M. G. Siegler, writing on his 500ish site, explains the problems with Facebook. He’s been doing it for years, but I really like these paragraphs:

Facebook is over because they won. Because they have two billion-plus users. Because they created a service which mirrors humanity. And humanity, as it turns out, is not great. I mean, yeah, sure, there are pockets of great. But there are also pockets of awful. And the awful will always overwhelm the great. And Facebook has created the perfect tool to enable this. At scale.

This both should be obvious and isn’t. The problem with Facebook isn’t actually Facebook. It’s us. It’s human beings. The problem is that Facebook created the greatest tool ever to connect those human beings. And it has led to a world in which the local lunatic is now the global lunatic.

Facebook and Zuckerberg didn’t realize this was the end state because it wasn’t what they envisioned with the original mission. It has blinded them. Connecting people is good! Right? But, as it turns out, it’s not. It sounds good. We all want it to be good. But it’s a fucking disaster. Because humanity is a disaster.

Humanity is a disaster. Sigh.