
Roger McNamee says the 'like' button was 'beginning of the end' - colinprince
https://www.cbc.ca/radio/thecurrent/why-a-former-facebook-adviser-says-the-like-button-was-beginning-of-the-end-of-company-s-good-old-days-1.5007542
======
tj-teej
Blaming the like button for the end of the "soft cuddly" side of Facebook is
spurious from someone who was an investor.

Facebook didn't have to build a surveillance machine, it didn't have to
extract every possible penny out of it's user's data, Facebook didn't have to
stop being "cuddly"...until it raised money at an outrageous valuation and had
an outrageous IPO.

Blaming the Like button for actions necessitated by Facebook selling out their
users for a higher valuation/money seems a bit rich coming from one of the
investors.

~~~
JumpCrisscross
> _until it raised money at an outrageous valuation and had an outrageous IPO_

Lots of companies go public without developing a psychopathic culture. As Tim
Cook has said, supposed conflicts between privacy-versus-profits or privacy-
versus-innovation are false choices [1].

These are strategic choices Zuckerberg made and which his employees fell into
step to execute. They are strategic choices investors profit from and voters
tolerate. Each of these constituencies could, relatively unilaterally, knee-
cap Facebook.

McNamee is making good points. This is a classic case of _ad hominum_.

[1]
[https://www.ft.com/content/7fafec06-1ea2-11e9-b126-46fc3ad87...](https://www.ft.com/content/7fafec06-1ea2-11e9-b126-46fc3ad87c65)

~~~
justapassenger
I don't believe any CEO taking stance on topic like this.

Tom Cook is picturing Apple as a privacy guard, while they deploy icloud
servers in China. Take with a grain of salt everything that's said by people
who want to sell you things.

~~~
naravara
>while they deploy icloud servers in China

That's literally a requirement of the Chinese government for anyone offering
web services in China. What exactly would you suggest they do as an
alternative?

~~~
justapassenger
Very easy - not do a business in a country, which practices go so deeply
against core values that Tim Cook claims Apple stands for.

~~~
naravara
The USA does too, as evidenced by the NSA’s spying and Trump being Trump. ICE
issues iPhones as government furnished equipment. They’re almost certainly
being used to help coordinate the caging of children.

So Apple just shouldn’t do business anywhere then?

~~~
krageon
They can do business anywhere, just not while lying about what they are doing.

~~~
naravara
What’s the lie exactly?

------
aphextron
I’ve made this realization lately as well, that all “upvote” based social
media is inherently toxic and bad for society. What’s been lost from the days
of actual internet forums is the ability to make a point, and ignore it if you
don’t like it. It used to be that we were all equals under the admin, and
discussion was long form. However the incentives now have shifted discourse to
the rhetorical and pithy, rather than creating meaningful connections. The
result is a monoculture of thought that is doing real damage.

~~~
kirion25
I think it has more to do with how thoughtless downvoting/upvoting can be in
some implementations. But this isn't inherent to the upvote system. Requiring
a comment for each vote to explain the user's position, for example, can curb
this tendency.

~~~
microcolonel
I don't know if requiring a comment for an _upvote_ is so necessary; but
requiring a comment (or an upvote of a comment) in order to downvote seems
like it could help. I think the problem with upvoting tends to exist where
there is no downvoting.

I'm mostly at peace with net scores on my replies, though I feel a bit
confused when the scores down without explanation. I think it is healthy to
some extent to seek validation, but in order for it to be productive, I think
we ought to know why people feel the way they do about what we say.

~~~
jessriedel
I see lots of stuff upvoted thoughtlessly that might benefit from forcing the
voter to explain.

~~~
SketchySeaBeast
I think you'd end up with a lot of

"+1 funny" "-1 Reeee"

stuff, and that'd just add noise to the thread, but not add to the discussion.

