Not to me. I don't understand why Facebook takes so much to bring changes to European users. I use the English language, there's really no reason to delay the rollout. I don't care much because I rarely use Facebook anymore, but it still sucks.
Slow rollout is a great tool for suppressing dissent (and discontent).
You likely remember that people were upset en masse with design changes of Facebook. However, if you get a new style change and none of your friends have it, your venting comment either gets lost or you won't write one at all, seeing as nobody else complains. Then a second person gets the style change and again, seeing no complaints himself, he is much more likely not to complain.
I'm surprised this topic (complaint control through trickery) isn't addresssed as often.
So far it's been just a theory of mine. An interesting observation is that Facebook can easily deny this concept saying that "slow rollout can prevent excessive server stress", which is without a doubt true.
It seems to me that it is hard to test whether the random rollout just aims at preventing server crashes or it has behavioural connotations as well.
Yup. It can catch bugs. It also allows them to catch drops in numbers and other problems. This is the main reason that the 2013 newsfeed design never made it to anyone else.
Also, at least in the past, FB used to roll out redesigns to groups that were relatively isolated from the rest of the graph like New Zealand.
It seems to be more than just "Europeans". I got it a few days ago, a friend of mine several days before that. Both Germans in Germany, both browsing FB in English.
