The 3 Things.....About Facebook

Recently, Facebook went public, and all the complaints about Facebook ON Facebook multiplied exponentially. Even I was not immune to bitching about the operation of my social media provider. Stepping back and looking at it rationally, however, people have little to complain about.

1) Facebook is a FREE SERVICE.

I couldn't alter the font-type any more on the last two words. Bold, underline, and italic are not enough to stress this most important fact to most of the complaints. Basically, the fact that Mr. Zuckerberg kept his website free to use for everyone automatically allows him to auto-answer every complaint with "Go Fuck Yourself." Because you aren't paying for a service, you have no say on what that service does with IT'S OWN CODE. Hate Timeline? MySpace is still open. The new layout giving you fits? Go to Google + and talk to none of your friends. Pics won't upload? I hear Microsoft has a new social network. Wonder how many people are using that....

Pictured: Zuckerberg reading Facebook improvement suggestions.

2) Facebook will NOT use your private information, no matter how much you hear otherwise.

There are a handful of conspiracy theorists that believe that if they input personal information, such as address, date of birth, and gender, that that information goes to advertisers and fan pages. I can see basic demographics on my fan page, such as age, region, and gender, but that's it. No specific addresses, no Social Security numbers. Before you say "Yeah, Soop, but the ads on the right side are based on stuff I post and comment", listen to what you JUST SAID. IF you post something on Facebook, or comment on something on Facebook, it is NOT PRIVATE. THAT is the information they use. The code does not read minds, it finds keywords (most likely misspelled) and targets ads to those keywords. Pretty simple.

3) YOU are NOT the customer.


As much as people tell you that you are Facebook's customer, think about it. Do they make money from a single user? The short answer is: "You're a dumbass." The long answer is that the money that Facebook makes comes from advertisers. The product they sell is access to you. They have over 10 gajillion people they can use as product. Here is a typical Facebook marketing conversation:

Advertiser: "What can we get from your company?"
FB: "Access to 10 gajillion people EVERYDAY."
Advertiser: "Here is our checkbook."

The best part? They don't pay taxes on their product, like the retail businesses and warehouses do. That should start a whole new level of pitchfork and torch carrying. Enjoy!