Is Facebook rubbing you the wrong way?

The New York Times Magazine says some former Facebook junkies are breaking up with the mega-popular site. There's not a ton of hard evidence to support this theory (the writer, Virginia Heffernan, mostly seems to just ask around among her friends), but some of the anecdotes are illuminating. One particularly irate ex-Facebooker named Leif Harmsen is said to be galled by the site's increased level of commercialization—particularly the influx of advertising. "It is not 'your' Facebook profile. It is Facebook's profile about you." Well, duh. Leif, I don't know if you realize this or not, but Facebook is free. You didn't drop a dime to use it. Harmsen's attitude once again points out a major challenge that Web publishers, marketers and vendors face: People don't necessarily understand the inherent value exchange online, where you get free content or services in exchange for viewing some ads. Instead, people feel entitled to products on the Internet in a way they don't offline. Nobody pays for social networking or e-mail or photo sharing (unless you have some kind of souped-up pro account). Yet they get mad when marketers mess with those products too much. I've railed against the useless, dorktastic forum that Facebook typically devolves into (even though I hypocritically contribute to it often). But you have to at least understand that this is a business, even though Facebook doesn't always act like it wants to be.

—Posted by Mike Shields