The way you've framed the situation, IMHO, really speaks to the difficulty of FB trying to find a universal usecase that is applicable or satisfactory to everyone and to every kind of social relationship.
You posit that FB could be the "most effective way in the history of mankind to tell everyone who knew someone that person has passed on". Sure, but why stop at death? FB could also be the most effective way to tell every mutual friend when your best friend:
- Has a child
- Gets married
- Gets a new job
- Has a death in the family
- Loses their job
- Gets divorced
- Seems to be depressed right now.
The fact that FB has been highly-effective push notification has been key to its success but also one of the things that sometimes bothers people when it comes to privacy and other issues. You might argue that death presents a special case -- and I would generally agree -- but I would most definitely argue that significant parts of FB's userbase (which consists of basically every country and subculture) would disagree. FB's tweaking of things so that death is pushed as a priority would not make everyone happy, and every tweak means that something else gets untweaked, of course.
That said, it's worth pointing out that FB has recognized its potential to be a new kind of obituary/memorial service, and all of the complications and downsides of that. Here's a pretty good whitepaper on the difficulties: https://research.fb.com/publications/legacy-contact-designin...
You posit that FB could be the "most effective way in the history of mankind to tell everyone who knew someone that person has passed on". Sure, but why stop at death? FB could also be the most effective way to tell every mutual friend when your best friend:
- Has a child
- Gets married
- Gets a new job
- Has a death in the family
- Loses their job
- Gets divorced
- Seems to be depressed right now.
The fact that FB has been highly-effective push notification has been key to its success but also one of the things that sometimes bothers people when it comes to privacy and other issues. You might argue that death presents a special case -- and I would generally agree -- but I would most definitely argue that significant parts of FB's userbase (which consists of basically every country and subculture) would disagree. FB's tweaking of things so that death is pushed as a priority would not make everyone happy, and every tweak means that something else gets untweaked, of course.
That said, it's worth pointing out that FB has recognized its potential to be a new kind of obituary/memorial service, and all of the complications and downsides of that. Here's a pretty good whitepaper on the difficulties: https://research.fb.com/publications/legacy-contact-designin...