[kridsdale3]

I don't dislike the analogy. I eventually reached a point where I couldn't stomach the TikTok-ification of the product that Zuck forced us to keep marching towards, so I left.

Personally I agree with your point, less social media is better. I personally never go to Facebook anymore and set up app limits on my phone for my health. I won't let my kids use it at all.

But I worked at a company and drew a considerable salary, so I did what I was expected to do to make the product make money.

[palata]

> But I worked at a company and drew a considerable salary, so I did what I was expected to do to make the product make money.

I appreciate the honesty here.

And this is exactly why we need regulations.

[dataflow]

> I couldn't stomach the TikTok-ification

This seems like such a bizarre thing to put your finger on in the middle of an otherwise seemingly sincere post. Of all the hatred people have had toward Facebook the past > decade, I don't think "it's too much like TikTok" was the cause that has kept them up at night. If anything there are a ton of people who would much rather TikTok could be replaced by Facebook, so that at least the national security implications would be less dire in their eyes.

But yeah:

> But I worked at a company and drew a considerable salary

nice to admit what everybody knew. With the kind of compensation Facebook gave, I doubt many would've behaved differently.

[nycdatasci]

Just take the win. It seems like such a bizarre thing to nitpick like this with a prior employee that has voluntarily opened up to you and agreed with many of your points.

[dataflow]

I really wanted to, but that bit wasn't some minor detail. It felt pretty darn central to the whole thing, as it undermined what seemed like the central point.

Imagine this from a tobacco-company ex-salesman: "I don't let my kids smoke, I don't think it's healthy. I eventually left Camel because I couldn't stomach the Marlboro-ification of our product." So what we're being told is... after so many years of people complaining tobacco is harmful, they're saying they knew that all along and would've been totally cool with it while the money was coming in, but the straw that actually broke their (pardon the pun) Camel's back was that... their product suddenly started resembling their competitor's?? Or perhaps they're saying they don't believe it was harmful until the product stopped differentiating itself from their competitor's (but then the salary aspect would've been moot before that point)? And, either way... so we are reading all this after the rest of the world has been (pardon the second pun) fuming for much longer over much more concerning reasons?

It seems pretty darn important to understand what the regret is -- and I don't even mean this for judgment purposes (although it would inevitably impact that); I mean this for the larger purpose of understanding the thought process itself, for dealing with it in the future. i.e. if the reality we're facing is that product differentiation is what keeps people in such positions, rather than a disregard or misunderstanding of the societal or public-health impact, that's... news to me. And so (to me, anyway) this seems like an absolutely crucial detail to unpack, not an unimportant detail to gloss over.

But, yes, I very much appreciate that they shared this, and I'm sure it wasn't easy to in any case.