F**king Up A Good Thing

(Language Alert)

For the past two days I've been struggling to get a new Facebook page set up and working the way I want it to as an information gateway for the ARES Southeastern US Situational Awareness Map. It's been a few years since I've set up a Facebook page. In the old days (say, before all this Metaverse crap), it was a straightforward process - throw some pictures and content into a standard (Classic) template, invite a few viewers and away you go.

But the Facebook page creation process has become so ridiculously complex and so stuffed full of bullshit like diversity virtue signaling settings and really, really crass revenue drivers ("Hey, invite your friends and make a buck off of them!") that it's a huge distraction, and you never really know just what's going on in the back end of what you are trying to build out.

As an admin you get pop-up crap like this all the time - on a simple informational page:

Sorry Zuckerbeg, but I'm not interested in pimping out my buddies for a few bucks.

I don't run a business and I'm not interested in posting my personal phone number for the world to see, and I have zero interest in WhatsApp.

I'm no newbie at this web development thing. I've either set up or admin at five very active Facebook sites, and I contribute heavily to others. I develop and run my own websites and, of course, this blog. In my professional life I manage almost a quarter million dollars of web development activity each year. I know what good web development tools and environments look like. The current iteration of Facebook ain't it. In fact, Facebook sucks at it.

The complexity of the FB page creation process is now mind-numbing, and a huge time suck. It's clear Facebook is pushing the platform further and further away from it's roots of simple page development and more towards a highly commercialized platform designed solely to vacuum up personal data for profit. Yes, Facebook was always like that, but at least they offered value in return - easy site creation and a fun place to hang out with friends who shared your interests. Now it's more professional developers, overly complex configuration, monetizing every damned mouse click, and virtue signaling all over the place.

I'm going to go looking for a different platform to achieve what I've been trying to get done. Right now I'm not sure if it'll be a blog or a web page. So stay tuned.

W8BYH out