As we noted earlier this week, more than 7 million users have joined various groups protesting the changes, with many calling for Facebook to at least offer an option to go back to the old design. Zuckerberg writes:
“As people share more, sometimes we need to change the site to accommodate how much information people are posting …
… We realize that change can be difficult though. Many people disliked News Feed at first because it changed their home page and how they shared information. Now it's one of the most important parts of Facebook. We think the new design can have the same effect …
… It's tempting to say that we should just support both designs, but this isn't as simple as it sounds. Supporting two versions is a huge amount of work for our small team, and it would mean that going forward we would have to build everything twice. If we did that then neither version would get our full attention …
… Even if you're joining a group to express things you don't like about the new design, you're giving us important feedback and you're sharing your voice, which is what Facebook is all about.”
The uproar over the new design isn’t surprising, even though Facebook did do a thorough job of preparing users for the changes. As Zuckerberg notes in his post, there was a huge uproar when the Facebook News Feed launched, not to mention the entire Beacon fiasco.