The Grass Is Always Greener

I've written in defense of Facebook before, and Alexis Madrigal does it better than me:

...The real struggle is with ourselves to use Facebook well … You get to determine your level of investment in the digital world around you. You get to choose the people you listen and talk to. You have control over your data. You get to define who you are, no matter what your Facebook profile says. All that is not lost unless we choose to lose it.

I think this is obvious, and if you don't get it, may nature select against your genes.  The one concern I do have with Facebook is that it is so much better than anything else at allowing users to use their own local knowledge to coordinate and manage information that it will soon come to monopolize much of the activity on the Internet (just like Microsoft with the operating system market in the 1990s) - future blogging will be solely on Facebook, email will be taken over by Facebook (perhaps as soon as tomorrow), games developed will be all for Facebook platforms a la Farmville; essentially, we could be seeing the genesis of something far more of a monopoly in any meaningful sense of the word than Microsoft ever was.

That being said, I'm keeping this watchful eye while continuing to enjoy the services provided by Facebook on a completely voluntary basis, as is any other user.  I especially LOVE the targeted advertising scheme, because I can appreciate the bigger picture and because I understand the alternative of saturated marketing.

I read the (previously linked) story on how Facebook could destroy gmail yesterday and more or less thought about it all day today.  Mid-thought this morning at around 10:00 I suddenly began to hear one of Japan's characteristic noise-pollution advertisements and had a brief discussion with my wife about where it was coming from.  Usually these things come from cars which I then fantasize about flipping over and lighting on fire, but this one was actually coming from an airplane broadcasting advertisements from above at some absurd volume.  And I had no missiles.  

I began to think about how the advertisements I get on Facebook are usually of the kind I'd check out anyways and awesome - like I get advertisements for Tyrell Corporation T-shirts.  I would totally buy and wear a Tyrell Corporation T-shirt, and I imagine I see this advertisement because I list Blade Runner as one of my favorite movies on Facebook.  When I first saw this advertisement, I actually tweeted it because I thought it was so awesome, then I decided rationally that I already had lots of totally awesome t-shirts and didn't need that one.  I routinely get offers for teaching jobs in Japan and people looking for Japanese translators, MBA programs, golf-based iPhone apps, and travel guides, which are all useful for me, since I sometimes buy stuff.  Facebook matches producers and consumers using math and statistics, which I also like.  

I don't get advertisements for hentai sites, I've fallen and I can't get up products, Baby Alive, or any other shit that I would never consider purchasing.  So that brings me to the rub for Facebook haters: which is it, are you corporate slaves, do you completely lack self-control, or do you just hate math and statistics?