I think it's possible to run a profitable social media company that does care.
That's probably true but not at Facebook's scale. If the employees are willing to accept the argument "We could have increased profit but chose not to in the interests of users.", because everyone's bonuses and stock value is based on profit, you'd need to hire a lot of people who are happy to trade some amount of personal gain for user wellbeing. That would be difficult when you have tens of thousands of people.
Alternatively, maybe it'd be possible to run Facebook without giving the staff equity or bonuses. That would take a huge shift in the way tech renumeration works though.
This comment consider employees (people) as if they were algorithms to maximize personal revenue.
That is not necessarily true. If FB where a place where people could feel proud of the good it does, a lot would be ok taking a pay cut.
Sure, maybe the ones that care the most about compensation wouldn't join, but that might be ok.
I worked previously for a for-profit company which was devolving a massive amount of their profits to charity. It was something I was proud of, and a part of my evaluation of how much I liked working there.
It seems increasingly likely that if FB keeps ignoring these concerns they're going to get hit with some sort of government regulation. So I still think it's in their long-term self-interest to try and avoid that happening, even if we assume profit is really all they care about.
if they can do this, let everyone trust they do this, rheir company will beyond all organizations in human history. you can let them take care your kids!
That's probably true but not at Facebook's scale. If the employees are willing to accept the argument "We could have increased profit but chose not to in the interests of users.", because everyone's bonuses and stock value is based on profit, you'd need to hire a lot of people who are happy to trade some amount of personal gain for user wellbeing. That would be difficult when you have tens of thousands of people.
Alternatively, maybe it'd be possible to run Facebook without giving the staff equity or bonuses. That would take a huge shift in the way tech renumeration works though.