this post was submitted on 25 Mar 2024
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I live in a rural community. Facebook has more or less replaced the web here.
Businesses post their hours, specials, and information on Facebook. Some of them don't have websites. The rec centre has a hard time keeping their website up to date, but the Facebook group is always accurate. Newspapers have closed down, so a Facebook group keeps people apprised of what's going on (it seems to be pretty accurate, since everyone in town is part of it, people involved in events chime in). Kids and adults sports groups advertise and tell their members what's going on via Facebook groups.
It's a shitty medium, since the Facebook algorithm mixes trash advertisements with town-specific events, but it seems to suffice for the town's needs.
I suspect it isn't just my town. The network effect is strong, so I suspect there are niche communities where Facebook is verging on ubiquitous.
I find this so annoying. I don’t use Facebook, so if you post info about your business on there, I just won’t see it and won’t use your business.
to look at it objectively, if you don't use the service you're simply not part of the demographic targeted by the business employing ~~by~~ that service. That's mutual.
It's lazy and stupid to host your entire company's online presence on a for-profit proprietary platform.
Another way to say the above would be "simple and easy". Which is why it's done by a lot of small businesses that don't have the expertise (or the funds to hire expertise) to do something better
If it's a small town hardware store, it's easier for them to manage a Facebook page that they can access using their regular Facebook account.
Good luck to them when Facebook starts throttling their views and demanding money for more exposure. And good luck to them since they don't show up on Google or yellow pages sites, nor have a website listed on Google maps. Like the other person said above, plenty of people will just do business elsewhere.
Instead of just doing W analysis, why don't you learn SWOT analysis instead. It will water down your bias.
Businesses are in the business of running their business, not worrying about FOSS principles and the open web. They can set up a quick information front without having to pay for a webmaster, hosting space, server space, an ISP to handle all that traffic, etc. So why would they care or want to spend the effort otherwise at their size?
I addressed the question in your last sentence here:
https://lemmy.world/comment/8818297
What part of “they don’t care” are you having trouble wrapping your head around? They’ll either live with it, or move to another platform that’s easy to use.
IT is not a core competency of most businesses and their goal is to minimize time to deploy and effort on parts that are not core to their business. If it means spending slightly more then so be it. It’s the “build or buy” problem and since IT isn’t their thing, “buy at the cheapest price possible” is gonna win every time.
Most small business need all the business they can get. But if they don't care, then that is on them.
How often do you look at the website of a restaurant before going to it? If they don't have a website and instead just a Google maps page does that stop you?
Quite often.
Fair enough
This is real funny because you can get throttled by big corporations even if (or rather especially if) you're self hosting pretty much the same way
I have never once had one of my websites throttled, and I've been building websites for 20 years.