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Facebook is an attack on the open web

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Re: Facebook is an attack on the open web

#21

Post by kirse »

All this open-web bitching sounds oddly familiar from back when AOL was a tech monstrosity with nearly everything inside its walled-garden. Facebook is basically just a worldwide version of AOL, and plenty of people are tiring of it, just as they tired of AOL's dialup shenanigans and obnoxious floppy disk marketing.

And Facebook, too, will eventually crust away when the underlying tech improves (universal 5G? who knows?) and the next Steve Case / Mark Zuckerberg visionary builds the next generally-centralized service for most internet users. But the open web will survive just fine.

Re: Facebook is an attack on the open web

#22

Post by jtmarmon »

thr0waway1239 wrote: post #13

>> Facebook going out of business seems unlikely Is it? Because it seems to me that they are having plenty of issues with gaining the trust of advertisers too. Considering that advertising is the bread and butter of their business, this would normally be something of a mini-crisis. A quick search for "do advertisers trust facebook" gives me https://techcrunch.com/2016/11/12/facebook-needs-accountabil... https://ventu…

facebook has a certain level of monopoly over people's attention. i don't think a little snafu like this is suddenly going to make advertisers think they should stop advertising on facebook.

Re: Facebook is an attack on the open web

#23

Post by korzun »

adtac wrote: post #14

You've ever been to one of those pages that embed Facebook's comment engine? Yeah, those are the worst. I did some analysis on a random page with just three Facebook comments. Requests to Facebook's servers accounted for 1.5 MB of the 2.4 MB tranfered by the ENTIRE page. 87 network requests, 35 javascript files injected and it didn't even load all the comments! (I had to click on a "Load more comments" button to load…

> Requests to Facebook's servers accounted for 1.5 MB of the 2.4 MB tranfered by the ENTIRE page. 87 network requests, 35 javascript files injected and it didn't even load all the comments! (I had to click on a "Load more comments" button to load the rest of the comments.)

This is an issue for a really small segment of users. Not really a cause for concern in 2017. Especially when most of that stuff is already cached.

> Why the hell do you need 37 javascript files and 1.5 MB to load three comments?

That's oversimplifying it. You are loading 37 assets to support a social commenting platform.

Re: Facebook is an attack on the open web

#24

Post by adtac »

tantalor wrote: post #6

> I don’t know what your privacy settings are. So if I point to your post, it’s possible a lot of people might not be able to read it Easy: open the page in an incognito window.

I'm sure Facebook is still tracking you in some way. Some low hanging fruits: IP address, user agent, screen resolution, network speed based tracking, geo location, presence of various web technologies. With all this and Facebook's backend data, I'm absolutely sure they'll be able to narrow you down to at most 5-10 people.

Re: Facebook is an attack on the open web

#25

Post by pcsanwald »

Tossrock wrote: post #19

I deactivated my Facebook account several months ago, and it's been about 90% great, 10% frustrating. It's great for all the obvious reasons (less timesuck, less compulsion to endlessly scroll your life away, no notification interruptions). The frustrations are real, though. Primarily it's around events and photos. There are some communities I participate in that regularly organize events through Facebook, and now I…

this has been my experience almost exactly. It's not my nature to be part of an online community where I don't actively participate, so the idea of having a facebook account which I "never check" wasn't appealing to me at all.

And while my reasoning was less idealistic than Gruber's, I think he makes a bunch of great points and I very much agree with the spirit of his post.

Re: Facebook is an attack on the open web

#26

Post by ovao »

tobyjsullivan wrote: post #5

Not everything on the internet needs to be public (or part of the "open web" as the article calls it). Facebook is a fantastic place for web content that isn't meant to be public. This idea of posting "public content" on Facebook is inherently flawed. I agree with the article on that much. However, what I haven't figured out yet is if this is actually an evil-Facebook issue or just a user issue. Is Facebook actively…

I'd argue that Facebook defines content that's "public" in a way that some — perhaps many — would not, so it's a potential point of confusion. I don't consider it evil, but it certainly results in a sort of Facebook-first inclusiveness. Gruber hits on this with Facebook's intent that posts not be indexable by search engines.

Re: Facebook is an attack on the open web

#27

Post by tw334 »

Tossrock wrote: post #19

I deactivated my Facebook account several months ago, and it's been about 90% great, 10% frustrating. It's great for all the obvious reasons (less timesuck, less compulsion to endlessly scroll your life away, no notification interruptions). The frustrations are real, though. Primarily it's around events and photos. There are some communities I participate in that regularly organize events through Facebook, and now I…

I deleted the main FB app from my phone and use the Events app which works really well as a standalone product.

I also use Google photos, which has all of my photos, not just the ones I've uploaded to Facebook. Plus the search is great.

Maybe these suggestions could help your problem and clear that 10%.

Re: Facebook is an attack on the open web

#28

Post by manyoso »

Tossrock wrote: post #19

I deactivated my Facebook account several months ago, and it's been about 90% great, 10% frustrating. It's great for all the obvious reasons (less timesuck, less compulsion to endlessly scroll your life away, no notification interruptions). The frustrations are real, though. Primarily it's around events and photos. There are some communities I participate in that regularly organize events through Facebook, and now I…

Deleted my facebook account in January. For me it is 100% great and do not miss it even a little.

Re: Facebook is an attack on the open web

#29

Post by dvt »

The irony, I think, is that Facebook tends to be too open. There are pictures or posts or status updates I'd like hidden from the world. Facebook isn't necessarily an attack on the open web, it's an attack on content ownership. When it comes to my personal blog, I can create, alter, and delete as I see fit. On Facebook, I'm sure that posts from my early 20s still linger somewhere in the abyss of their data centers.

I'm sure that some embarrassing or unflattering picture of me is somewhere out there. And I think that's the crux of this problem: Facebook is the gatekeeper; it decides whether or not it wants to open or close the door on content. Of course, this has an implication as far as its openness is concerned, but the far more dangerous aspect is, as I mentioned, the fact that I should be the gatekeeper for my own content.

At least that's the way I see it. I agree with the idea that as a social platform, Facebook is dying. People contribute less and less personal and intimate content in lieu of linking articles or throwaway memes. Nowadays, I mostly use it as a news feed.

I think there's a vacuum out there ripe for disruption; a combination between Snapchat and Tumblr. A sort of MySpace for the new decade and a platform where people can be themselves again.

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