Dear Facebook,

Why won’t you let me see the things I want to see?

I follow a lot of things on Facebook. Causes and little shops I love, mostly. Animal rescues and that little local French bakery with desserts to die for, and Hony and every.single.one.of.my.clients. Stuff like that.

The last few times I logged into Facebook, the number of posts I saw were in the single digits. Today, only 7 posts in my feed. 7. Strangely, when I went to each of the pages I follow, they did indeed have new posts, they just don’t show up in my feed. Why is that?

I guess it’s because they’re business pages and they didn’t pay you for added exposure, right? Because anyone who has a business page knows they have to pay for “enhanced” exposure now. If they don’t pay for increased exposure, then under 5% of their “followers” will actually see their new posts.

Doesn’t matter that they worked their buns off to get those followers, does it? Doesn’t matter that some of them paid you for ads to get those followers, either. Or that some of them pay people to maintain their Facebook page.

The fact that I followed many business pages because I want to see their content doesn’t matter, does it? Nope. All that matters is whether or not the small businesses that own those pages pay you for “enhanced” reach.

Side note — it’s kind of awkward when a client refers to something they posted on Facebook and you have to say sorry, I didn’t see that, and then hurry to their page to look. And explain that yes, you DO follow them, but Facebook didn’t put it in your feed and then remind them how commercial reach works. Awkward!!

Add more friends, you said…

Under the few posts you do allow me to see, there’s a big honking message telling me if I want to see more posts, I should follow more friends.

Do you understand how friendship even works?
Friends are people you have coffee or lunch with, and if they’re late you text to make sure they’re okay. They’re people you have birthday cake with and wrap Christmas presents for. People who send you cat pictures and random emojis and are a shoulder to lean on when you’re having a f*cking bad day.

They’re people who know your birthday without a cake icon in their app and they’re people who know your kid’s name and age and that doesn’t creep you out the way it would if random Internet people know your kids name & age.

Everything else? It’s all bullshit highlight reels. Life is too short to compare my daily life to someone’s highlight reel. So I don’t. No thank you. Because we all know that’s how way too many people use social media. People taking awesome pics to share while there’s seven shades of disaster going on in the background. People racking up “friends” that they wouldn’t recognize on the street. Bullshit and ego. We don’t need more reasons to feel like crap about ourselves, thank you very much.

I hope you know your “new & improved” business model sucks...

I read all about your new and improved business model, explaining that you’re going to start showing people “more of what they want.” You forgot to mention that “more of what they want” only applies if we’re not talking about small businesses and organizations that have commercial pages.

I hope you know how badly that sucks. Not just for the businesses, but also for the people who actually wanted to see their content. For all the people who are tired of highlight reels, there’s not much reason to check Facebook anymore. The feed is going to be empty anyway.

The cynic in me says even writing this letter is an epic waste of time…

Not like Mark Zuckerberg is actually going to read it, much less respond. That’s what he has “people” for, right? Internet gajillionaires don’t need to read the shit about them (or to them posted) on the Internet.

But, you know — maybe someone else is having the same experience…

Maybe there are other people, like me, that used Facebook to keep in touch with the small businesses and causes they care about. And maybe they’re wondering what the hell happened. That’s who I wrote this for.

Maybe there are small businesses whose response rates fell and they’re wondering what the hell happened. That’s also who I wrote this for.

Maybe there’s even someone who has the interest and the capacity and might be inspired to build a new platform to open the door that Facebook slammed shut. Heaven knows, we could use a good alternative to Facebook.

I dunno. All I know is that sometimes, life works kind of like dominoes.
So who knows.

Anyway, thanks for reading…

/rant