[AndrewStephens]

Sorry, I was imprecise with my comparison. A better analogy would be that the USPS doesn't scan your post to figure out which pieces of mail you are likely to actually look at and then affix stickers to those letters advertising related products.

[ty6853]

USPS scans your mails and then includes advertising with this scans when you get the feed in informed delivery.

[atrus]

Yes, but the advertising images are directly related (a T-mobile mailpiece gets a T-mobile png)

[ty6853]

I'm definitely not saying it's the same as facebook, but it's an example of content curation based on 3rd party input. Selective advertising reaches a place of prominence, ty6853 doesn't get a special image when I send a letter to Santa.

[atrus]

No, it's buying a service. They aren't curating, they're taking anyones money and sending anything that fits in their guidelines. There's nothing stopping you from displaying your image to a bunch of people.

https://www.usps.com/business/informed-delivery.htm

The image that goes with the mail is required even.

[ty6853]

Yes it's all very different when you use different rhetoric, right?

"Buying a service" is how advertisers get placement of certain content curated.

If it fits in the guidelines, you get the special placement and image, if it doesn't fit the special guidelines, you can draw it on your mails and it gets scanned and all they see is the scan. I can draw a swastika on the front of my envelope and it will show up on the feed (but only in black and white), but can I get the swastika on the advertisement image in color? IDK because the link you sent was literally just tossing back what I already mentioned which is informed delivery, not a link to their policies (the policies themselves are a bit vague, but under them it appears not, and they definitely have stronger 'guidelines' than the black and white for instance regarding weapons).

If your content on Facebook 'fits the guidelines' and the guys 'buying the service' benefit from it, then it gets curated more strongly. If it fits other less strict guidelines, I can still see it. But there's nothing stopping you from paying facebook lots of money and getting something that fits their guidelines displayed more prominently, so that wouldn't be curation!

Your argument is highly specious. "Buying a service" is a total red herring, and "guidelines" is just a hack here so you can pivot around it's a mechanism by which the curation happens.

As for the image, you claim it's required, but my mails don't get it, it appears to be 'required' as part of a particular 'campaign'. I have no trouble believing that some services might require an image, but this doesn't somehow disprove curation.