ZUCK ALMOST KILLED THE LIKE BUTTON - NOW IT RUNS YOUR BRAIN
Turns out the most powerful symbol on the internet nearly didn’t happen—because Zuckerberg thought it was too lame.
The Facebook CEO hated the idea.
Engineers pitched it as “Awesome.”
He shot that down.
Then they called it “Like.” Still no.
Too trivial, he said. Not serious enough for a site where college kids were poking each other.
But in 2009, 5 years after Facebook launched, the Like button finally went live. And everything changed.
The Like became a dopamine dispenser, a social currency, an emotional landmine—and a goldmine.
It drove trillions of interactions, shaped modern advertising, and quietly rewired how we communicate.
It wasn’t even Facebook’s idea. Yelp passed on it.
YouTube tinkered with it. FriendFeed used it first.
Then Facebook bought FriendFeed—and the button came with it.
Now it’s blamed for everything from narcissism to depression…
And it still runs the internet… 1 thumbs-up at a time.
Source: Fortune / AP
