Don't take me too seriously, but I wonder if there's a socially-valuable benefit here to the advertising industry, since it makes it easier for anyone to jump in and run for office.
Don't take me too seriously, either, but I would say it makes it easier to translate money into other things. The surveillance economy is all about collecting information and renting it to the highest bidder. Buying crap you don't need? Voting for X instead of Y? Being sent to jail for doing Z? It doesn't matter -- money talks.
That's a solid point. Most people don't realize this, but Trump's path to re-election is really just a handful of key counties in a handful of key states. So long as he brings jerrrbbsss to those areas, he's going to win.
If Zuck starts building FB data or operations centers in flyover, America, that'll all but confirm his intentions to run.
Let's say Trump doesn't get impeached or bored with the job, and runs for reelection in 2020. There are almost no viable Democrats younger than retirement age, and Zuck could drop a few billion on the primary and general. Or let's say that Trump serves through 2024. As long as Zuck picks a party instead of going full Ross Perot, he only has to shift a few hundred thousand voters in the right places.