Facebook (FB) Stock: Social Site Proving to Be Economically Unsustainable

Facebook's stock slide has many people crying foul and predicting failure. That failure is probably inevitable, but it's not because Mark Zuckerberg is a "selfish prick." It's because social networking is revealing itself to be fundamentally unsustainable.

When big masses of people get together, their behavior tends to devolve. Hysteria replaces intelligence. Basic urges replace subtle tastes. Large groups of people also possess tremendous power, which becomes almost irresistible to those who would like to manipulate it. 

Before Facebook, there was Myspace that quickly devolved into a teenage cesspool where beta males went to find "hot chicks" that liked to take half-naked pictures of themselves in the bathroom mirror. Myspace needed the unhinged teenagers (and their rock music) to sell ad space and turn a vast panorama of eyeballs into cash.

Now Facebook has covered the collective ass of society (kudos), but to milk its cash cow it has covered that ass with a bulls-eye and handed a set of arrows to advertisers. Now, as the political multilogue heats up, it is being taken over by the worst kind of vitriol, misinformation, and petty activism. 

When you log on and see nothing but stupidly malevolent political attacks and posts from your six friends schilling HGH in an MLM scheme, you log on less...and less...frequently.

All the things that contributed to Facebook's growth -- the ability to connect, the forum for self-expression -- will ultimately cause it to shrivel. Another forum will take its place, or (even better) social networking will evolve beyond its need for a framework.