This isnt right, mostly because facebook was never great.

There was a period of time that I had numerous relatives who literally could not navigate the internet outside of facebook.

The wife of a cousin would literally start her session at the computer by typing "facebook" into google and then clicking the top result. That search on google in lieu of bookmarking it or typing facebook.com or literally any other way of getting to the site was the one thing she did on the internet that was not internal to facebook. FOR YEARS.

And yes I'm old, but I'm not that old. We're talking Gen-X.

During that odd period where the web was getting more sophisticated but people still joked about needing their twelve year old relative to fix their computer for them, many, MANY people thought facebook was great.

It was the same period of time when Apple was pushing hard on "Buy our very expensive, sleek looking, low-value, walled garden computers and everyone will know what a trendy creative counterculture person you are" as their marketing approach.

It was always going to go that way. Any social media site is going to go that way.

Even Lemmy will one day go that way.

Here's the program:

1. Build a platform that people like using.
2. As more people use it, the creators will need more money to keep it up.
3. Realize there's much monies to be had.
4. Hire marketing and sales people
5. The platform becomes a company, sell to the highest bidder.
6. The platform implements algorithms that make them more money.
7. The algorithms make people hate the site.
8. Do many unpopular things to kick out the real content creators that once made the platform thrive.
9. The company is left with casual users that don't know anything about the platform, they're just there to find out what burger joint to go to in San Antonio or which caulk is best to use for an outdoor shower.
10. The company is very successful because they can push anything to the casual user and they will accept it as advice instead of what it really is - ads or algorithms to enrage them (because thats where the real money is - social media platforms keep you online longer if they piss you off)
11. Make huge profits for a while then become a latter-day digg