Facebook’s growth logic treats any connection-increasing measure as good regardless of harm.

Evidence

We connect people. That can be good if they make it positive. Maybe someone finds love. Maybe it even saves the life of someone on the brink of suicide. So we connect more people. That can be bad if they make it negative. Maybe it costs a life by exposing someone to bullies. Maybe someone dies in a terrorist attack coordinated on our tools. And still we connect people. The ugly truth is that… anything that allows us to connect more people more often is de facto good. It is perhaps the only area where the metrics do tell the true story as far as we are concerned.… That’s why all the work we do in growth is justified. All the questionable contact importing practices. All the subtle language that helps people stay searchable by friends. All of the work we do to bring more communication in.… The best products don’t win. The ones everyone uses win… make no mistake, growth tactics are how we got here. — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 1607

Categorization

• XREF: The ‘best products don’t win; the ones everyone uses win’ reframes the classic network-effects economics reading. — connects to: Facebook succeeded through execution and network effects, not invention — Tim Wu, The Attention Merchants, 982
• SEED: A strong pull-quote centerpiece for an essay on platform growth obsession and the erasure of product quality as a value.

Broader Connections

• Facebook succeeded through execution and network effects, not invention #qualifies (0.75) — Tim Wu, The Attention Merchants, 982