Some years ago, many, if we're talking "social network" (remember Hi5?) time, I was one of the first persons on FB in my country: we were but a few who believed we had a real possibility of having the true means of bringing all the world together and, with that, take on a brand new paradigm that could change human history forever. Me, as millions of people all over the world did, believed that we could "then" be talking to anyone on the planet, regardless of ideologies, beliefs, colour, race,or any other border.We did in fact change the world. Truly enough, after FB, the world would never be the same again! Unfortunately it didn't come out as we dreamt. Both by the hidden interests of the big powers, and our own little attention and care for our privacy and security issues, related to the use of the social network.
Facebook took over every little detail of our lives and of those who are important to us, both personally and professionally. Even if you are not the type of person that enjoys all the social networking fuss, you'll be driven to join in since most of your friends and family are there. If you want to be al least up to date in your social life, it is almost impossible to avoid being part of it.
Now Facebook is loosing control: a new comer has promised something that really can change odds in this huge fight for the world of social network control. Tsu.com says it will pay users as much as 90% of ad revenue, split between both the content publisher and the active target user. Plus, it will award 5% of revenue to a charity of the user's choice.
In fact this is something that bring us a strong discussion about the principles that will rule the Internet of the future.
I always wondered why were social networks grabbing all the profits of an activity that is primarily produced by users. To put it simply it goes somewhere in the lines of this: a manufacturing company could say they will not pay you a salary because, in fact, you are using their equipment to produce a certain good and therefore, by them being the owners of the production means, claim they are already making you a favour by letting you produce with their machines.
We can even look at it as downright slavery. More so because we can hardly avoid using such a platform as Facebook, meaning you have to comply with whatever rules they will impose on you! Somewhere dangerously close to being actually forced to work for someone else that doesn't pay for your work. And that is the very definition of slavery.
For FB this is a major threat to their hegemony: for the very first time since the beginning of the company, they are facing something that can just wipe FB entirely out of the social networking of the future. The company has gone public so Zuckerberg will not be able to explain to the shareholders that he would fight the move of Tsu with a similar proposal to its users: so, sharing profits will not be on the nearest plans of FB.
But here you have another problem. Facebook has bought Instagram, Twitter and Messenger, putting the company very close to the anti-trust laws both in US an EU (more so in Europe since, both Google and Microsoft, have already been heavily fined for monopoly position issues, as well as for privacy violation company policies). Since Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Messenger are blocking all posts and/or references to Tsu, both in the users timelines and in private messages, without giving us a choice, they now face another serious problem: besides the legal issues, their ban on Tsu only made things worse by sparkling a lot of noise around the newcomer that sent adhesions to the new network sky-rocketing.
For us it's only good news! As for Mr. Zuckerberg, this must be the biggest challenge he has ever faced and he probably will not be sleeping well these days!
But all this has brought up the real power behind the monopoly of social networking. To put it bluntly, Facebook is facing Armageddon. It was only a matter of time. Deep inside of each one of us, everyone knew it had to happen, sooner or later. And it shows us and them that, no matter what, the rising of consciousness for which Facebook is primarily responsible for, is the main "culprit" for this disaster that FB is facing.
Internet is changing rapidly because fast "change" is, in reality, its nature. And Mr. Zuckerberg is too young to understand the value of "time" itself.
I wrote this piece almost two years ago and it is not entirely timed out although Tsu became a victim of its own lack of know-how.
ResponderEliminarFacebook is still going the wrong way and still abusing its monopolistic position.
It virtually impossible to use FB without being asked again and again for more and more personal information and data that seem to be of no interest other that yourself. Having said that, I really wonder when the European government is going to put a stop on this!