I'm with you. Although my personal problem wasn't with how they managed privacy but with how they used social links between friends and exploited it for marketing purposes. Plus, on facebook everyone is a fan of something and that's all they are and the people that claim their facebook page gives others a sense of what they are like in real life are delusional.
Ask HN: Are you with me? Leaving Facebook.
51–60 of 142 posts
Re: Ask HN: Are you with me? Leaving Facebook.
#52Facebook made the decision for me yesterday. I declined to link all my profile data to business Pages, so everything I'd bothered to maintain was wiped out. It was clear I'm no longer part of their intended user base.
It's fine. I have no interest in participating in an ad network, so I wiped out the rest (friends, photos, etc) and publicized alternate contact info. Gotta keep the account for some of my clients' Pages.
Facebook was great for me ca. 2004-5. Now its goals and policies are very different. Maybe more people will get shocked away when tagging + image recognition start imposing on their family photos.
Re: Ask HN: Are you with me? Leaving Facebook.
#53Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think you're conflating privacy with exclusivity. Facebook was originally only for those in college because it was an electronic version of a book that was put out by Zuck's college. Secondly, I don't think that Facebook's privacy controls were ever a big selling point. The fact that it was for cool kids combined with the fact that all of your friends were on it was a huge selling point. Yes, people use the privacy…
Well, the "it's for cool kids" selling point took a big hit when they started letting high schoolers on it, and lost all credibility when I started getting friend requests from senior citizens and friends' parents. And most of my friends don't actively use it, though most of us at least have a FaceBook account. I find that I'm getting bombarded by sheep from weak connections that aren't really doing anything with the…
It's true, but by that time, they were so big and huge that it didn't really matter.
I don't actually log on to Facebook that much either. I do have my Twitter hooked up to post status updates, and I generally get as much engagement as I do on Twitter itself, so I log in to continue discussions with people commenting on my status. But that's about it.
If you're getting bombarded by sheep, try clicking the 'block updates from this application' button next time. I've been happily bullshit-notification free for a while now.
Re: Ask HN: Are you with me? Leaving Facebook.
#54No, I'm really happy with the service that they provide. If there's something that's actually private, I'm not going to be posting it on the Internet in the first place.
Seriously. I can't believe how differently others view facebook compared to me. I log in every now and then and talk to some old friends who I wouldn't be able to contact otherwise. What info is everyone so scared of getting out? What's the harm in targeted ads? Not like most of us are going to see them anyway.
Re: Ask HN: Are you with me? Leaving Facebook.
#55I recently deleted mine. I had it for a long time, and I just felt like it was keeping the most brain dead relationships barely alive. I was constantly seeing people in real life and saying, "oh yeah, I read that on facebook." I didn't like that, and the privacy concerns were just the last straw. So yeah, I'm with you.
I'm graduating from university next week at a school with twelve thousand kids and this happens all the time to everyone I know. It's so mundane to learn some new social goings-on around campus that it's cliche to mention you found out on the site. I hate it for the same reason. On graduation day, leaving facebook will signify a new phase of life.
Re: Ask HN: Are you with me? Leaving Facebook.
#56I honestly don't care. People shouldn't have private conversations or implicating pictures on Facebook, period. If you don't do either of those two things, you'll be fine. No need to dramatically or publicly terminate your account.
Devil's advocate: If you have a facebook account you really can't stop people from tagging you in "implicating pictures" and the like. You can un-tag yourself after the face or delete things on your wall but there's no guarantee you'll get to that before someone else sees it.
I thought it was possible to not allow tagging to your Wall in Settings?
Re: Ask HN: Are you with me? Leaving Facebook.
#57No, I'm really happy with the service that they provide. If there's something that's actually private, I'm not going to be posting it on the Internet in the first place.
Hear hear to that! I'm always puzzled by all these privacy nuts that go on and on about privacy problems with social media sites like Facebook. If something is absolutely private and you do not want to share it outside of one or two people, DO NOT put it on a social media site! Period.
In fact, I would go as far as to say never put any critically sensitive information on the web.
Re: Ask HN: Are you with me? Leaving Facebook.
#58No, I'm really happy with the service that they provide. If there's something that's actually private, I'm not going to be posting it on the Internet in the first place.
I agree with you generally, but the most damning information about me that's on Facebook was posted by other people.
Re: Ask HN: Are you with me? Leaving Facebook.
#59I've got two words concerning Facebook (and feel free to downvote):
Fuck Facebook
and for the more adventurous:
Fuck Apple
Re: Ask HN: Are you with me? Leaving Facebook.
#60I've stopped using mine, removed all apps, unfollowed (er, unliked?) all pages. I'd guess the market is ripe for a fb-type site that, for lack of a better phrase, isn't evil. And doesn't have a horrible ux.
What features should it have? (Or not have?)
Another interesting question would be: how will it make money?
Websites like Facebook and Myspace are shunning the simple advertisement model. Selling private data will become the new standard. A website similar to scope and feature like Facebook will probably not be able to sustain a positive cash flow or break even without selling people's data. UNLESS...they cut features like photo storage, or make a technological breakthrough.
They are making ~$2/user/year (not including expenses). Since it recently supposedly became cash-flow positive, it would be reasonable to assume that the expenses are also around ~$2/user.
The question then becomes, how much of this $2 is slashed off when you decide to not sell private data? You only have to look at the cost of conventional CPM ads (usually less than $0.01 per impression) and multiply it by how many times a Facebook user opens Facebook each year. My bet is that it is far less than 365/2 since Facebook claims 50% of "active" users login every day.