Way back in January 2009, I joined Mark Zuckerberg’s Facebook. Poke! It’s now November 2024. I’m not yet 30, so 15 years is a majority of my life.
In that time, Facebook’s valuation grew from $10 billion to $1,400 billion, Mark changed up his fit, Myanmar’s military exploited Facebook to execute an ethnic cleansing, and a few other things happened. So, naturally, one begins to question decisions made long ago.
It’s broadly understood that most of Facebook’s valuation of $1,400 billion hinges on its several billion users being locked in for life.
If I leave my account as-is, Meta can count me as a user for at least another 60, maybe 70 years. That would mean they can count, sometime in the 2080s, that I’ve been a source of value to them for more than 80% of my life. It’s not even clear they’ll stop counting me as a user once I’m gone.
So, on the basis that any advertising revenue accrued by Meta from my usage is value that I’m giving up, and on the basis that I expect no future benefit from continuing to have an account, I’ll be deleting my Facebook account on December 31, 2024.
As my grandfather always said, if the broiler is free, you are the turkey.
Happy holidays!
If you’re reading this post, you should almost certainly already have my email and phone number. If not, you can reach me at fb@paulhansel.com or in person.
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