And this is why Facebook bought Instagram. And in the future whatever they can acquire later. That is one strategy that can work in these situations. So younger people would not signup for Facebook and Instagram.
"The fall of Facebook was never going to be people quitting the service en masse — it’s too interwoven into the fabric of the way many of us use the web these days — it was always going to be the people who never really use the service in the first place. Kids."
I've noticed this amongst my family. The cousins, etc I have under 16 either don't have a facebook account or abandoned shortly after creating it. It's "uncool" because their parents see everything they do on there -- I know you can customize your sharing, but I doubt they know or care to be that careful on Facebook.
"This is why the smartest thing Facebook ever did was buy Instagram. Instagram is likely past a billion active users on its own now."
Unfortunately, this is why I don't use IG. I want to, but it seems impossible for me to keep it out of my Facebook like I want to. FB always pops up with "look what your friends are doing on IG" and I don't want my photography to be plastered in front of my grandparents.
If this is the case for you, maybe it only applies to newer Instagram accounts since I had mine long before the acquisition and my posts go to FB only by choice (and I almost never choose that anymore).
I noticed this among friends and co-workers who are mostly under 30. They all have Facebook but switched to Instagram or Snapchat. Their Facebook accounts are stagnant save for the few likes and staying connected with older family who joined FB to keep in touch.
The big reason seems to be the fact hat FB was too public. People were all in each other business and it gets ugly. Snap and IG are more direct, more one-on-one so to speak (at least my perception, I don't use social) giving people more privacy to post and like things they may not want mom/dad/grandma to see.
The article claims that life without Facebook is impossible. I haven't had an account for years and although I don't know what I'm missing, that statement seems exaggerated. Is this article more a reflection of the author's poor self control than of reality?
> The article claims that life without Facebook is impossible. I haven't had an account for years and although I don't know what I'm missing, that statement seems exaggerated. Is this article more a reflection of the author's poor self control than of reality?
Not necessarily. Lots of social circles use Facebook Events to organize get togethers, and not having an active Facebook account leads to you being left out. The people leaving you out may only be acquaintances, but that doesn't mean it's ok.
This is the reason why I still have a Facebook account. It's obviously and explicitly inactive, and I only log in when I get an event invite.
This is the one problem I have with not having a Facebook account. There are one or two groups that I would like to be a member of but their online forum is only available through their Facebook group. Not ever having an account with Fb prevents me from signing up.
I have many reasons to dislike Fb but at the top of that is how gated it makes communities.
On the other hand, do you want to get involved with people who are okay with such gated communities? It sounds to me like there would be a difference in values.
Interacting with people of different values is mostly a good thing. And it is certainly no bad thing when the differences are over something as trivial as which online platforms you want to use.
I think the reason why Facebook is used is due to the ease of setup and management of the group. Rather than installing forum software, paying for hosting, etc., it's just easier to use Facebook Groups. And, as adrianratnapala wrote, I think it's good to interact with those that have different values.
It's not a difference in values, just a difference in priorities. You make it sounds like they explicitly set out to build a gated community, when they actually want to build a community and just choose the path of least resistance.
>Lots of social circles use Facebook Events to organize get togethers, and not having an active Facebook account leads to you being left out. The people leaving you out may only be acquaintances, but that doesn't mean it's ok.
If Facebook is such a problem then people could just stop being part of these social circles. It really isn't that difficult.
> If Facebook is such a problem then people could just stop being part of these social circles. It really isn't that difficult.
No, it actually is that difficult, or more precisely that undesirable. Very few people are such anti-Facebook activists that they're going to dump valued friends and acquaintances in order to dump Facebook. That's why Facebook is going to hold on to a lot of users, and why it'll end in a whimper and not a bang.
The only case where it "really isn't that difficult" is if you have no valued relationships that have a Facebook component.
I'm not telling you to stop doing things you want to do. I'm telling you that it's possible to go without being part of a group if you don't like some things about the group.
