There is a level of investment we put in the platforms we use.

This comment is akin to asking farmers cut off from repairing their equipment "why don't you buy tractors from a different company instead of fighting to fix your existing ones?"

The investment in the case of social media is the network you've built. In my country most local events are announced primarily on facebook for example.

This article about the AT protocol (which Bluesky uses) provides a good argument for why alternative social media sites like will help prevent this feeling of lock-in in the future and is worth a read: https://overreacted.io/open-social/

Is it possible to use bluesky without a did:plc? Id rather be in control of my own identity than leave it irreversibly in the hands of yet another overlord.

That isn't a good comparison at all. "Don't use it" is a valid choice. I use it. None of my kids do. It's also "free" for you to use. So maybe stop trying to force them to do things while providing you a "free" service.

I don't think you understood their point at all. "Don't use it" isn't necessarily a valid choice when it's where all of your friends and/or family are. The "investment" is not monetary; instead, it takes the form of having connections on the platform. You are invested in the platform if your primary connection to someone is hosted there, and it costs a ton of time and effort to transfer that somewhere else.

Unless you depend on Facebook for your livelihood, then this is a false equivalence.

Facebook is one major bait and switch strategy.

In the first step, you get everyone to invest into your platform. You provide some valuable services to people, and they sign an implicit contract as a result.

In the second step, you reap what you sow. You switch the platform entirely and change its core nature and functionality. It's hard to stop using Facebook when everyone else is using Facebook, and this fact means you can do things which would normally have people leave your platform in droves.

This ruling limits the extent to which you can run such a bait and switch campaign. It's somewhat remarkable, because it extends some basic consumer rights to tech companies, even if there's no direct product nor a subscription in place. Personally, I think it's long overdue.

How has Facebook changed its core nature?

I'd say the major switch happened at the point where you lost control over your feed. It's not populated because you opted in to updates from a specific person or organization. It's populated by algorithm. Furthermore, at no point in time were any of these new features opt-in. Instead, they were enabled without your consent. Facebook has a long history of enabling features for people which is not in their interest in the slightest.

I should also say that it's more general than Meta. Google are also notorious for doing stuff like this. About time we start legislating against it.

An important matter in this particular case: It's about elections as well.

You can opt to not use facebook yourself to protect your own data, that is more or less fine. (Though we can talk about Facebook's collection of non-user data another time)

You can't individually opt out of the election influence.

Facebook's election influence is pretty minor.

It's about making the right choices for society as a whole

Not using Facebook might be the right choice.

It probably is the right choice. But that hardly means that we can't also regulate Facebook.

Because the alternatives are not going to try exploit us when they grow big enough?

Not if there’s enough of them.

The network effect is real.

Using Facebook is voluntary.

Living in a society that gets fucked up by Facebook is not voluntary.

In the same sense that having a job that requires you to use facebook is voluntary. Unless of course eating is also voluntary.