If there’s only one certainty in life, it’s change. If there’s only one certainty in social media, it’s that people will hate Facebook changes for a little while, but will get used to them and adapt. It happens every time. This will be no different.
There has been outrage over the recent changes and more keep rolling in from f8. We will moan. We will gripe. We will swear off the site, but that won’t last. Eventually (within days, even hours) we’ll be back on Facebook figuring out where they moved everything and realizing that, once again, the change wasn’t as bad as we thought.
Here’s Timeline. It’s a big change. People will hate it. Then they will use it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hzPEPfJHfKU
These changes don’t seem so bad. It’s the fact that there are changes at all that will get people up in arms. Until they are willing to do something about it (such as switch to Google+) Facebook will continue to do what they think is best for their community and their bottom line (and not in that particular order). They have that right. They’ve earned that right.
We just need to either accept it or move on. Most will accept it, and that’s fine.
For now.
Complaints will go unheard
The demotivational poster above was posted on Facebook, went viral on Twitter, and hit Digg and Reddit like all funny truths do. It’s sad, funny, and real. We are not the users. We are the prize. It is our data and our usage that drives every penny given to Facebook by businesses, organizations, and even governments.
We’re for sale.
That’s not to say Facebook is evil. Google has been doing it for years. Yahoo! did it before either of them. Our attention is what drives eCommerce and online marketing alike. Without us, there would be no way that sites like Facebook, Zynga, Tagged.com, or LinkedIn would have thrived and been profitable.
If we accept that, then we accept that we have very little power as individuals. We can complain all we want but the only factor that matters is the bottom line. These changes are innovative to be sure, but they’re defensive maneuvers to stave off the coming Google+ storm that is brewing in Facebook’s horizon.
There’s only one thing that can make a difference. Leaving Facebook is the only way to send a message. Complaining does nothing if we continue to use the service. As such, logic dictates that if we’re going to continue to use the service, there’s no need to continue to complain. Use it. Get used to it. Learn to like it or continue to hate it.
Just stop complaining about it if you’re going to stay. It’s futile.
Facebook will be knocked off its high horse someday by Google+ or someone else. Even at 800 million users, there’s no such thing as “too big to fail” on the internet. Something else will rise. In the meantime, either make a statement by leaving Facebook or don’t make a statement at all. Nobody’s listening.
I understand your point, essentially the ‘vote with your wallet’ concept from retail and it is true that we are not Facebook’s customer. However, to borrow from the poster above, if you don’t care for the livestock you have nothing to take to market, so the user’s opinions are valid feedback for the company. A complaint from someone who has cancelled their membership is of little value because that person is already lost. The point of complaining is to give the company the opportunity to improve while maintaining a vested interest and relevance to its bottom line. The fact that Facebook will need to sort out the actionable complaints from they myriad of knee-jerk change reactions is just a fact of life that web designers deal with every day.