The one problem I have with FB is that quite a lot of companies directed their customer-contact to facebook and it's virtually impossible to get in touch with them without having account - for example the other day I wanted to contact KLM and their Contact tab (https://www.klm.com/home/us/en#/tab=hpTbContact) lists:
* Send KLM 24/7 a text message via WhatsApp to +31206490787 >
* F Ask KLM a question 24/7 via Facebook >
* M Ask KLM a question 24/7 via Messenger >
* T Ask KLM a question 24/7 via Twitter >
* (phone-icon) View the contact information for all KLM departments
So no e-mail, no contact form and 3/4 of those services belong to FB :/
The email addresses are under "view contact information for all KLM departments" and then under each department. It's not very clear, probably the work of some UX desperate to reduce the number of options to avoid confusing people.
My best friend is a promoter who throws underground electronic music parties. Do you know where he promotes his events? Fb. There are websites like resident advisor, but they link back to Fb.
FB is how the event is marketed. Fb is how i find about different underground shows. And my use of Fb is limited for events, but for my friend, life without Fb is very much impossible.
I never got into FB and have not used it in probably 7+ years, and as unbelievable as it sounds, I still have a robust social life and am not missing out on anything. The necessity of Facebook is entirely in people’s minds.
You with your hobbies and your existing social life are not missing out.
I with my hobbies (Swing dancing) would dearly miss out. That's why I'm still evaluating whether it's feasible to delete my account, by getting other sources for events. So far, only very limited success.
> The article claims that life without Facebook is impossible
Does it? This is the closest I can get:
> Facebook has been giving many people many reasons not to sign up over the years. But we’ve had to: everyone we knew was on Facebook. And eventually, this trickled up and our parents were on Facebook. Now the trickle down effects of this are the opposite: kids don’t want to be on Facebook because it’s what their parents are using.
That's not really the same as "impossible".
> Is this article more a reflection of the author's poor self control than of reality?
Is poor self control the only reason one would be on Facebook?
I've never had a facebook account. I always found it daft that people posted their private information for everyone to see. I'm not really a people person though, so I guess I just can't relate to the value that others get from it.
I deactivated my FB account 2 months ago. No issues. No missing out. Lots of recovered time. And I go pee when I have to without having to browse FB for half an hour.
While I still have a Facebook account I simply find myself using it less frequently. There is zero chance my engagement will ever increase. They have lost me and my views of their shitty advertising. And their advertising is complete crap. For a company focused on targeted ads they are absolutely terrible at it.
They have the data, so obviously they know more about the effects of their tweaks than I do, but:
It seems like I don't really get fresh content anymore. It seems like a few, mostly stale stories from people I barely talk to. That makes it harder to be engaged in the service, and it makes me use the service less.
What I wish I could have (by default) is just a chronological list of things that people have posted.
Maybe there is a team of facebook who needs to justify their jobs or something? I don't want my feed optimized at all. I do the optimizing by selecting who I follow.
> They have the data, so obviously they know more about the effects of their tweaks than I do, but:
> It seems like I don't really get fresh content anymore. It seems like a few, mostly stale stories from people I barely talk to. That makes it harder to be engaged in the service, and it makes me use the service less.
It's entirely possible that their algorithms fail for your personality/usage patterns, but are successful enough on other accounts to make up for your loss of "engagement" from Facebook's perspective.
> What I wish I could have (by default) is just a chronological list of things that people have posted.
> Maybe there is a team of facebook who needs to justify their jobs or something? I don't want my feed optimized at all. I do the optimizing by selecting who I follow.
They don't want you to do the optimizing for yourself because that means they can't nudge you into doing what serves them the most.
> It seems like I don't really get fresh content anymore. It seems like a few, mostly stale stories from people I barely talk to.
Perhaps what you're observing is the result of people abandoning Facebook or using it much less. It's not that Facebook is poorly optimized for you, it's that the people you want to hear from are using the platform less that before?
