In a nutshell, I’m not interested in the Facebook experience. I understand it. I’ve been there. It is AOL, and I wasn’t impressed by AOL then, nor now. I don’t want to surf the web and everything I do, say, and experience is Facebook data. Processed, filtered, monitored, and integrated with associates [friends] who I’ve added to my profile.
I said it previously, Facebook is the AOL of the 21st century, and it violates every tenet of the Internet.
I’ll endorse others to use it if they don’t care about that aspect… thinking that 500 million people sitting on a competitors product is a valid business model isn’t something I would subscribe to. At any time, they can turn off the switch, or break down. If you are a business owner and you don’t own the data, you aren’t valuable to investors. Perhaps in the short term you are, and arbitrage situations can occur where a buyer flips the business to another buyer who in turn flips the business to another.
But we have experience in the irrationality of explosive growth. House values imploded because of such exuberance. I’m thinking that Facebook will do the same. It’ll be around as long as AOL has been around, but a Like button shouldn’t make a site more valuable.
I’m leaving in 24 hours because I want the people who I’m friends with to know I don’t hate them when I unfriend them and blank out my page. I’m keeping my name held on the site as long as I can though. It is my identity and I claimed it first. I don’t have to take part in the sites use though.