A lot of social sites are "broken on purpose" to catalyze monetized features — if the product people are smart.
The problem with Facebook is that they changed an existing feature when people were closely watching it, and didn't offer any opportunities to go with it.
Generally speaking, it is a no-go to "force" people to use features. It just doesn't work, and it makes people resentful.
However, if you structure the features in such a way that it "motivates" users to pay for them, suddenly you get some action.
Facebook should have provided a "carrot" for users in the form of a highly-coveted free spot for posts that genuinely deserve attention. Nobody complains about being able to buy the top spot if you can also earn it for free.
That's what Dropbox does, for example. Buy storage or recruit friends to earn it. All love, no complaints, lots of action.
But Facebook didn't do that, so they get backlash instead. Even the big sites don't really know what they're doing sometimes.
And don't even get me started about how promoted content hurts the general idea of an Edge Rank-driven feed...
The problem with Facebook is that they changed an existing feature when people were closely watching it, and didn't offer any opportunities to go with it.
Generally speaking, it is a no-go to "force" people to use features. It just doesn't work, and it makes people resentful.
However, if you structure the features in such a way that it "motivates" users to pay for them, suddenly you get some action.
Facebook should have provided a "carrot" for users in the form of a highly-coveted free spot for posts that genuinely deserve attention. Nobody complains about being able to buy the top spot if you can also earn it for free.
That's what Dropbox does, for example. Buy storage or recruit friends to earn it. All love, no complaints, lots of action.
But Facebook didn't do that, so they get backlash instead. Even the big sites don't really know what they're doing sometimes.
And don't even get me started about how promoted content hurts the general idea of an Edge Rank-driven feed...