I totally agree with you, I decided to unfollow everyone and everything I don't want to keep contact with. It seems like I got rid of unfunny memes, photos of babies I don't care about, a lot of garbage posts from pages I don't even remember why I started following.
I thought I would get a better Facebook, a new feed with only posts from people I care about, turned out my Facebook is empty now, the people and pages I do care about seem to stopped posting a long time ago, I just didn't know because Facebook made it look like my feed was full of interactions I cared about.
I use Facebook for a large part for the events, and it seems to suggest mostly appropriate events for me. Occasionally, it will keep suggesting a sponsored event, but I can hide it if it becomes too annoying.
I'm a "Social Media Never", and an increasing number of people I know are the same. We might sometimes use some forums or news/comment aggregators like HN or Reddit at some level, but none of the big social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, etc.
This categorization doesn't pass the sniff test. Reddit is as much a "big social media platform" as Twitter is a "forum or news/comment aggregator". The main difference IMO is the average quality of discussion.
That's pretty much how I've always seen it. Facebook as a singular product will eventually wilt and go the way of friendster and myspace. The smart thing Zuckerberg has done is to keep acquiring the next big things. Facebook as a company is extremely well-situated and won't be going anywhere any time soon, even though Facebook will eventually die out or become utterly worthless.
> The founder of the next big social network may prefer to be the next Mark Zuckerberg rather than the next Kevin Systrom.
/me looks at Wikipedia page of Kevin Systrom
> Net worth: 1.6 billion $
I think I'd be okay with being Kevin Systrom. (Especially considering that Systrom is mostly unknown in the general public, whereas Zuck has a large amount of people who personally hate him.)
> I think I'd be okay with being Kevin Systrom. (Especially considering that Systrom is mostly unknown in the general public, whereas Zuck has a large amount of people who personally hate him.)
I would probably make the same decision as Systrom, given the opportunity, but I don't think everyone would. Some people would rather be the new tech titan rather than the guy who sold himself out to keep the old tech titan in power for another decade.
There are also other motivations a found may have to not sell out to Zuckerberg. In my original comment considered including the WhatsApp founders. They both made out handsomely, but their creation will be corrupted to fit Zuckerberg's privacy-free vision rather than their privacy-preserving one.
I think the main question is what happens to the "Facebook nevers" generation once they graduate from college. Do they continue not using Facebook or do they accept that given the lifestyles in 20s, 30s and 40s, Facebook is the right product to be in.
The fact that Snapchat, which is a very popular product for teens/college users, usage continues to stagnate tells me that the "Facebook nevers" is not really a proven theory but just another hypothesis. Instagram, otoh, is popular across all age groups.
Yeah, this. I've noticed some people in my family / social circle have starting using Evite for event invitations in the past year or so, presumably because they know a lot of people don't check facebook regularly anymore. Functionally though it's neither the same nor as good of a product as FB events. A protocol-based and/or federated solution would be great... but then again people are trying to do this for all the other functions of social media with little success so far. The incentives of capitalism are hard to overcome.
Hardly a novel analysis, or any new information. It has been written about for years how Facebook is weak in the under 13 demographic. That's why they not only bought Instagram, but also thoroughly copied Snapchat and crammed it into the Instagram app. Similarly, jokes have been out there for a while about how nobody is on Facebook anymore but your grandma.
Personally, I did quit Facebook, after years of less rewarding interactions, and an increasing amount of friction with the site. Often the newsfeed's choices of content felt personally insulting. It's a habit to visit, even though it really doesn't offer much, like smoking.
What I did is I change my password to something that I don't remember to break the habit. Then, in the time it would take to recover the password and sign in, I have already remembered that I don't want to. I haven't been there in a couple of weeks, and the last times I did, my notifications were quite dull.
One thing that reinforces quitting is that not using the site for a while seems to greatly reduce the reach of posts when you return. When I post content and get no responses it feels humiliating, like I appear to have no friends who are interested in my content. In reality, Facebook is showing my content to very few people. I get about 10 times the response on Instagram, from basically the same group of people, and it was even more so before they partially ruined Instagram by making the feed more like Facebook.
