Leaving the algorithm behind

Keeping your options open as a creator

I’m old enough to remember when Facebook was an exciting new platform that enabled small companies and individuals to operate on the same level as massive corporations.

ha ha ha ha ha

In the 2000s I worked for a software developer called FXhome which specialised in video products for young and emerging filmmakers, which put them in competition with the likes of Adobe. It wasn’t a marketing equation that the fledgling FXhome could ever win: then Facebook came along and suddenly a company’s Facebook Page was more about community than it was ad spend. That lasted for a couple of years, then Facebook and Zuckerberg remembered that money was more important than society, and they pivoted towards an ads-first model. Small companies were back to square one, always outbid by the mega-corps and left with meaningless ‘follower’ numbers.

It was an example of a 3rd party, private platform shifting beneath the feet of those that were using it. Facebook was not the benevolent, democratic equaliser that it appeared to be in those early years. In retrospect, that was always a ridiculous notion, given the toxic well of despair that it’s become.

This is relevant to writers, so bear with me.