All Facebook needs to do is create a few generic privacy profiles, and default to one of the more private ones. Privacy problem solved. But, I get the feeling there's a corporate culture of vicariousness, exposure and a touch of schadenfreude. That culture is permeating into popular culture.
It might not be that simple. I was reading an article earlier today that pointed out these privacy decisions have mostly been made to simplify the internal processes of the application. That linking too many different parts of data was having a huge effect on the growth of facebook, and this has driven the problems we are facing today.
It also helped them escape the growing pains we have seen form twitter and the like.
That linking too many different parts of data was having a huge effect on the growth of facebook
This is why I'm still not sure that Facebook can do anything to monetize its user base without being off-putting to many members of its user base. To not be annoying takes a lot of data processing for every page view (and every advertisement served up), while to be profitable (and speedily responsive to user page requests) requires as little demand on the Facebook server farms as possible. It may not be technically possible today to run a profitable Facebook that pleases many normal users.
