It is hard not to speak about Facebook in superlative terms. Its hyper-accelerated growth is like nothing that has ever been seen on the internate before. According to most estimates, about 900 million people use Facebook on a regular basis, and that number will surely reach one billion mark before too long. I myself am a big Facebook junky (you can follow my “professional” reviews-only account here), and spend a lot of time interacting with people and exchanging ideas through that site. Social networks have in general been a huge blessing as far as I am concerned, as they’ve enabled me to connect and have meaningful relationships with people around the world that otherwise I’d never come across.

It’s exactly this combination of unprecedented growth and popularity that has made Facebook’s IPO one of the most anticipated such events since Google went public back in 2004. There was a lot riding on this IPO, for Mark Zuckerberg and the rest of the Facebook’s corporate establishment for sure, but also for the investors and even whole segments of the economy. The whole state of California was in fact banking on the high valuation of Facebook and the upcoming spending spree by many of its shareholders to help them, at least partly, alleviate the deep dark fiscal hole in which it had found itself.

And initially it seemed that all the hype and high expectations were justified. Facebook’s stock quickly rose away from the opening price of $38 per share, putting the valuation of the company at $104 billion. However, by the end of the first day the price of the stock had fallen back to that initial value, and the only reason that it had not sank even further was due to soem artificial propping up and financial behind-the-scenes machinations. Nonetheless, those machinations could only last so long, and over the past 11 days the stock has declined by 40%. That’s over $40 billion in lost stock market wealth. Ouch. Big ouch in fact – this is one of the worst large company IPOs in history.

So what does this say about the future of Facebook if anything? Unlike many dot com bubble companies, Facebook is highly profitable and will likely remain so for the foreseeable future. However, it may have to scale back its ambitions and expectations. If there is one thing that all of us should have learned over the past couple of decades is that high-tech companies, even the ones as seemingly impressive as Facebook, are still just companies. They are not some magical and revolutionary organizations that stand apart from all the other market forces and considerations. All those high-minded manifestos that their CEOs write as part of the IPO filing are naive and somewhat disingenuous at best. Most of the time, though, they are no more than a pile of BS. Yes, they are changing the world, but in a much more gradual and evolutionary manner. And there is absolutely nothing wrong with that. The problems arrise when these people start believing their own BS a bit too much. That kind of attitude oftentimes leads to an overreach. In the particular case of Facebook, I worry that everyone’s favorite social network might resort to even more agressive and obtrusive ways of monetizing their business. Which may in the long run alienate even the loyal, die-hard and forgiving users like myself.

Facebook is a wonderful company. It has evolved over the years while still largely maintaining its core aims and functionality. Yes Mark, by all means try to make money out of it. But don’t fall into the overcommercialization trap. One billion people will thank you.