creation or consumption

Here’s an observation.

A lot of people see FaceBook as a waste of time.  I think this is primarily because they log in, browse some random postings from ‘friends’ and then log out, feeling like time’s been wasted.

I try to change that by creating content or sharing content that I think makes for more interesting reading/browsing.  Sometimes it’s stupid comedy, sometimes it’s political commentary, and sometimes it’s just something that interested me and I feel like sharing.

So one would think that the advice would be to have people create more so that the experience represents more of what they’d like.  And while I believe this is true, FaceBook doesn’t always make it easy.  Here’s an example:

This is a capture of a comment that someone left on the site:

and here is a capture of an article that someone linked to:

Note that when someone creates their own post, there’s no way to Share it – I can only Like or Comment but when someone posts something from elsewhere, I have the ability to Share.

In this way, FaceBook is emphasizing pasted content over original content.  Why?  It’s one thing to acknowledge that most people just want to consume, it’s another to make it difficult or burdensome to allow someone to create.