[septimus111]

So much cynicism here! Facebook knows they have to appeal to teenagers and so they are working on features that do (c.f. success of Snapchat). Yes, perhaps it would be better if teenagers spent their time reading Kant instead of sharing silly pictures! :)

[laughingman2]

The cynicism is well justified.

Facebook hires top talent, its sad that the top talent want to work on such problems for making profit instead of something else.

The pioneers of internet like J. C. R. Licklider had grand visions, sad that the large part of current intellect pool only want to sell out personal data and make money.

[septimus111]

I agree that it's a shame our society doesn't place more importance on these 'grand visions'. That being said, I think the reason so many people are learning programming and studying computing is because there are big companies like FB where they can make a good living. So it's not like corporations are 'stealing' the talent away from academia, etc.