A still from a Meta promotional video depicting Mark Zuckerberg meeting his VR avatar; a 2006-era bumper-sticker reading 'You looked better on Myspace' is superimposed over the background. Image: Beatrice Murch (modified) https://www.flickr.com/photos/blmurch/181178654/ CC BY 2.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/ Meta (modified)

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1. Cory Doctorow (pluralistic@mamot.fr)'s status on Friday, 18-Feb-2022 15:28:20 UTC Cory Doctorow

   I hated Facebook from the start and couldn't wait for it to die. That was a reasonable thing to expect. After all, I'd watched social networks from Sixdegrees on crash and burn as the network effects that drove their growth also drove their precipitous collapse.

   A system enjoys "network effects" if it increases in value as it adds users. Social networks are all about these effects: you join Facebook because your friends are there, and once you join, others sign up because *you* are there.

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