I've been in digital marketing for 25 years. I understand why platforms make the decisions they make. I get the business model. I've helped clients navigate every algorithm change Facebook has thrown at us since the platform existed.

But sometimes I just want to scroll Facebook like a normal person. And as a regular user—not a marketer—I need to say this out loud:

The "link in comments" era has been absolutely miserable.

Here's what happens dozens of times a day: I see an interesting post. Someone's sharing an article, a resource, a video, something genuinely useful. But the link isn't in the post. It's buried in the comments somewhere.

So I click through to the comments. I scroll past the engagement bait replies, the "following!" comments, the random arguments. I hunt for the actual link. Half the time I give up before I find it.

This isn't how the internet is supposed to work. When someone shares something, the thing they're sharing should be... there. In the post. Where you can see it.

But it's not. And there's a reason for that.

Years ago, Facebook's algorithm started punishing posts that contained links. The reasoning made some sense on paper—they wanted to keep users on the platform longer, and links take people elsewhere. Native content (photos, videos, text posts) got rewarded. Link posts got buried.

Marketers adapted. Of course we did. That's what we do.

The workaround was simple: post your engaging content, then drop the link in the comments. The algorithm wouldn't penalize you, and people who wanted the link could find it.

Except "find it" became the operative phrase. As this practice became universal, comment sections turned into a mess of people asking "where's the link?" and creators responding "in the comments!" without any apparent irony.

The user experience degraded. Slowly at first, then completely.

This week, Meta started testing a new policy: Professional Mode accounts and Facebook Pages are limited to two link posts per month unless they pay for Meta Verified (starting at $14.99/month).

The kicker? Links in comments are still unlimited.

Let me spell out what this means: Meta created an algorithm that made "link in comments" the standard practice. They degraded the user experience for years. And now they're monetizing access to the old way of doing things while explicitly preserving the annoying workaround.

If you're a creator who hits the two-link cap, what do you do? You put your link in the comments. This policy will increase the exact behavior that makes Facebook annoying to use.

Meta's own transparency report says that 98% of feed views in the U.S. come from posts without links. Only 1.9% of views go to posts with links.

Read that again. Links are already nearly invisible on the platform. This policy isn't about spam reduction or user experience—it's about squeezing revenue from the final 2% while maintaining the status quo that killed link visibility in the first place.

Social media consultant Matt Navarra put it bluntly: "For years, links were the currency of the social web but what we're seeing now is that Meta, which deprioritised the links previously in favour of native content on the platform, now says links will be the exception and that exception will cost you money."

He also said something that should concern anyone building a business on social platforms: "If traffic matters to your business you'll either pay, adapt, or diversify away from Facebook."

That's the strategic reality. But I'm not writing this as a strategist today. I'm writing this as someone who remembers when Facebook was useful for discovering and sharing information.

If Meta genuinely wanted to improve the user experience, here's what they'd do: stop penalizing links in posts altogether.

Let people share links like it's 2012. Put the link where it belongs—in the post, visible, clickable, obvious. The "link in comments" game exists because Facebook created the incentive. Remove the incentive, and the behavior changes overnight.

But that won't happen. Because keeping users on-platform longer matters more than making the platform useful. Subscription revenue matters more than user experience. The algorithm serves Meta's interests, not yours.

I don't blame marketers for adapting to these rules. Adaptation is the job. When the platform changes, you change with it or you lose.

But I do blame a platform that forgot the original point. Facebook was supposed to connect people with information and with each other. Somewhere along the way, it became an engagement trap where the actual content gets buried, the useful stuff requires a treasure hunt, and now even that treasure hunt has a price tag.

This isn't innovation. It's manufacturing a problem and selling the solution.

For businesses, the advice remains what it's always been: don't build your house on rented land. Own your audience. Build your email list. Create assets you control. Use Facebook as a tool, not a foundation.

For regular users? I don't have good advice. Just solidarity. The platform that used to be useful for sharing links now punishes you for sharing links. And if you want to share more than two per month, that'll be $15.

Welcome to 2025.