Today Facebook, a medicore but addictive web site I’ve been trying to use less and less of, asked me to take a brief survey. I did. Here’s my response for the “other feedback” box.

Participating in Facebook has continually felt worse and worse for the last several years. In 2018 I have been making a focused effort to dramatically reduce my use of the service, likely ending my use this year.

I do not believe minor tweaks can help: your business is too addicted to ad revenue, and the worst, most invasive, most abusive (but highest earning) personally targeted variety. Fixing your fundamental problems would involve changing that. In addition, the company’s overly-grand vision of itself as some sort of global identity, as opposed to just some web site, drives awful, short-sighted, dangerous decisions like your terrible “real names” policy. The site and app displays profound technical arrogance, as well, from the decision to strip messages out of the main app under the presumption that everyone will be okay installing multiple Facebook apps on their devices, to the super-buggy javascript you put in what should be simple text entry boxes on the site (often for slimy purposes), to abusing platform rules to keep your apps running in the background. That combination of arrogance and ad-driven funding chasing the highest possible “engagement” led directly to Facebook’s recent issues with “fake news”, as well as its history of terrible privacy issues.

The world would be better off if Facebook simply evaporated and allowed other services to learn from its mistakes and fill the void.

Also, tell your CEO to get his friggin' name off San Francisco General.