More and more we are witnessing common people and experts complain and express their worries on Facebook becoming too powerful. And as we can notice, even big scandals like this one with Cambridge Analytica and users privacy issues, can't hurt Facebook in a way that would cause it any real trouble. We can also argue that there is a lack of legislation which would put companies like Facebook under control. So, how could we make Facebook less necessary and easier to avoid if we feel like we don't want to use it?
The Verge says that there are ways to "tame" Facebook. For example, the company could implement dummy profiles where if the user wants to leave Facebook, he or she could set up a simple page notifying other people that they are not on Facebook anymore with the information on how other users can get in touch with them outside of this platform. Another good feature would involve message forwarding for those who want to leave Facebook without deleting their profile but are afraid that people will try to get in touch and they won't be there to see the messages. With message forwarding, the user could be notified via email with the summary of received messages for the current week or a month. Then there is a feature of allowing independent apps to post on our profiles. And yes, there are already some forms of these apps, but none of them is effective enough to replace real Facebook posts. Not to mention that most of these independent apps are against social media platforms' terms of service. And what if the user wants to leave Facebook but still keep reading his news feed? What if we want to know when is our friend's birthday or are they getting married? The problem with the news feed data is that it is tied closely to the Facebook's algorithm, so it would be impossible to export it outside from the platform.
Even though some of these features could be easily implemented, there is almost a zero chance of them being introduced on Facebook. The reason for this is simple. The company wants to maintain its closed ecosystem and not give its users any reason to leave the platform, and if you do leave it, you are risking to miss some things that are important to you.