Maybe Facebook also produces a lot of ill. Any claim about the final impact of Facebook is claim to be able to sum up the good and the evil FB does and get a definite value. That's a pretty challenging argument.
The internet forms the basis of this core technology and Facebook simply made it easier to use.
It's not like if Facebook goes away we're going to go back to SMS and expensive international phone calls. This method of communication was going to happen regardless. And there are clearly alternatives that exist today with different funding models.
Can you name a single alternative at their scale with a business plan that is viable long term and not state run or state supported?
Provided by some company via a paid service or ads. Most commonly an ISP monopoly or oligopoly, or a large service monopoly, in nearly all nations. Even if you run your own email server, it's not free, you're paying for the network access to do it.
> MSN video calls
Subsidized by an operating system monopoly.
> Google Talk
Subsidized by a search monopoly.
> Skype
Which was never able stand on its own profitable two feet. It was subsidized first by investor money, then by an auction monopoly, then by an operating system monopoly.
Subsidized by a social monopoly.
> All "for free" +plus no-ads.
Nope. All paid for with monopolies and or ads.
But that's the structure of any logical argument. If someone says X is only A, I will describe how I see plenty of B in X, which by itself doesn't say there is not plenty of A in X too. IE, One person makes a generalization, another points to an exception or several exceptions.
I do think it's important to remember that Facebook is really doing nothing technologically amazing to allow that communication -- voice or text -- across geographical borders.
Indeed, Facebook pretty much only amalgamates blogs, chat, forums and such. But given it's only making technological steps of some small-to-medium degrees, if the love isn't justified, then neither should the hate be justified? Currently, Facebook gets both.
The hate is because they collect so much data, and share and sell it so carelessly. Google collects at least as much data, for sure. But as far as I know, they just monetize it through their ad services, and don't actually provide it to others.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/13/technology/facebook-data-...
Facebook did a lot of difficult things (if they weren't difficult others would have done them sooner) whose end result is that humans around the world get a lot of benefit. Focusing on whether Facebook's advances were "technological" is beside the point. (If anything packaging the technology in such a way that people can actually use it can easily be more of an "amazing advancement" than making the technology in the first place).
> nor is connecting the communication mechanisms of the world something that cannot be done without harvesting all of our personal data.
I'm not convinced. Making communication usable may well require an interface that adapts to the individual user. Again, ultimately, if it's so easy to do it better then why hasn't anyone else managed it?
I'm not even saying the "open" experience is not often without frustration. It absolutely is. Part of Facebook's success is connecting the frustrating parts about the internet and making it usable for normal people. But it's not like Facebook achieved some amazing technological advancement, nor is connecting the communication mechanisms of the world something that cannot be done without harvesting all of our personal data.