| farlaff said: Being useful is in no way incompatible with what I said. Your claim about video games is also not exactly accurate, since most video game companies use tech as a mean to deliver something, be it a product or an experience. What you said is like implying we have no use for cinemas, because going to theaters is not solving a particular pain. Or music, as in, why do we need music? Video games fall into the same category, so you need to come with a better example. Big techs sell the tech in itself or its application. And this pain that I mentioned before is related to the companies of today, like, Uber solved a pain of people that needed to find transportation faster while giving a few others the opportunity to work with said transportation. It solves a problem. Microsoft, through Windows, helped make PC popular. Facebook claims to on this same side of things, but it solves nothing, especially because the people you found (long term friends that you can't find without social media? Really?) would not be discovered if they did not opt to be there on FB, and they could place their names and addresses on the phone list, which already existed decades before FB. |
Bold: But they aren't solving any problem, they created a market that didn't needed to exist at all. Business aren't supposed to be strictly problem-solvers, you can create value without solving anything and this isn't restricted to Tech. The value social networks are creating is the ability to interact with people you otherwise couldn't and to follow a bit the lifes of people in your own social circle
Bold 2: Nope, I couldn't. I've found them online precisely because I wasn't able to make friends on school or neighborhood. It's curious because only after I established online friendship I could mature and find people to be friends with on my "real life", now I have friends in both, but it only started because of social networks
And even if I was able to form bonds without social networks doesn't change the fact many of people I became friends with would never met me without social networks, in this sense I'm glad social networks exists
And mind you, social networks actually DOES solve a problem, which is the problem to fast keep in touch with people. Before social networks you need to keep a list of friends and make regular calls or write letters to ask how those people are doing and expect them to follow suit. After social networks you can easily see this by yourself, as long the person is updating their profile and you both are willing to keep contact.
Talking about Facebook, what they bring to the table was the feed. Before the feeds the social networks were based on research engines and browsing friends profiles or communities (if the social network had communities). The feed greatly reduced it, because the feeds are like discover. They also developed state of art recommendation algorithms so your feed would be personalized to make to stay in the network as much as possible, which I don't think it's exactly a good thing but it is what is is, people like it
Besides feeds are useful, I got tons of great publications, articles, news and opportunities on my Linkedin thanks to its feed, which is basically a copy of Facebook feed