I use your "choose a random password" trick for every site now. If I want to "like" or reply to anything then it's a real effort - so I have to be very motivated to do it, or have something actually useful to contribute.
It's refreshing to get rid of that "must give my 2 cents on everything" urge.
Except, you know, in this case. The "Me too!" urge was too strong so I reset my HN password ;)
Quora has become an absolute cess-pool of thinly veiled content marketing / spam and pseudo-intellectual self-help Ted-talky BS, in my experience at least.
When it was first out there were a lot of smart writers posting thought-provoking content, a lot of (SV) insiders giving interesting anecdata, etc. It seems that it has devolved into a more yahoo answers meets TED / stevepavlina.com type community now, but maybe that's just my feed. I admit that I've hardly used it in the past few years so it could just be my shitty and uncurated list of topics and people i follow
IMO Quora is one of the larger missed opportunities in recent tech history. The early community they built around the product was extraordinary, unique and rewarding as a user
They had the foundations to build one of few reliable and high quality "expert" social graphs with a high bar of discussion but threw it all away when they chased expansion via search-engine marketing
Problem is, chasing the common denominator probably increased Quora's ad revenue. I think that Quora's high quality community was doomed as soon as Quora accepted venture funding.
I think you're extrapolating that from my use of the term 'content', but I'm merely referring to whether anyone responds to my occasional posts about my work or life.
I have thousands of connections on Facebook, but when I put up something, I'll get one like, from my dad. The same thing on Instagram, and I would get actual communication with the peer group that I was intending to communicate with.
All I'm trying to is casually keep in touch with my friends and acquaintances. The like/heart/favorite serves as a register that someone read it and/or cared enough to send that signal.
People are full of shit. Talk a big game when they benefit from it socially but when it comes to actually making a change, taking a stand, voting with dollars, etc. They come up with 'But I'm busy' 'But I'm tired' 'But I'm lonely' 'But everyone else is doing it' and the catch-all 'I'm only human'.
I'm guilty as charged too. I don't have a Facebook but I still eat fish, drive a car, etc, etc.
This trait right here is why I am not optimistic about the future no matter how much technology progresses.
Everybody is guilty in some way of not making a change, or not taking a stand, whatever the 'good' or 'bad' subject that is.
Still, no single indvidual is to blame in most cases.
The education and the media in practice are means to shape the values, believes and perception of people.
At the mass scale, people flows into an unstoppable current, growing, fed by itself.
Taking a stand against these currents from the outside would be suicide. (Fortunately there is not only one current to go into, yet).
FB will likely reach a dead end someday, but that sort of current will continue to flow.
IMHO, the best effort for an individual is trying to get other individuals realize and have some understanding in what kind of current they are flowing.
If you think people are full of shit, you've been listening to the wrong ones.
Personally I never claimed that I will quit Facebook, because I know I ain't going to do it, as all my family is on it.
That said, I only visit Facebook about once per week or even less, because frankly it's not that interesting. I was also checking out my ads profile. Turns out, I never clicked on any ads. And when posting content, I'm always careful to post for my friends only, which isn't a big list of people. Meaning that in the large scheme of things, Facebook isn't getting much from me. My social network of choice has been Twitter.
I also own two cars. But I ride my bike to and from work every day, in all seasons but winter.
I ate a lot of meat, but I'm trying to cut down on it due to health benefits. Considering that I gave up smoking, sodas and alcoholic beverages completely, it's a little hard for me to further restrict what I put in my mouth.
And yes, I am only human. FYI the actions of any one particular individual to cut down on usage based on moral or social factors are zilch. If you want meaningful change, there are only 3 ways to do it:
1. invent technology that makes the status quo irrelevant, but this isn't actually something that most of us can do
2. keep the competition alive by voting with your wallet, because every dollar counts
3. get involved in politics, or at least talk more often with your representatives, go vote and convince the people around you to do the same
Because cutting down on meat due to environmental reasons, quitting Facebook and so on, that's the bullshit we do to feel good, but doesn't actually matter.