~~~
jessriedel
I agree, but that applies just as well to downvotes. I don't have good ideas
how to run a required-comment-to-vote system, I just don't see the asymmetry
between up and down.

~~~
microcolonel
Maybe I wasn't clear in saying that I don't think it should be necessary to
_comment_ in order to downvote, but I think it should be required to upvote a
reply in order to downvote (or make your own reply).

------
himynameisdom
It's amazing how deleting my account gave me a sense of autonomy over my own
thoughts. It took a while, but after some time I didn't care about what other
people liked and didn't like.

It's amazing what original thought can do for a person. That little button has
more power than most people think.

~~~
justapassenger
This isn't facebook specific power. Need for validation is deeply rooted in
our psychology.

Keep in mind, that you're posting that on a different social network (with
different rules, but still - social network), that also has exactly the same
system, with upvoting.

~~~
himynameisdom
Thank you. I've been humbled.

------
JumpCrisscross
Going cold turkey is never easy. If you're having trouble withdrawing,
consider what I did over the past few years:

1\. Turn off notifications for the Facebook app on your phone; _next_

2\. Turn off notifications for the Facebook Messenger, Instagram, _et cetera_
apps on your phone; _then_

3\. Delete the Facebook app from your phone; _then_

4\. Delete the Facebook Messenger, Instagram, et cetera apps from your phone;
_and finally_

5\. Log out of Facebook on your desktop.

It took me 2 years to go through from step 1 to step 5. It has made me happier
and more productive. I still have a Facebook account. But the friction of
grabbing my laptop and logging in forces me to consider "is this what I want
to do? Or am I thoughtlessly reaching for the crack pipe?" (It's been months
since I've cared to log into Facebook. Feels more like trudging through spam
in an old e-mail inbox, now, than anything compelling.)

~~~
turc1656
Wow. What you wrote sounds like a classic description of serious addiction.
Something like an alcohol, drug, sex, or porn addict might go through. That
shows the true power this type of product/service can wield over a person.
These products are definitely designed to suck our time and souls. They
are/were never made for the benefit of humanity, or whatever bullshit
Zuckerberg and the other tech CEOs claim. They are designed to make us like
the mindless slobs from Wall-E or the future humans from Idiocracy.

Glad you finally kicked the habit, though, and are more productive because of
it.

~~~
JumpCrisscross
> _What you wrote sounds like a classic description of serious addiction_

It's reasonable to characterize the American population as being
debilitatingly addicted to social media. (Rome's leaden pipes come to mind.)

------
clhodapp
The like button may have kicked the journey off, but in my opinion the point
of no return for a social network turning bad is when they start treating
"like" as "maybe share" (which all the big ones have eventually done).

------
komali2
Somewhat lacking... Wish this article talked more about "why" the like button
was the beginning of the end.

~~~
himynameisdom
I believe it was discussed early on when the article states McNamee believed
that's when FB started to receive emotional cues from users. But I can see why
readers might want a more thorough dissection of that point.

------
phkahler
Facebooks decline began with the "Share" button. That's the one that enabled
my friends to fill my feed with 3rd party bullshit. I used to go to there to
see what was up with my friends, not get their take on reddit, politics and
pet videos.

------
firasd
To offer another potential inflection point: public posts. That turned
Facebook from solely a social network to a broadcast network, and--while it
has been successful for their business--it led to them being mired in all
these political-information-broadcasting type problems.

------
jackschultz
A lot of talk comes up about the facebook and twitter like buttons where most
people agree that they're terrible. I for one can't imagine bothering with
twitter unless there was a like button, or at least some way for people to
show they agree with what the person twitted. Are they supposed to reply to
with a thumbs up emoji? Or "I agree"? They really need some easy way for
people to show their agreement. The older original forums are one place where
people in a more closed area can talk without distinct likes, but for a more
open network, there needs to be something easy for people to show support so
the people creating the content know what people like.

------
mandeepj
Dude! it's been 10 years now. Where have you been all along? 'Like' button was
added on February 9, 2009. And, it's not going anywhere

------
justinsaccount
For me it was "sharing".

It was when original content got pushed aside to non-stop sharing and re-
sharing of memes and propaganda.

