Have you considered all evidence and not just the evidence which confirms your existing worldview?
The downsides that are mentioned are deteriorating discourse, misinformation, false expectations and social pressure etc. I like to think I have avoided these.
That's 1 data point against. I'll have to see more thorough evidence to concede FB is a net negative.
There is a lot of evidence coming out in India right now about how they influenced the elections in favour of the current ruling party. A party that has been involved in such shenanigans as demonetisation, Hindu nationalism, anti-Muslim rhetoric, weakening of the judiciary, complete media capture, and an absolutely abysmal management of the covid situation culminating in a 30% drop in GDP. If that is not evidence of net value, I don't know what is.
I don't see how the number of chats I have is an exclusive measure of value of that platform. That is but one metric.
> I get to keep tabs on friends without actively having to reach out. So people don't become strangers over time.
This is a fundamental perversion of the notion of social interaction. It proposes an argument whose form and frame substitutes people and relationships for a passive consumption of images of people and relationships. Instead of people becoming strangers over time (which is normal and healthy), everyone is transformed into simulacra of acquaintances or friends instantly; you are implicitly, automatically estranged from the beginning. Your Facebook-mediated relationships last longer than they would have without Facebook precisely because of its impersonal and inauthentic character which absolves you of the real effort otherwise required to have an authentic relationship.
To use it is to delegate an always-increasing portion of your social existence to the black-box of the Zuckertron, with all of the political, ideological, and economic implications, caveats, and perturbances that come with it. To wit: you've already accepted the argument, and you're here defending it with evidence amounting to 'everyone else plugged into the Borg cube is plugged into the Borg cube, together we all cube the Borg cube'.
Needless to say, I am skeptical that the niche Facebook has carved out for itself as the arbiter of who-and-what-I-see-and-how and who-and-what-sees-me-and-how is likely to work out in my favor.
Recommended reading: The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction, Walter Benjamin https://web.mit.edu/allanmc/www/benjamin.pdf
I curate my friends list and often prune connections I have drifted away from. The friends I keep on FB are people I want to continue to be friends with. Because people were on my friends list and I saw them online in my periphery, I was more comfortable reaching out to them when I visited their cities after many years. Granted, there are some people who were, and will remain casual acquaintances - but having or not having them in my feed has no effect on me that I can tell.
So I do not think being able to keep tabs is an argument for passive consumption of people. Indeed, it has helped me actively reconnect. I do not agree that using FB is delegating an ever increasing portion of my social existence to the "black-box of the Zuckertron". I do not use FB as a substitute for people I can connect with in person. I also think you are mis-characterizing my argument under the influence of your feelings about FB.
everyone starts off human
then money distorts things
I have seen a lot of very honest people get suckered into doing things they never would
once money starts coming in, people's morals change to accommodate how they make money
Not everyone can be like Craig Newmark etc. and be indifferent to money
Goes for software engineers personally as well, the difference between working on something that's ethical and working on something that isn't probably is the difference between a comfortable five figure salary and an absurd six figure one, not living in a subway station
One of the biggest errors in the movie is its portrayal of his motivation—by my understanding, he was already dating his wife (Priscilla Chan) before he wrote the first line of code for thefacebook.com.
I take no position here on his beliefs, morality, etc. I don’t actually know the man. And there’s no doubt he has some uncanny mannerisms. But the brooding antisocial fast-talking nerd is Jessie Eisenberg, not Mark Zuckerberg. Watch The Social Network and Zombieland back to back and you’ll see.
For me personally the best "joke" (I think it turned out to be) was to propose freenode profile pages and friends lists. (IRC 3.0!) The mere suggestion made the nerds really angry. When I realized it was a joke I did what all comedians do and added additional puns like putting advertisement on the profiles. Safe to say my development effort was as bad as the response.
>Dumb fucks.