"Full of shit" means "not telling the truth", a hypocrite, e.g. one that suffers from double standards.
You can tell a lot by my reply, but not that.
And I understand the author's frustration, because I've been there. We tend to live in filter bubbles, believing the stories of those around us, acquaintances that we picked according to our own ideals.
Step outside that bubble and you'll notice people don't freaking care about most of your ideals. And I wouldn't say they are full of shit. If anything, it means that we aren't realistic, a problem of expectations management and a recipe for depression.
Hence my comment — i.e. I'm one of those that won't quit Facebook due to outrage over the story of Cambridge Analytica, because I don't think that makes any difference. I'm also among those that have been happy with the introduction of GDPR, because companies are unreliable and have built business models that depend on the ignorance of Internet users. I also work in the online ads industry, while being anti-tracking, so compared to a lot of people in this community, I'm not guilty of double standards, at least in regards to tech.
Cutting down on meat is good for a lot more than just feelin good my friend. I’m typing this from my phone, so I will just say do some more research on the benefits. There is a lot of byproducts directly from animal agriculture that affect quality of life for the entire biosphere.
Militant vegans do make it hard to listen at times but there are also other some other voices starting to speak up. Laboratory meats are probably going to be a monumental moment for the movement.
Moderation is key to everything. Facebook and most social media is built on feedloops that, in my opinion, stifle human potential. It’ll will be looked back on one day like people view cigarettes today. I’ll bet money on that.
I’ve gone through a crazy adventure through out my 20s to feel how I feel today. I feel healthy physically, mentally, emotionally, financially, spiritually, etc etc.
I’m kinda out there now, renouncing all my possessions besides one backpack, working on Option 1 in your list. I’m 28, first generation American
A good part of contradiction is not people thinking something and doing otherwise, but people not saying what they really believe because of fear.
That happens in authoritarian regimes where blasphemy against the official truth can mean jail or execution. But even in democratic, liberal societies going against the "right way of thinking" can get you in a lot of trouble.
Edit (accidentally sent before finished): it's reasonable that hypocrisy increases when you share your opinions with the whole world (potentially) instead of a like-minded circle of close friends.
Facebook feels like a hall of mirrors where people share their views and moments based on what others are sharing. What we have now is a culture of buzzfeed articles and witch hunt movements that make a lot of people afraid to be human. see a lot of one-upping, political rants, humble brags etc. I like HN and Reddit for the authenticity.
Even instagram is breeding mental instability in millions of people around the world. It may not be you or me. It’s a real phenomenon.
Not sure I agree with this argument. If Facebook's appeal dips for prospective users, they'll just buy whatever services those users are using instead. Their revenue comes from ads anyway.
Okay so, I'm reasonably well connected to the world.
What can Facebook offer me? I don't use it, I have never had an account, and I always thought it was a fad. It seems that it has taken awhile, but the world has agreed it was a fad and it is now over it.
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[ 4.9 ms ] story [ 143 ms ] threadI've noticed this amongst my family. The cousins, etc I have under 16 either don't have a facebook account or abandoned shortly after creating it. It's "uncool" because their parents see everything they do on there -- I know you can customize your sharing, but I doubt they know or care to be that careful on Facebook.
"This is why the smartest thing Facebook ever did was buy Instagram. Instagram is likely past a billion active users on its own now."
Unfortunately, this is why I don't use IG. I want to, but it seems impossible for me to keep it out of my Facebook like I want to. FB always pops up with "look what your friends are doing on IG" and I don't want my photography to be plastered in front of my grandparents.
The big reason seems to be the fact hat FB was too public. People were all in each other business and it gets ugly. Snap and IG are more direct, more one-on-one so to speak (at least my perception, I don't use social) giving people more privacy to post and like things they may not want mom/dad/grandma to see.
