FB is free because they can pay for it with personalized ads. I doubt generic ads would fund the site as it stands today.
FB does not have some sort of right-to-exist. Beyond that, if FB goes out of business completely, the world is arguably improved.
I haven't used FB in years, but even I know that if FB didn't exist that another service would fill the gap in the market. The problem is FB plays fast and loose with privacy and security, which should be the focus of criticism for FB, since that negatively affects users. If FB didn't exist, you still run the risk of another player making the exact same mistakes.
Yes, but I do still see people give the "just don't use FaceBook then" argument on every post about this on HN, as if we should just ignore all the problems. Under this insane framework any horrible behavior by a company towards their customers is justified as long as you use their products willingly.
This also ignores the massive existing adoption FaceBook has. If I want to switch to twitter or mastodon or $otherSocialNetwork I have to convince everyone I communicate with on FaceBook to switch too.
User demand is a necessary but not sufficient condition for a business to exist.
Maybe that’s ok.
