Facebook files for bankruptcy protection
After draconian privacy regulations substantially eliminated its core advertising business, Facebook today succumbed to the meteoric rise of Soshull’s paid social network subscription service. Loyal investors were stunned and disappointed by Facebook’s failure to adapt to changing market and legal conditions, finding themselves unlikely to see a penny from bankruptcy proceedings as the Zuckerberg dynasty’s control provisions put them tranches ahead of all other interested parties. Furious bondholders are scrambling to identify legal recourse as they find themselves out in the cold as well under the preferential governance fine print of Facebook’s charter.
Trouble has been brewing for years, as social networks of all types struggled with the 2027 US CPADE (Consumer Protection from Data Extraction) laws rigidly enforced by DPEC (Data Privacy & Exchange Commission). Cookies, targeted advertising, and data co-mingling between services were all effectively banned, among other actions deemed predatory and against the interest of Americans. DPEC’s commissioner Halibi Contreis had this to say about the impact of the new regulations:
Americans have long been treated as passive, easily manipulated consumers of products and services, particularly by Big Tech companies. Those dark days are behind us – we have hammered out and will vigorously enforce minimum terms and conditions for all customer relationships. We will no longer accept the premise that some citizens are more willing to give up their agency to the most sophisticated psygorithm, even if in exchange for a supposedly free offering.
Facebook was the slowest to respond, operating under the assumption that its massive user base would eventually lead to another lucrative business model. Google decided to split up into five mostly thriving separate businesses, with YouTube the only jewel from its crown that has suffered as badly as the original social network. Twitter has managed to convert its free, ad-driven service to one driven by micro-payments for posting, liking, and membership.
Critics have called Soshull “the most successful poorly named company of the century so far” as its user numbers passed 3 billion this year. With average monthly revenue per user at $34.50 and miniscule costs, Soshull is on pace to become the most profitable company in the world by early 2033. Analysts claimed for years that customers would not be willing to pay for social networking, but regulatory changes and the increasing failure of free social networks to create safe, unchaotic, and non-extractive environments changed the game.
Neither Mark Zuckerberg nor Facebook responded to requests for comment. Rumors circulating on Soshull and Twitter suggested that ByteDance (the world’s first sovereign company after Beijing allowed the formerly Chinese business to buy Marakei Island from Kiribati) may be interested in buying the company’s remaining operational businesses, WhatsApp in particular.
Roman Ryan 