It turns out that all those people I had shallow social connections to from some time in our past? I don't miss 'em.
Not necessarily. Lots of social circles use Facebook Events to organize get togethers, and not having an active Facebook account leads to you being left out. The people leaving you out may only be acquaintances, but that doesn't mean it's ok.
This is the reason why I still have a Facebook account. It's obviously and explicitly inactive, and I only log in when I get an event invite.
I have many reasons to dislike Fb but at the top of that is how gated it makes communities.
If Facebook is such a problem then people could just stop being part of these social circles. It really isn't that difficult.
No, it actually is that difficult, or more precisely that undesirable. Very few people are such anti-Facebook activists that they're going to dump valued friends and acquaintances in order to dump Facebook. That's why Facebook is going to hold on to a lot of users, and why it'll end in a whimper and not a bang.
The only case where it "really isn't that difficult" is if you have no valued relationships that have a Facebook component.
Will you only decide which hobbies I may have, or do I have to submit planned meals and TV watching for your approval, as well?
"Just stop being part", my ass...
So no e-mail, no contact form and 3/4 of those services belong to FB :/
FB is how the event is marketed. Fb is how i find about different underground shows. And my use of Fb is limited for events, but for my friend, life without Fb is very much impossible.
All of human social relationships is "in people's minds", no?
I with my hobbies (Swing dancing) would dearly miss out. That's why I'm still evaluating whether it's feasible to delete my account, by getting other sources for events. So far, only very limited success.
Does it? This is the closest I can get:
> Facebook has been giving many people many reasons not to sign up over the years. But we’ve had to: everyone we knew was on Facebook. And eventually, this trickled up and our parents were on Facebook. Now the trickle down effects of this are the opposite: kids don’t want to be on Facebook because it’s what their parents are using.
That's not really the same as "impossible".
> Is this article more a reflection of the author's poor self control than of reality?
Is poor self control the only reason one would be on Facebook?
But the fact that everyone they know is on Facebook doesn't mean I have to be in Facebook. I never made an account for it.
Poor self control is what turns "many reasons to sign up" into "had to".
0: Admittedly, NoScript helps a lot with this.
It seems like I don't really get fresh content anymore. It seems like a few, mostly stale stories from people I barely talk to. That makes it harder to be engaged in the service, and it makes me use the service less.
What I wish I could have (by default) is just a chronological list of things that people have posted.
Maybe there is a team of facebook who needs to justify their jobs or something? I don't want my feed optimized at all. I do the optimizing by selecting who I follow.
> It seems like I don't really get fresh content anymore. It seems like a few, mostly stale stories from people I barely talk to. That makes it harder to be engaged in the service, and it makes me use the service less.
It's entirely possible that their algorithms fail for your personality/usage patterns, but are successful enough on other accounts to make up for your loss of "engagement" from Facebook's perspective.
> What I wish I could have (by default) is just a chronological list of things that people have posted.
> Maybe there is a team of facebook who needs to justify their jobs or something? I don't want my feed optimized at all. I do the optimizing by selecting who I follow.
They don't want you to do the optimizing for yourself because that means they can't nudge you into doing what serves them the most.
Bookmark this URL, which shows your feed chronologically:
https://www.facebook.com/?sk=h_chr
Perhaps what you're observing is the result of people abandoning Facebook or using it much less. It's not that Facebook is poorly optimized for you, it's that the people you want to hear from are using the platform less that before?
I thought I would get a better Facebook, a new feed with only posts from people I care about, turned out my Facebook is empty now, the people and pages I do care about seem to stopped posting a long time ago, I just didn't know because Facebook made it look like my feed was full of interactions I cared about.
Though that strategy requires the cooperation of both the government and the leaders of those "next big things."
The founder of the next big social network may prefer to be the next Mark Zuckerberg rather than the next Kevin Systrom.
