> Facebook's goals just don't align with visitor goals.
Or rather, Facebook's goals are (or should be) to balance optimally between visitors' goals, and advertisers' goals such that profit is sustainable. They need people to stay on and return to the site in order to bring in advertisers. They also need advertisers' ads to get clicked to remain attractive and profitable.
Agreed - at least in my neck of the woods, the use patterns of people in their twenties with regards to Facebook seems to tilt heavily towards Messenger rather than the rest of the site. Events, too, but primarily Messenger. It has replaced SMS entirely.
Probably, but with primary goals of ad clicks, prolonged FB time on site, etc.
Worth noting that the old, unoptimized system would have worked fine for this case.
Facebook's goals just don't align with visitor goals.