Most successful startups have a similar beginning: a dedicated fan base become avid users and supporters of the product until eventually the product experiences an explosion in growth. Throughout the early stages, the startup can be thought of as a cute and lovable pet. All you want to do is spend time with it and tell your friends about it. Eventually though, all great startups that are able to grow beyond their early years can soon become terrifying beasts. While you may not stop caring for the company, you do eventually become concerned with all the power that it has gained and look back on the good ‘ole days when you were best friends.
So maybe my analogy is a little out of kilter but the fact remains that many companies eventually become terrifying beasts that we grow to fear. Facebook is rapidly becoming one of those companies. Yesterday at the annual Foursquare Conference, Gideon Yu, Facebook’s Chief Financial Officer, was quoted as saying “There are these small bands of people who are trying to take over the world.” He continued, “This is so much more fun than working at a hedge fund or an investment bank.”
This quote has now been used by a number of publications to suggest that Facebook is inherently evil. They may be right. Facebook has now launched a program that is going to force feed me brand information about my friends whether or not I want to hear about it. Surprisingly, none of the new ads have appeared in my feed yet but I’m expecting Social Ads to become more ubiquitous to the average Facebook user over the coming months. Perhaps I’d like to opt-out of these advertisements given that I am already bombarded by a vast number of advertisements everyday.
Eventually all companies grow up though and the focus becomes dollars and cents. While I’m not convinced that Facebook’s new system alone will generate a massive amount of income for them within Facebook given the historically horrendous click-thru rates on ads; when Facebook decides to place their ads throughout the web I think they may revolutionize the advertising industry. In the meantime, Facebook will continue to optimize their ads to make you more likely to respond to them. There’s no opting-out of that.
Do you think this inability to opt-out makes Facebook evil?
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The fact that they own all the stuff we upload makes them very evil.
Comment by Niall — November 8, 2007 @ 8:50 am
Hell yeah. I don't people to know everything I'm a fan of. I also don't want to know about what other people do with their brand unless I opted in. My newsfeed is valuable because it has relevant information about my friends in it. Being an advance user of facebook makes it difficult to accept this without having the feature to limit/opt-out.
Comment by Hiren Patel — November 8, 2007 @ 9:33 am
Hell yeah. I don't people to know everything I'm a fan of. I also don't want to know about what other people do with their brand unless I opted in. My newsfeed is valuable because it has relevant information about my friends in it. Being an advance user of facebook makes it difficult to accept this without having the feature to limit/opt-out.
Comment by Hiren Patel — November 8, 2007 @ 10:33 am
They only way to opt-out is to pressure your friends not to opt-in. I say everyone that is concerned about this should send out a bulletin telling their friends that they would prefer not to get these feeds. If enough people show dislike friends or wannabe friends will not do it because of the fear that you may de-friend them.The consumer always have the power. We just have to use it. For the record I do support the idea of Facebook making money for proving their service but they don't have to force me into taking part into their experiment.
Comment by coolrepublica — November 8, 2007 @ 12:51 pm
Google's social app is coming!!
Comment by Ramblist — November 8, 2007 @ 12:52 pm
Not being able to delete your profile if you decide to get out, is evil.
Comment by Niall — November 8, 2007 @ 1:20 pm
The fact that they own all the stuff we upload makes them very evil.
Comment by Niall — November 8, 2007 @ 12:50 pm
They only way to opt-out is to pressure your friends not to opt-in. I say everyone that is concerned about this should send out a bulletin telling their friends that they would prefer not to get these feeds. If enough people show dislike friends or wannabe friends will not do it because of the fear that you may de-friend them.
The consumer always have the power. We just have to use it.
For the record I do support the idea of Facebook making money for proving their service but they don't have to force me into taking part into their experiment.
Comment by coolrepublica — November 8, 2007 @ 1:51 pm
Not being able to delete your profile if you decide to get out, is evil.
Comment by Niall — November 8, 2007 @ 5:20 pm
Vampires, Zombies apps… that's evil. I actually removed one of my friends (admittedly not a close one) because I was getting too many of those damn invitations. I suspect that I'd do the same if my Newsfeed ends up loaded with a bunch of Pepsi ads.
Comment by Jon Nichols — November 8, 2007 @ 11:39 pm
Vampires, Zombies apps… that's evil. I actually removed one of my friends (admittedly not a close one) because I was getting too many of those damn invitations. I suspect that I'd do the same if my Newsfeed ends up loaded with a bunch of Pepsi ads.
Comment by Jon Nichols — November 9, 2007 @ 12:39 am
[...] in November I asked if Facebook is evil. At the time, the post was referencing Beacon which was eventually killed. For argument’s [...]
Pingback by Is Facebook Evil? Part 2 - The Unofficial Facebook Blog — May 16, 2008 @ 3:29 pm
I don't like Face book it has ruined everything and I am feeling sadened by it.
Comment by Harlow — April 29, 2009 @ 8:59 pm
facebook is awesome, you losers have to get a life and stop hating on this site.
ps. hi how are you guyz
Comment by your mom — December 2, 2009 @ 5:00 pm
Facebook will suck out time from your day, time that you could have spent on something creative or productive. If facebook is the only place that you feel you can be creative then that's a bit sad but it certainly wont make you productive! I was briefly on facebook, the photo of "myself" was never me (I am not silly) my profile was totally fictitious (soon found out by people at work!) But I learned about the way that it works on diferent levels and that it can be used to alienate individuals who rely on it. I would imagine that Facebook bullying is common and that the perpetrators feel no guilt at all as they are are only talking to a computer screen! I can see that Facebook has probably passed the initial fun stage and is now entering the business of making as much money as it can; the people controlling it would do well to read a recent book by John Kay called Ubiquity. They will of course ignore the advice in the book (no company ever acts 100% on advice they are given) and eventually fade away, replaced by something far superior! (Until they go the same way).
Comment by JonnyBoy — September 15, 2010 @ 5:36 pm