/me looks at Wikipedia page of Kevin Systrom
> Net worth: 1.6 billion $
I think I'd be okay with being Kevin Systrom. (Especially considering that Systrom is mostly unknown in the general public, whereas Zuck has a large amount of people who personally hate him.)
>> Net worth: 1.6 billion $
Net worth of Mark Zuckerberg: 75.6 billion USD
> I think I'd be okay with being Kevin Systrom. (Especially considering that Systrom is mostly unknown in the general public, whereas Zuck has a large amount of people who personally hate him.)
I would probably make the same decision as Systrom, given the opportunity, but I don't think everyone would. Some people would rather be the new tech titan rather than the guy who sold himself out to keep the old tech titan in power for another decade.
There are also other motivations a found may have to not sell out to Zuckerberg. In my original comment considered including the WhatsApp founders. They both made out handsomely, but their creation will be corrupted to fit Zuckerberg's privacy-free vision rather than their privacy-preserving one.
The fact that Snapchat, which is a very popular product for teens/college users, usage continues to stagnate tells me that the "Facebook nevers" is not really a proven theory but just another hypothesis. Instagram, otoh, is popular across all age groups.
I wish somebody would create an open, federated Events implementation, and copy all event data (including rsvps) from FB continuously.
Besides the even thing, your group also gets a discussion board, mailing list, photo sharing and a few other tools.
The cost might be a barrier to the adoption but I'm hoping it will grow more
Personally, I did quit Facebook, after years of less rewarding interactions, and an increasing amount of friction with the site. Often the newsfeed's choices of content felt personally insulting. It's a habit to visit, even though it really doesn't offer much, like smoking.
What I did is I change my password to something that I don't remember to break the habit. Then, in the time it would take to recover the password and sign in, I have already remembered that I don't want to. I haven't been there in a couple of weeks, and the last times I did, my notifications were quite dull.
One thing that reinforces quitting is that not using the site for a while seems to greatly reduce the reach of posts when you return. When I post content and get no responses it feels humiliating, like I appear to have no friends who are interested in my content. In reality, Facebook is showing my content to very few people. I get about 10 times the response on Instagram, from basically the same group of people, and it was even more so before they partially ruined Instagram by making the feed more like Facebook.
It's refreshing to get rid of that "must give my 2 cents on everything" urge.
Except, you know, in this case. The "Me too!" urge was too strong so I reset my HN password ;)
That sentence particularly resonated with me. I recently quit Quora, and it perfectly describes my recent experience there.
When it was first out there were a lot of smart writers posting thought-provoking content, a lot of (SV) insiders giving interesting anecdata, etc. It seems that it has devolved into a more yahoo answers meets TED / stevepavlina.com type community now, but maybe that's just my feed. I admit that I've hardly used it in the past few years so it could just be my shitty and uncurated list of topics and people i follow
They had the foundations to build one of few reliable and high quality "expert" social graphs with a high bar of discussion but threw it all away when they chased expansion via search-engine marketing
Are you a magazine journalist? If not, why do you have “content”?
Maybe Facebook has trained you to believe you're playing a churnalism RPG, and that your ability to grind for Likes reflects your value as a person.
All I'm trying to is casually keep in touch with my friends and acquaintances. The like/heart/favorite serves as a register that someone read it and/or cared enough to send that signal.
And the Facebook app. And WhatsApp, too, I think
get rid of the huge fixed headers and fixed footers garbage. PLEASE. fuck this stupid trend.
0. https://github.com/thebaer/MMRA
I'm guilty as charged too. I don't have a Facebook but I still eat fish, drive a car, etc, etc.
This trait right here is why I am not optimistic about the future no matter how much technology progresses.
Principled developers quitting Microsoft GitHub? Apparently as rare as a black female employee at Google.
@rblion email me if you want to help nudge the needle.
https://github.com/upend/IF_MS_BUYS_GITHUB_IMMA_OUT
Still, no single indvidual is to blame in most cases.
