In January 2018, Facebook announced adjustments to its News Feed algorithm, drastically reducing organic reach for fan pages. As soon as the news broke, Taiwan’s marketing and self-media circles exploded.

“Facebook betrayed us!” “This is platform hegemony!” “Ten years of hard work destroyed overnight!”

Looking at these angry posts, I was thinking about something else entirely: What exactly are you angry about?

The Logic of Free Chicken Legs

Let me do some math.

Over the past ten years, we—as users, creators, brand managers—have done countless things on Facebook: built fan pages, posted content, ran ads, managed communities, communicated with customers through Messenger. In this massive system with over 2 billion users, we enjoyed humanity’s first experience of true internet-scale network effects.

And as end users, how much did we pay Facebook?

Zero.

Zero dollars. Ten years.

It’s like being invited to a mansion for dinner and eating free chicken legs for ten consecutive years. One day the host says: “I’m going to rearrange the seating and change the menu.” You jump up and curse the host for betraying you—is this reasonable?

It’s not. But that’s exactly how most people reacted.

You’re Not a Guest, You’re the Product

The more brutal truth is: you’re not even a “guest.”

In free platforms’ business model, you’re not the customer—advertisers are. You are the product. Your attention, your behavioral data, your social graph—these are what Facebook sells to advertisers.

So when Facebook adjusts its algorithm, it’s not “betraying” you. It’s optimizing its core product—the allocation of user attention—to better serve its real customers: advertisers.

This logic has been there from day one. It’s just that ten years of free lunch made most people forget.

Digital Colonialism Isn’t a Metaphor

I later used a term to describe this state: digital colonialism.

This isn’t an exaggerated metaphor. Think about the definition of colonialism: your productive activities happen on land owned by others, your resources are allocated by others, your rules are made by others. And—this is the key—you have no bargaining power over any of this.

What’s the structural difference between a self-media creator who puts all their content on Facebook and a farmer cultivating in a colony?

The farmer’s grain is allocated by the colonial government. Your content is allocated by the algorithm. The farmer can’t decide tax rates. You can’t decide reach rates. If the farmer protests, the colonial government will suppress them. If you protest—well, the algorithm won’t acknowledge you.

Admitting you’re digitally colonized isn’t shameful at all. What’s truly shameful is enjoying free services for ten years, then acting like you’ve been betrayed when the rules change.

Inescapable Dependency

Some say: “Then let’s just leave Facebook!”

Fine, leave. Then where do you go?

Jump to Instagram? That’s also Facebook’s (now Meta). Manage YouTube? That’s Google’s, and they change algorithms too. Build your own website? Your traffic is still choked by Google’s search algorithm. Switch to Line@? The platform changes when it wants to.

This is the dilemma of digital colonialism: you can switch colonial masters, but you can’t escape the structure of being colonized. Because in today’s internet world, all traffic allocation power is held by a few giant platforms.

In running my company, I’ve deeply experienced this reality. We help clients manage communities, create content marketing, and run ads. Every strategy’s foundation is built on platform rules. And these rules can suddenly change when you’re completely unprepared.

Once, we spent a month crafting a Facebook content strategy for a client. The second week after launch, we hit an algorithm adjustment and organic reach dropped 40%. The client asked me: “Is there a problem with your strategy?” I said: “The strategy hasn’t changed—the floor beneath our feet has.”

What to Do After Awakening

So what now? Give up? Not give up—replan with clarity.

First, build your own assets. Email lists, owned websites, LINE official accounts—these are channels where you directly reach your audience, not controlled by any single platform’s algorithm. They grow slowly, but they’re yours.

Second, diversify risk. Don’t put all your eggs in one platform basket. If 80% of your traffic comes from Facebook, you’re handing 80% of your destiny to a variable you can’t control.

Third, observe opportunities in rule changes. Niebuhr had a useful saying: misfortune is where fortune hides. Every algorithm adjustment causes some to fall and others to rise. Those who calmly analyze new rules while everyone else cries tend to find new breakthroughs.

Fortune and Misfortune Intertwined

Back to that 2018 algorithm adjustment.

Who cried the loudest? Those brands and self-media creators who had lived off free organic reach for years. They had never built paid strategies or established traffic sources outside the platform. When the algorithm changed, they were caught swimming naked.

At the same time, another group began seriously managing podcasts, newsletters, and owned communities. These channels didn’t have Facebook’s scale, but they had something Facebook could never give you: you call the shots.

The reality of digital colonialism won’t change. But your position within the colonial structure can change.

The key isn’t leaving platforms—that’s unrealistic. The key is whether you’re building something truly your own outside the platforms.

Farming on others’ land is fine. But remember to simultaneously plant some crops on your own land that others can’t take away.