Comment to 'This disgusting comp...'
  • I agree wholeheartedly about looking broader and not concentrating on Facebook or any one  particular manifestation of rampant greed like that. In a way I see this situation as an opportunity to bugfix the system. See, Facebook case is a good example of abject failure of modern societal structures. It’s also big enough and impactful enough to be worth undoing (at least one fingernail off the devil). Though it may be a better look if we present the argument with abstraction...

    The greatest value of Internet is a function of the global community framework, which is meant to be universally accessible and distributed. A person can be limited by the framework of their country policies, family or physical situation, their job constraints, you name it. At the same point we have this parallel universe which has (had?) the architecture allowing for close to equal opportunity for everyone. Learn, communicate, build, work, lead - it’s all there. Now, we have a global Internet entity that creates a walled garden where narratives are determined by ONE person, who repeatedly demonstrates malicious motives. The value they create for the community is not that great - most of it comes from the scale of our own commitment to it. In other words it’s a classic cases of runaway inequality where the entity on top end of distribution just rides the wave of exponential growth, simultaneously depressing other entities towards the bottom. That’s normal and is how natural phenomena work in general - avalanches, locust infestations, droughts, even energy distribution in cosmic bodies. Inequality tendencies tend to exponentially accelerate growth when they have a self-reinforcement property. 

    For humanity to strive we must work towards achieving a state of harmony. Not equality, god forbid, but a state of equilibrium where humans actively seek and fulfill responsibilities, get rewarded proportionally to their effort and maintain dignity. We recognised long ago that monopolies must be controlled, that bottom-end should be supported and that individuals are invariably fallible. So, we largely got rid of kings, we detest totalitarianism and try to create systems that check power balances. 

    Whatever happened to the Internet then? Why do we allow a system to exist where one person can dictate what 90% of adult population gets to see, say and know? It’s a functional global monopoly with immoral agenda. 

    Ideally I’d like to see Facebook thrive (even if just to continue supporting React), so that whoever comes after could strive and build great thing too. But it has to be done with checks and balances that ensure that their positive impact is maximised and negative minimised. At the moment one way to rally people and authorities is to point finger toward harmful effects of Facebook proliferation.