Face(Greed)Book: Free Speech?

I date back to when Myspace lit up the world with an amazing cyber-social-platform that brought a personable & visible connection to the masses. If you were clever, you could learn the codes rather easily, that would customize and color-up your profile page to hook people into your stylistic personality traits that like-minded individuals would recognize and be drawn. The best part...? It was FREE!

Regardless of the uses and/or potential of what any solitary person could aspire to with this gift, another social platform would ultimately eat it alive.. chewing it up and spitting it out like spoiled bologna. I jumped on the bandwagon using both (before the end of Myspace). It was a new platform to learn and navigate; it was simple and bland, but eventually would prove to be the ultimate "must have" in cyber-social-connection.

It didn't take long to adapt and learn to love Facebook. The simplicity grew on me (having being a bit perturbed over becoming a Myspace code-master). It was mind-blowing how useful of a tool it could be and how exciting it was to find people that you would never have the opportunity to. Such as, old friends that you may have forever lost phone numbers, addresses, or other means of non-cyber connection. Also... FREE!

By the time I was seduced and addicted by this social media drug, I was deeply burrowed into the rabbit hole. I was in a cover-band and used it for promoting our shows and well, just about any date or relationship since 2010 has come from Facebook, even without trying, sometimes those kind of connections will happen as well. I imagine this was the addiction. Cyber-Popularity and the openly public statuses of any given individual always offered an icebreaker. The news feed was full of conversation starters and mutual interests that grew your network, relationships, and in a sense... Popularity.

Now... The rug is pulled out from under you. Not only are you hopelessly addicted to the convenience of this gem... You've become somewhat reliant. At least, I was. As a musician and aspiring writer, a broke one (befitting; the starving artist), I relied on this platform to get my information out, and it worked beautifully.

I may be a little off, but I want to say that it was around 2014 that I noticed snags. I wasn't pushing my writing all that much just yet, but was still strong in music/band promotion. I started noticing that I wasn't receiving the same activity on my promotional posts. I eventually picked up on the fact that promotional reach was being hindered. Okay, I'm resilient, I began making fliers (pictures) and that seemed to have gotten around however Facebook was blocking reach. That worked for a little while, but then the inevitable; the brainiacs at the company came up with more effective algorithms and some kind of "facial-recognition" that would see key-words in a photo. Youtube videos were even being hindered.

Now, I am putting out books. I want to get the word out and by this time, Facebook implemented the "pay-to-promote" feature. Now, let me not be completely greedy myself; I can understand paying to promote something, Facebook was free because of corporate ads, however, I'm not Stephen King, I'm not Metallica, and I'm certainly not the CEO of Boeing. I am a cover-band guitar player that made 100 bucks a show twice a month and I'm selling about 10 books a year. I would like to think that someone like "me" was exempt from such a policy.

Let me example the severity of what this has come to. I recently released my 3rd book, and I posted about it... A LOT. Literally three days after, I see a friend on Facebook (who I actually interact with and know personally) posted on her page the desire to find a good book. I was taken aback wondering why she would not have inquired about mine. My page is full of content about my books. I commented on her post, "Umm... your awesome buddy here just released a new novel" Her response... "Where do I get it?"

Needless to say, I was angry! I could post something like... "Squirrels crack me up!" And I would get activity from that. If I post anything that is video, photo, or link ... especially involving any key-word that would in any way relate to marketable ... Crickets. Nothing. If I scroll through my wall, every mundane post has modest activity and anything that has to do with trying to follow/achieve a dream has none.

The inventor of Facebook became the youngest billionaire offering a free service. Why charge now? I'm sure that I am extra butt-hurt over the fact that I didn't write my books a few years earlier. I would have had the free service to maybe make a modest following for myself. I honestly believe that this infringes on free speech and possibly works price-gouging into effect; clearly since, like a drug dealer, getting people hooked and then upping the price because... They can. The demand is significant, and that was certainly banked on.

Now, the irony. I'm going to publish this blog-post and share it on Facebook, then fill up with stress & anxiety over the fact that maybe 3 people in my over 1000+ person friend-list will see it. Well played Zuckerberg... Well played.