This is a very important observation.. It parallels the real-world chase of short-term profits in business, and short-term "points" in politics.

If the major platforms took a longer view of their communities, and asked themselves how do you build the _best_ community, not the _biggest_ community, we might all be better off..

But then their stockholders wouldn't be better off, so it hasn't happened.

That said, now with businesses and advertisers (the actual customers of social networks - because the users sure aren't) starting to pull ad dollars, we may see some of this change? One can hope..