Liking is Meaningless

The problem with the Facebook “LIke” button (and equivalents) is that it is so easy to use, using it is virtually meaningless. Click, click, click. Like, Like, Like. Now that was painless….

And yet the Like button is supposed to mean something.

Herman on the relation between liking and hurting.

Facebook says Liking something allows you to “give positive feedback and connect with things you care about”. The number of Likes a post receives helps to determine whether it goes into your news feed. But its absurd ease-of-use seriously dilutes any notion of whether you actually do care about the thing in question. You can click without looking, and you certainly can click without caring.

Without wishing to sound ungrateful, I know this for a fact, as I have French friends, people who don’t even read English, who have “Liked” some of my English blog posts. Of course it is well-intentioned, and a kind gesture. I shouldn’t complain. Merci, mes amis, mais….

This dilution phenomenon has a downstream effect, such that when you see a Facebook posting where there are 15, or even 15,000 “Likes”, you are no further ahead in determining whether the thing is truly valued by the community. Fifteen thousand zeros still equal zero.

Concomitant with this, is the fact that there is no granularity: in the space of a few seconds you can issue a heartfelt Like of photographs of your niece’s daughter Natalie, and a vacuous sorta-don’t-really-care Like of some cat video your neighbour two doors down has posted. I am not all that keen on cat videos, but I have Liked a few in my day, just to please the neighbours.

Facebook have tried recently to do something about this, by adding to the number of emotions you can express via a button click. You can now also Love something, Haha it, Wow, Sad and Angry it. But it all amounts to the same thing: when Love is just a click away, it is not a particularly heartfelt sentiment.

The solution to this problem is to make “Liking” something painful. Hit users where it hurts, before you let them Like. See if they are prepared to suffer in order really to Like something. Then Likes would be meaningful. So…

I propose you should have to pay to Like on the web. Each time you Like, your credit card takes a hit.

But I know what you are thinking: it is hard to defend the notion that Mark Zuckerberg needs the money. I suppose you could send it all to me (in which case even I would be grateful when my French friends Like). But in fact, there is a much better way forward.

Imagine a benevolent Like button, which was tied to a charity chosen by the person posting. A dog does something cute, I Like it, and in doing so, I donate 50 pence to the Battersea Dog’s Home.

Or more to the point, when my friend Caroline, who works tirelessly to help people in Nepal, whose lives have been torn apart by the recent earthquakes there (please see her site Lalai-Milam.com) writes a new post and someone Likes it, a Euro gets charged to their credit card. The money goes to the fund that is helping send 9-year old Nepalese Anjali to a proper school, to clothe her a bit warmer, and ensure her and her family are able to eat properly.

Obviously getting a bit of money flowing towards good causes is the primary benefit here. But there is a secondary benefit that kicks in as a form of benevolent snowball effect. When someone sees that Caroline’s new post has attracted, say, 150 benevolent Likes, they know that every one of them is genuine, at least to the value of a Euro. The pain of a Euro has a certain validating effect: the wisdom of the crowd, expressed in cold, hard cash. Genuine, because it hurt them in the pocketbook. And that pain/validation combo will inspire other people to click as well.

Clearly such a scheme has immense potential for abuse. How do I know that when I Like the blog about a cute little Nepalese girl, the money isn’t actually going to Nepal, but to the Neapolitan mafia?

What is needed is a recognized, honest broker, someone who manages the back end of the whole scheme, vets the good causes, organizes the secure payment system, and ensures the money goes where it is intended.

Such a system, were it to take off, would be massive, with an infrastructure and back end that would be very expensive to run. Where’s the money for that going to come from? I suppose some entrepreneur could do it for a small commission on each transaction. It would be a decent compromise: someone gets modestly rich while a lot of other, much poorer people still benefit immensely, many in a life-or-death kind of way.

But much nicer and purer would be for some well-known, benevolent, already-filthy-rich, big-business big-wig, to sponsor the whole thing, gratis. A web saint. Some high-tech superhero. Someone who will stake their reputation on the quality and the incorruptibility of the system. A cashflow guru to ensure this cash flows, and flows properly. On a non-commission basis. For free. Just because it is a good thing to do.

It would be a good thing to do, and it could do good things.

So how about it, Mark, Larry, Sergei, Bill, Satya, Jeff, Tim:

Will you like it so it hurts?