Can you provide an example of where facebook tried to do what most people would consider good They gave the social media thing an honest try for a short period of time. And it even came with a lot of fanfare initially as people used it as the "internet's telephone book" to catch up with those they lost touch with. But once initial pleasantries were exchanged, people soon realized why they lost touch in the first place, and most everyone started to see that continually posting pictures of their cat is a stupid use of time. And so, Facebook and the like recognized that nobody truly wanted social media, gave up on the idea, and quickly pivoted into something else entirely. Social media is a great idea in some kind of theoretical way — I can see why you bought into the idea — but you can't run a business on great theoretical ideas. You can't even run a distributed public service without profit motive on great theoretical ideas, as demonstrated by Usenet. You have to actually serve what people actually want, which isn't necessarily (perhaps not even often) what is good for them.