[simonh]

I think that's missing why so many people use and like facebook. Personally I can't stand it, but I know how to track down and use forums, discord servers, Reddit groups, etc for topics I enjoy.

However for a vast swathe of non-tech savvy ordinary people Facebook provides a simple, complete, highly functional way to keep in touch with family and friends and socialise online. For the vast majority of these people using special purpose tools, apps and forums is way too much.

I don't like it or the company, but it's massively popular for very good reasons and it's no point pretending those reasons don't exist.

[knoke]

I didn't elaborate on this. But this is what I meant when I pointed out my possible privilege. I don't want to condemn people who use it; and it might indeed be a very good communication tool for many people. I know how WhatsApp has changed my elder relatives' way of communicating and I can't imagine that anything else but Facebook's power to create size effects did this...

But I'm very sure that it doesn't need Facebook to do this right. It could be anything else.