[lend000]

One of those is not the like others (Facebook). Facebook is the only one that wasn't a huge next step in the progression of an established industry. It was an incremental improvement in a fledgling social network industry, and it's questionable how much value it actually adds to (or detracts from) society. Compare this to Google which is indeed a force of good (not just their main product, but the numerous free technologies they have given to society like Chrome, Golang, QUIC, Tensorflow, etc.) and Uber/Airbnb, which have made people 'freer' in the sense that it is much cheaper to travel and get out now, and then Tesla of course is ushering in an eco-friendly transportation revolution.

The grandiose self-vision is annoying PR, but at least some of the companies have a fair amount to back it up with. Facebook is just the next iteration of Microsoft in my opinion -- they took a huge early lead with a superior product in a new industry, but now they're kind of evil and they will ride their market share for many decades.

[rhizome]

It was an incremental improvement in a fledgling social network industry

And even then, it was only because Friendster was crippled by scaling problems and MySpace was snowed under with self-promotion that Facebook even had a path out of the university populations to which they initially restricted themselves.

[gaius]

I think one thing that FB got right was disallowing any customisation of your own profile. That made MySpace completely unusable.

[rhizome]

Very good point. MySpace had zero consistency of experience.