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Why is Facebook ignoring the enormous backlash their Messenger update is receiving?
- Thread starter TH55
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Yup, there is.
It's b/c they can and nothing will happen if they don't. And they know this. As long as ad revenue keeps pouring in, little else matters.
It's b/c they can and nothing will happen if they don't. And they know this. As long as ad revenue keeps pouring in, little else matters.
Unfortunately you won't find me in the minority on this one, it's been widely condemned
Actually, it IS what you asked. Now if you meant something different or expected respondents to use mental telepathy in order to decipher your vagaries, then that's on you.
Facebook isn't the product. Messenger isn't the product. You're the product, not the customer.
Probably because it's not really awful or all that big of a change. Just because a bunch of people complain about it online doesn't make it actually awful or all that big--it mainly says that people will complain about all kinds of fairly inconsequential and minor stuff, like they did with iOS 7 icons for quite a while and all that, and basically most ended up dealing with them just fine and pretty much forgetting about the whole "issue".
In the scheme of life and practically everything out there in the world, having to use a separate messenger app to read/send messages rather than doing it from a single app that would include all kinds of things making it bloated...it's quite unimportant, and far from awful.
I'm not saying that you can't dislike that and many others can't dislike it--of course you and they can--but it's so inconsequential that it's not a big deal by any means.
And, as I mentioned using the iOS 7 icons example, and as it often happens with Facebook redesigns--people complain about things just because they changed and then for the most part they get used to them and move on (perhaps aside from some isolated cases where something is actually not working correctly or something of that sort).
Because people are quick to react to change, and it's not so much that it's good for the consumers, but it's good for the company. In the next six months, Facebook Messenger is going to take an identity of its own, and most likely will even get a new name.
You don't want to give your entire user base something like Facebook Paper. There are some people who want it, and a majority that don't. At the same time, you don't want to deal with people who will stick to version number one, and refuse to touch version two. That is what happened to both MSN Messenger and AOL Messenger when they started adding things that people had no need for. MySpace was lucky that it was already rapidly declining before it released its version two that nobody cared for.
In their eyes, it's perfectly okay that you aren't going to use Facebook Messenger, but if you give up on the entire Facebook app, then that's a problem.
You cannot base a service like this on the same framework forever either. Otherwise you're just going to keep patching away at problems.
Consumers have been giving their data away on the internet for maybe 10+ years now and just now they're starting to have opinions on it. And the problem is that they don't get any of it. They have advocates preaching all that is wrong with companies using their information, but there are a lot of things missing in that picture - Like how looking at what you're doing in these apps will help them make a better product, and how to use certain SDK features that Apple and Google provide means that you have to automatically ask for access to those certain things.
You don't want to give your entire user base something like Facebook Paper. There are some people who want it, and a majority that don't. At the same time, you don't want to deal with people who will stick to version number one, and refuse to touch version two. That is what happened to both MSN Messenger and AOL Messenger when they started adding things that people had no need for. MySpace was lucky that it was already rapidly declining before it released its version two that nobody cared for.
In their eyes, it's perfectly okay that you aren't going to use Facebook Messenger, but if you give up on the entire Facebook app, then that's a problem.
You cannot base a service like this on the same framework forever either. Otherwise you're just going to keep patching away at problems.
Consumers have been giving their data away on the internet for maybe 10+ years now and just now they're starting to have opinions on it. And the problem is that they don't get any of it. They have advocates preaching all that is wrong with companies using their information, but there are a lot of things missing in that picture - Like how looking at what you're doing in these apps will help them make a better product, and how to use certain SDK features that Apple and Google provide means that you have to automatically ask for access to those certain things.
Trust me there are plenty of people who have already deleted the app and even their accounts. This is a big deal.
Yeah. People have said they'd quit Facebook for like years now. They probably deleted just the app, but I bet you they'll be back soon enough.
Regardless, when companies act like this they sabotage themselves, the minute something better comes along they'll go down in flames. And I can't wait to watch.
A tiny droplet of a drop in a huge ocean. Again, might be a "big" deal to those people--and I would say that most of them are overreacting and/or doing something on principle than based on anything truly real--but it's not a big deal or almost any deal to the vast majority and to Facebook itself. Happens almost every time Facebook changes their design, and they've done it a number of times over the years, and yet they keep on gaining and gaining users.
This isn't really the stuff that's going to hurt them let alone do them in, it's going to be another service that will take off in popularity for one reason or another (in a lot of cases with none of those reasons being related to any of these types of changes).
Its a very simply proceedure. One Apple has done over and over now. Make an anti-consumer change and keep the mindset that it is for the consumer's own good. Then wait. Two years later and 90% of people will have just accepted it and moved on.
Not me though. Screw Facebook messenger. Won't be using it again until it is one App.
Not me though. Screw Facebook messenger. Won't be using it again until it is one App.
Why don't you jailbreak? There's a workaround, it works wonderfully, just like before. I'd do it soon before they patch it.
Same here. I have better things to do than chat with people from high school 25 years ago whining about there kids, jobs, etc.
FB wants to steer people into what they think is communication behavior they can benefit from. They do not care about UX, they care about traffic, visibility and usage patterns.
I'm sure someone thought hard and long about whatever they design should accomplish.
Personally, I stopped caring about FB long ago.
I'm sure someone thought hard and long about whatever they design should accomplish.
Personally, I stopped caring about FB long ago.
Moving a messaging service out to a separate app rather than part of a bloated application that deals with something else is hardly and anti-consumer or even a drastic change of some sort. Most people who are unhappy are just those who either have some sort of Facebook issues or biases to begin with, which is fairly unrelated, or those who simply don't like something changing and really end us with overblown reactions.
Facebook is a complex ecosystem of individuals, creators, brands and advertisers, but I don't think it serves any of these groups particularly well because its top priority is to make money. Now, I don't think making money is a bad thing, in fact I hope to make some myself. The problem is the only way Facebook has found to make money is by treating all entities on the site as advertisers and charging them to share their content.
This business plan backfires because 1) not all entities ARE advertisers and 2) it was the content from these people, specifically friends, family, and creators that made the site worth visiting in the first place. Now the incentives are misaligned:
- individuals want to see great content, but they are now seeing more paid content and organically shared content which appeals to the lowest common denominator (babies, weddings, and banal memes)
- creators want to reach fans but their posts are being throttled to force them to pay to be seen
- brands and advertisers have to pay once to advertise their page on Facebook, and then pay again to reach the people who have already liked their page. Plus Facebook is not a place where people generally go to buy things.
Facebook stands in contrast to other social media like Twitter, YouTube, and Instagram where all content is shared with all followers.
Here's a great video on The problem with facebook.
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