Facebook Down?

I have no particularly novel takes on what caused Facebook to go down on Monday. There are people far more specialized in Network protocols who can do a far better job than I could ever do, one of which is linked to by Stephen Hackett at 512 Pixels.

And while this story did strike my interest and led me to do some reading on what caused it or how much money was lost ($60 million), what hit me most was a remark Stephen Hackett made in the post linked above:

“I honestly think the world would be better off if they never came back up.”

This really makes you consider, “What even is Facebook?” or “What function does this serve?” Is it connecting us with others really? From my personal experience I don’t feel like I see people post that much of their own content on there. Is it entertainment? I mean, sometimes but overall its far from being the best in comparison to other forms of “Social Media”. Is it just ads? And us sharing those ads and redistributing those ads the same way that bee’s do pollen? Is this something that we really care about that much? Is it a net benefit?

Those questions are all pointless because it gets at the frustrating point that feels obvious and anyone could tell you. Facebook is overall “eh” and isn’t really worth the time, space, or consequences it causes us to deal with. But we continue to let it exist because “eh” is tolerable, and the negative effects don’t feel tangible.

The frustrating part is that we know that this isn’t good for us individually or overall, and as Stephen Hackett said, the world would be a better place, but sadly we don’t just tolerate but feed it, either through Facebook, What’s App, Instagram or Oculus. And because of this we have very little hope of it ever coming to an end, because we are all just so used to it.

(This post was made by a frequent Instagram Scroller who loves using the Oculus Rift, Dustin Bucher)