------
JohnJamesRambo
I'd like to use Instagram if it had a way to turn off likes. I'd like a way to
share pics with my friends without the weird feeling of expecting likes, it
just changes the dynamic of the whole thing.

"I want to show you this, with no expectation of a return." would make
Instagram a lot more interesting and less fake.

------
kayamueller
You know what’s cooler than having millions of Instagram followers? Not
needing to have millions of Instagram followers. That’s why I always thought
that the celebrities that aren’t on Instagram at all actually seem more self
assured, appealing, and, believe it or not, cool.

~~~
dymk
What you're doing is just a different kind of the social signaling than the
one you're trying to seem above of.

It's okay for people to enjoy Instagram. It's okay for people to not enjoy
Instagram. It's okay to make one of your hobbies getting Instagram famous.
Trying to put some value judgement on why one is _better_, and going out of
your way to justify your own is a waste of time.

~~~
sifoobar
I would be careful with projecting that experience, everything is not about
signaling; sooner or later mostly everyone will come to the conclusion that
pretending isn't leading anywhere. Because it isn't.

Not depending on Instagram's algorithms and the opinions of its marketing
department and your followers is _better_, for everyone. Dependency in general
is rarely a good thing.

Judging is a different issue. But not giving a shit about what other people
think usually goes hand in hand with not giving a shit about what they do
either.

------
new_guy
So, what did Facebook have before the like button?

What would your ideal version of a social network be? From comments here, it
seems so far:

->no selling users out

->no likes/dislikes (but then how do you filter out bad content?)

->no sharing 3rd party content?

Edited: formatting

------
PowerfulWizard
I would really ️ _like_ being able to disable the ️ _like_ button on Instagram
as you can for comments. I don't like the approval seeking nature of the way
it is presented.

EDIT: HN filtered out my emoji :S

~~~
MikeGale
I can imagine an improvement in many UI's if I had a way to tailor it for what
I want, not some corporate one size fits all.

Like: 1\. See no likes. 2\. Filter out comments that are deeply nested quotes.
3\. Filter out specific people on a specific subject that I don't need to read
again. 4\. Switch off all adverts. 5\. Never see a public post. 6...

------
burtonator
I'm working on a blog post about this.

The issue isn't decentralization or issues like upvoting.

The issue is one of economics.

As long as we don't address the core fundamental flaw with capitalism - that
capital flows towards central actors, we will never have a decentralized and
fair communications structure.

What's sad is that I think it might actually be impossible without major
efforts to understand the problem.

It just happens naturally and without some sort of aggressive taxation policy
it's just going to keep happening over and over again.

~~~
sm4rk0
If you analyze them deep enough, you'll find out that money (greed) is the
root cause of ~90% of world problems. Taxation is just a workaround, not a
solution to those problems.

------
colinprince
In the audio clip he says it was photo tagging that started the decline
followed by the like button

------
innocentoldguy
I think Like buttons and other forms of social media voting are destructive to
intelligent thought. They can generate argument ad populum fallacies so bad
ideas can appear to have merit based solely on popularity. They are a good
example of why true democracies always devolve into mob-rules tyranny.

------
stcredzero
The thing about mechanics like upvotes/downvotes, is that they're ripe for
exploitation by evil/sociopathic people. (For virality. Often for outrage-
driven virality.) That's okay on a place like reddit, because things are
largely pseudonymous, and if things go south, you can go to a different place
or just take a break or even get a new username. Your real life network of
friends and family isn't so easily abandoned or replaced.

Not so sure what the difference is with Twitter, but maybe it's one of
granularity. There are no boundaries there, so people have to police things
themselves with block lists, or appeal to Twitter itself to get people banned.
It's also clearly ripe for exploitation by sociopaths.

[https://meaningness.com/geeks-mops-sociopaths](https://meaningness.com/geeks-
mops-sociopaths)

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wAIP6fI0NAI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wAIP6fI0NAI)

(What of HN? HN is moderated.)

------
Zelphyr
I really think the blame lies with Facebook management and not a button.

------
airstrike
The Big Bang was also the beginning of the end but saying that doesn't really
accomplish much

