[wsdookadr]

There is no evidence that anyone actually needs FB/IG/Threads.

If tommorow Meta shuts down and the entirety of its assets, all the money, all the infrastructure and the people get repurposed to do science instead of reels, commercials, cat videos, selfies and trending videos, that would be great.

[relyks]

I disagree with this. Even though I'm unhappy with Facebook/Meta and I believe the world would have been better off without the current iteration of their products, lots of small businesses depend on their platforms for their marketing/advertising needs and success in general. Their instant messaging platforms like Messenger/WhatsApp are essential communication tools used by literally millions of users. There is also an argument to be made that Facebook has allowed relationships/connections to be preserved that would've eventually ceased. Facebook/Instagram are terrible tools for creating new relationships or social networks though

[cj]

I’m not a Facebook fan by any stretch of the imagination, but it’s true that Facebook is what a lot of small businesses rely on.

It’s a good platform for certain types of businesses to share information with a lot of people in a channel other than email. Think gyms, restaurants, salons, laundromats, etc.

And then there are people whose businesses run on Facebook. Not that it’s a common thing, but I actually pay a fitness instructor $25/mo to join daily group fitness classes that anre available exclusively via Facebook Live.

If Facebook were to go away, the biggest missing piece up for grabs would be a common platform used by a lot of people to broadcast information to people who share things in common.

[ryandrake]

Why couldn't these businesses move back to whatever they relied on pre-Facebook, pre-Instagram?

[maximus-decimus]

What makes you believe they existed pre-Facebook?

If they depend on facebook, it's like asking car mechanics to go back to whatever they were doing before cars were invented.

[kibwen]

Small businesses marketed before the existence Facebook, and people messaged before the existence of Facebook. They aren't doing anything special other than being the beneficiaries of the network-effect-du-jour.

[miguelazo]

>Their instant messaging platforms like Messenger/WhatsApp are essential communication tools used by literally millions of users.

As if in the absence of this parasitic monopoly an alternative couldn’t be spun up in a matter of days, maybe weeks, given modern frameworks and cloud infrastructure. Hell, they bought WhatsApp. Most of what they have done to it just made it worse or knocked off features from other platforms like Telegram.

[fragmede]

Is this based on any sort of understanding of the economy behind FB/IG/Threads, or do you just not like them? Because like it or not, people's livelihoods are being run off those things these days, which amounts to people needing FB/IG/Threads.

[dranden]

How much of that economy actually matters? Who benefits from the transfer of products/services here? It's not the end users for the most part. Some people are able to benefit from it, but is that a large segment of any population? And is that something that we really feel is a necessary market?

I think we need to be able to take a look at ourselves and evaluate what's chaff as tech evolves.

[ipaddr]

Science can be a money pit, waste of time and threat to health if not directed properly. All that money based on what is funded now would go to studying the effects of coffee or if red wine is good or bad for health with some minor studies that time change sleeping habits and screentime vs teens vaping.

[sinistersnare]

Yeah let's let the oligarchs have their money! They are best-case as bad as worst-case research funding! Therefore they should have all that power!

[austhrow743]

What's the point of doing the science if we're not going to use the resulting output for things that aren't needs? Why have the needs at all if we dont get to have wants?

[nvarsj]

No offence but you live in an out of touch worldview. A majority of the world uses instagram/fb. Every single non techy adult I know uses instagram regularly to stay in touch with their social circle. Older generations use FB. Most people value social connection over “doing science”, believe it or not.

[eru]

You could say the same thing about any entertainment. Or even any food that goes beyond the bare necessities of nutrition, and just tastes better.

[andsoitis]

Not everything that humans create need to be needed for it to be a legitimate pursuit.

Desire is a stronger force in this universe than need.

[khazhoux]

I also would like things that I personally do not use, to be shut down.