Don't Quit Facebook.... Do This Instead
I’m talking to all you digital natives, fellow internet practitioners and keyboard activists.
Why should we give Facebook and other media platforms another chance at all?
Facebook, Twitter and Google are all superior products.
They have years, even decades head starts on viable competition. I honestly have a hard time imagining a life without certain tools, like Google Suite. In that sense I'm "captive" but it doesn't stop me from creating a proton mail account. I'll address this in a moment.
The critical failing of these companies is their leadership–they're under control of people who at best, don't respect the constitution that created the guiderails to build their empire, and at worst are bad actors with malign intent. Well, the shit rolls down hill, as they say. I would suggest that it's much easier to go after a few people at the top than to endeavor to topple the whole company. Especially if these people have anything to do with criminal activity. That one's a topic for another day.
It’s all about the Network Effects and Switching Costs
While the sentiment to just "Leave" is one I respect and, even resonate with, one thing that my experience taught me is that it's no small thing to affect a mass migration away from an established social media platform. The value of social media platforms is their network effects. Repeat that again, the value of social media is their network.
“Believe me, all companies have an economic incentive to make it as costly as possible for you to switch, hence why they encourage you to host your whole life and business with them. ”
Another valueable term to learn is "switching costs." All the big tech companies know this term. Apple knows this term. This refers to how easy or difficult it is for people to migrate to a competing solution. When the switching costs are high, people think twice before leaving. When the switching costs are low, people can easily leave and never come back. Believe me, all companies have an economic incentive to make it as costly as possible for you to switch, hence why they encourage you to host your whole life and business with them.
So, to my point: On a "free platform," where your personal information is the payment, you can inflict economic damage by keeping your profile enabled but withdrawing your attention to a competing platform.
It literally costs you nothing to keep your profile but remain inactive. Plus, you actually "burden" these platforms with your inactive accounts. And it costs you nothing to switch to another platform as your primary.
Now we're turning the table on these tech companies with regard to their precious switching costs. The question now is, how much does it cost the platform to "lose" you, and you want that number front-and-center of their daily board meetings.
these companies can be reorganized under better leadership.
They can be sent on a trajectory that's much more beneficial to its primary stakeholders, it's users. We're their primary stakeholders but they don't want us to know it. There are multiple legal avenues for affecting a sea change in policy by Big Tech. That also will be a topic for another day.
Here's how to reclaim your digital soveriegnty and hit Big Tech where it hurts.
1. Starve the beast.
The social media enterprises of yesterday operate on a business model of self-disclosure and increasing share of your attention. Stop giving them more private information than necessary. You don't need to add every job you've ever worked on there. If you're a real rebel you can even salt your profile with disinfo. Disable their trackers by removing them from your phone. Do not download the apps of companies offensive to free speech. You never know what "features" they're piggybacking onto your hard drive. In the case of Facebook, I'm only going get on Facebook on my desktop browser. I deleted Messenger off my phone. Facebook now wants me to download their Messenger app to my desktop in order to do video chat. I say f-that.
2. Use them like they use you.
They use us for content to ultimately gain our devout attention so they can sell it back to us through ads and clicks, mine our data our data and sell it to other companies you've never heard of. Your attention is their gold mine. The quid-pro-quo, or devils-bargain, as the case may be, is that we use them to "stay connected." For my fellow internet professionals, that means concentrate your creative output on these platforms “on the mouth of the funnel activities” and keep your best stuff off-platform (or differently platformed). If you're politically inclined, is probably best to share content of a political nature on platforms that are friendly to free speech.
3. Create a distributed online presence with no single point-of-failure.
This is the foundation of an online presence that's built endure. Keep offline backups of all your content hosted on social media platforms – ideally on your own website, but at least keep a copy on your hard drive. There are so many backup services you have no excuse to ever lose a file due to single point dependency. I like having distribution across multiple online communication channels and I pay for that privelege. Yes, it’s nice getting free distribution on platforms like Youtube, but recognize that their service level agreement with you is going to reflect that.
4. Practice online Social Distancing.
Cancel “woke” platforms. Turnabout is fair play. Social media is not the place to change people's minds. But, as I'm sure you've noticed, it IS a place where people feel entitled to shout every curse word and foul utterance they would never dream of using in real life. Businesses need to understand that "Inclusiveness Doctrine" is a regression to the mean. It's bad for your business, it's bad for your brand and it's bad for your wellbeing. In business we say concentrate on likely customers, not people who aren't looking for what you have. If somebody offends you, politely "cancel them" from your digital experience. You'll both be better off for it. If you want to stay friends but everything they post makes your blood boil, kindly “unfollow” them. This way, you can stay “connected” without listening to all their BS.
In Closing:
The upshot to all of this is you'll find yourself reclaiming your time.
You'll experience less pressure to engage in futile "battles of wits" online.
One thing I do is intentionally bait people I don't want into identifying themselves.
Go build your own home on the web. It's surprisingly cheap and everybody should have a space to call their own. If you need any help, give me a shout.