[sparkzilla]

I'm surprised the author didn't mention that Facebook has a history of screwing small business owners.

A few years ago I spent more than $4000 on Facebook to build up about 4000 fans for a karaoke venue I ran at the time. I'd put some news out, and reach most of the fans. Then Facebook told me that to reach all of my fans I would now have to "boost" my posts, while the company simultaneously cut the organic reach to the fans I had paid them for.

They used the excuse that "people have to much stuff on their feed" but we all know that is BS. If I had known they would have done that I would never have bothered in the first place. Why help a company build its audience for you to be treated poorly? I suspect many many small business people feel that same way, and will abandon Facebook as soon as a less greedy alternative comes along.

[alexbeloi]

>They used the excuse that "people have to much stuff on their feed" but we all know that is BS.

It's really not BS. People's feeds are flooded with content from tons of sources.

Why would posts from company that I've 'liked' get guaranteed display when family/friends/friends-of-friends don't get that treatment. Moreover what if I've 'liked' 100+ bands/restaurants/celebrities/businesses/news-sources, they can easily produce enough posts each day that I would never scroll far enough see all of it, nor would I want to.

The thing you want already exists and is called a newsletter.

[sparkzilla]

It's not really a choice between a feed tuned to extract cash from small businesses and a newsletter though, is it? People were seeing my business's posts without any complaint until Facebook throttled the reach. I was also a Facebook user at that time, and didn't notice any particular problem either from pages that I follow. Now we get to see what Facebook thinks makes the most money for itself.

[659087]

> I suspect many many small business people feel that same way, and will abandon Facebook as soon as a less greedy alternative comes along.

By sticking around on Facebook waiting for this to happen, you're also contributing to it not happening.

[sparkzilla]

The business closed. And, I'm doing my part...

[Santosh83]

> I suspect many many small business people feel > that same way, and will abandon Facebook as soon > as a less greedy alternative comes along.

I guess the tough part is getting the users on to another platform. Businesses will then naturally follow, but convincing the users to switch when they and everyone they know are entrenched in FB is hard to say the least.