You're the customer. If you don't like the service they provide, you can choose to spend your money/attention elsewhere. There's no more powerful representation than that
There's much more powerful representation than that. Actually having representation in the decision making process. The most powerful, I'd argue, is being able to make the decisions of the platform.
Leaving seems like almost zero representation to me. Now, it doesn't mean zero freedom, yes, people have freedom to leave. I just don't see that as representation.
I love this question and admittedly, it took my breath away, almost speechless that I could be a part of FB, instead of being given whatever management wants to give me.
Honestly, I'm not sure how it would look. I imagine it might feel different. I imagine I might feel a little more hopeful, instead of so helpless. A little more calm, less filled with dread. I imagine I might feel a little more relaxed, believing I have some say in a safety valve to keep the platform going, in case some leader takes it in a direction that most of us don't want.
I don't know if I'd even want direct democracy, where we users vote on feature prioritization and other nitty-gritty details, I may like some type of representative democracy.
I don't know. It may not look different but maybe it would feel different. Does that make any sense?
I'm pretty sure Stockholm Syndrome is when one falls in love with their hostage taker, which sounds pretty different than me feeling distance or animosity towards Facebook. Fair point in that it may not be so healthy for me to stay, although leaving also has its strong downsides, which may contribute to this feeling of helplessness, and yet I'm almost certain it's not Stockholm syndrome.
Yeah, that's the same as how if I don't like the country I was born in, I can make a raft and take off into the ocean to be a citizen of nothing. It might seem like a hyperbolic analogy, but it's a matter of degrees. Network effects are powerful.
