It did something worse: it severed everyone the same ads and propaganda. The phrase "Television rules the Nation" didn't just occur to Daft Punk because it sounded cool.

It was a broadcasting-only service with a high cost of entry. You need big money to put your thoughts on TV. As someone from a country where the big media conglomerates and the government are helplessly colluded, social media comes as a very welcome break and counter-force.

Marketing has had focus groups, and user use/studies for years.

They have always had ways of knowing exactly what their content does without having to track millions of clicks.

We have had sampling methods that makes the need to examine census pointless, it is just cool that today computing can handle the whole data set and scary that we are.

Still, today, some of the best ways to truly examine massive swaths of data is deducing to what is missing. Who turns their phones off from 10pm-2am and turns them back on at 2am? Who wasn't looking at facebook and watching netflix all night while everyone else was?