We need to ask a simple question - what are the metrics that Facebook seek to optimise?
I can't imagine a universe in which they aren't placing at least some weight on the standard suite of "engagement" metrics. If that is the case, then they're seeking to increase the amount of time you spend on the site, the number of pages you view, the number of ads you see (and click), the frequency with which you scroll below the cut and so on.
Creating an interface that provides fast, easy access to the most relevant information means that most of your core metrics get worse. Facebook would have to be exceptionally smart and exceptionally far-sighted for their interface to do anything but get worse. They would need a corporate culture that is either centralised and vision-led, or utterly indifferent to short-term measures of engagement and profitability. Zuckerberg is a smart man, but he's not a Steve Jobs or a Larry Page.
This reminds of a story mentioned in Steven Levy's "In The Plex". Larry and Sergey are showing off their page rank algorithm to a search engine company early on showing how much better and faster it is. The person they're showing it to is upset at how fast it is saying, "it's too good". He wanted the search to be slow so that users would be stuck on the search engine page longer and view more ads. Larry and Sergey left thinking the guy was an idiot.
I don't think it takes that much intuition to realize that treating your users well and building something for them will be better in the long run.
big companies are good at executing established business models, and bad at discovering new ones. small companies, the opposite. it could never be any other way.
I can't imagine a universe in which they aren't placing at least some weight on the standard suite of "engagement" metrics. If that is the case, then they're seeking to increase the amount of time you spend on the site, the number of pages you view, the number of ads you see (and click), the frequency with which you scroll below the cut and so on.
Creating an interface that provides fast, easy access to the most relevant information means that most of your core metrics get worse. Facebook would have to be exceptionally smart and exceptionally far-sighted for their interface to do anything but get worse. They would need a corporate culture that is either centralised and vision-led, or utterly indifferent to short-term measures of engagement and profitability. Zuckerberg is a smart man, but he's not a Steve Jobs or a Larry Page.