What do you want as a business? The void of platforms like X? Or the actual people that took the time to goes to your website to learn more about your offering.

You want the most customers for the least effort, which is X.

unfortunately… exactly this

The way I look at it: social media makes you aware of their presence. Actually conducting business usually happens elsewhere. That elsewhere may be physical or virtual.

Another way to look at it is that depending upon social media for anything beyond promotion leaves you at the whim of those companies. Facebook only let's viewers see a limited slice of information unless they log in. Places that used Twitter as a newsfeed ended up showing chaotic junk when Twitter became X, unless the user was logged in. I was doing a web search yesterday that turned up a lot of Yelp results. I didn't realize that Yelp was still a thing. Judging from the content, it probably isn't. The list goes on. As a potential customer, it leaves me with a very dim view of the companies that rely upon social media instead of supplementing their presence with social media.

> Another way to look at it is that depending upon social media for anything beyond promotion leaves you at the whim of those companies.

Another instance of that is when your account at these proprietary companies simply disappears for no reason. It is far too risky to depend on them.

A long-time friend, for example, has a decades old business which had a 15+ year presence on facebook. A few weeks ago the account just silently disappeared. Obviously any response from facebook is impossible to obtain.

Luckily they also have their own website with all the content.