The education and the media in practice are means to shape the values, believes and perception of people. At the mass scale, people flows into an unstoppable current, growing, fed by itself.
Taking a stand against these currents from the outside would be suicide. (Fortunately there is not only one current to go into, yet).
FB will likely reach a dead end someday, but that sort of current will continue to flow.
IMHO, the best effort for an individual is trying to get other individuals realize and have some understanding in what kind of current they are flowing.
Personally I never claimed that I will quit Facebook, because I know I ain't going to do it, as all my family is on it.
That said, I only visit Facebook about once per week or even less, because frankly it's not that interesting. I was also checking out my ads profile. Turns out, I never clicked on any ads. And when posting content, I'm always careful to post for my friends only, which isn't a big list of people. Meaning that in the large scheme of things, Facebook isn't getting much from me. My social network of choice has been Twitter.
I also own two cars. But I ride my bike to and from work every day, in all seasons but winter.
I ate a lot of meat, but I'm trying to cut down on it due to health benefits. Considering that I gave up smoking, sodas and alcoholic beverages completely, it's a little hard for me to further restrict what I put in my mouth.
And yes, I am only human. FYI the actions of any one particular individual to cut down on usage based on moral or social factors are zilch. If you want meaningful change, there are only 3 ways to do it:
1. invent technology that makes the status quo irrelevant, but this isn't actually something that most of us can do
2. keep the competition alive by voting with your wallet, because every dollar counts
3. get involved in politics, or at least talk more often with your representatives, go vote and convince the people around you to do the same
Because cutting down on meat due to environmental reasons, quitting Facebook and so on, that's the bullshit we do to feel good, but doesn't actually matter.
You can tell a lot by my reply, but not that.
And I understand the author's frustration, because I've been there. We tend to live in filter bubbles, believing the stories of those around us, acquaintances that we picked according to our own ideals.
Step outside that bubble and you'll notice people don't freaking care about most of your ideals. And I wouldn't say they are full of shit. If anything, it means that we aren't realistic, a problem of expectations management and a recipe for depression.
Hence my comment — i.e. I'm one of those that won't quit Facebook due to outrage over the story of Cambridge Analytica, because I don't think that makes any difference. I'm also among those that have been happy with the introduction of GDPR, because companies are unreliable and have built business models that depend on the ignorance of Internet users. I also work in the online ads industry, while being anti-tracking, so compared to a lot of people in this community, I'm not guilty of double standards, at least in regards to tech.
Smoking is orders of magnitude harder, at least it was for me. But it's doable indeed, millions have done it.
Having a motive, not the same as "motivation", makes a difference indeed.
Militant vegans do make it hard to listen at times but there are also other some other voices starting to speak up. Laboratory meats are probably going to be a monumental moment for the movement.
Moderation is key to everything. Facebook and most social media is built on feedloops that, in my opinion, stifle human potential. It’ll will be looked back on one day like people view cigarettes today. I’ll bet money on that.
I’ve gone through a crazy adventure through out my 20s to feel how I feel today. I feel healthy physically, mentally, emotionally, financially, spiritually, etc etc.
I’m kinda out there now, renouncing all my possessions besides one backpack, working on Option 1 in your list. I’m 28, first generation American
That happens in authoritarian regimes where blasphemy against the official truth can mean jail or execution. But even in democratic, liberal societies going against the "right way of thinking" can get you in a lot of trouble.
Edit (accidentally sent before finished): it's reasonable that hypocrisy increases when you share your opinions with the whole world (potentially) instead of a like-minded circle of close friends.
Even instagram is breeding mental instability in millions of people around the world. It may not be you or me. It’s a real phenomenon.
What can Facebook offer me? I don't use it, I have never had an account, and I always thought it was a fad. It seems that it has taken awhile, but the world has agreed it was a fad and it is now over it.
So, what did I actually miss out on?
The life of a social moth. Always going for shining lights. Getting burnt. And having so low a life expectancy that 10 years is long-term.