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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

#371

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I keep the experience super crappy by using fb mobile and not the app. Keeps my browsing sessions pretty short.

I do the same thing. Funny how they won't let u use direct messaging on the mobile web client anymore and force you to download the messenger app. I refuse to ha e Facebook on my phone.

I run Disa as a Messenger replacement

Re: Facebook is an attack on the open web

#372
post #94
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…

Oh god, the shit where incredibly overweight pages make you click the slow "load more" buttons just to load a few more kb of text that could've been immediately shown to you for basically no extra cost drives me crazy. And as much as facebook sucks, most web sites suck. It's amazing to me how many sites I read on my phone are basically unusable until I fall back on Safari's reader mode. Javascript handlers that fuck…

I think this is where Google's AMP succeeds. As much as people don't want to be in Google's walled garden and for them to destroy the open web, they have made visiting websites and reading articles much more pleasant. Their incredible engineering talent has done a great job tackling the problems you mentioned.

Re: Facebook is an attack on the open web

#373

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've enjoyed roughly the same experience but without the downsides. As far as events go, the neckbeard in me hasn't actually minded. I still get invited to "high quality" events (things my real-life friends are going to) and haven't really missed the lower quality events. Photos I just conveniently had solved by having all my photos on Google Photos anyways (I stopped trusting offline storage long ago). I think my Fa…

> Interestingly, I still find a lot of value in Messenger. But they've split concerns so you can use that without reactivating your FB account. Afaik when you deactivate your Facebook account, you have the option to keep the Messenger account, but just deactivate/delete the Facebook account.

Thanks! I didn't know this was possible. I was locked in Facebook because of the Messenger: that's how I communicate with most of my friends. I just deactivated my Facebook account and kept the Messenger.

Re: Facebook is an attack on the open web

#374
My experience with Facebook was that it made me a lot less fond of people that I used to call friends. I'm a bit of a nomad, so I have clusters of friends and family that exist in places I've long since left behind. At first, I was curious about what they were up to, but the reality of their curated online selves was more disappointing than enlightening.

I was getting a lot of annoying politics and boring photos of kid play dates, pets, dinners, sporting events, etc. Obviously, the quality of your feed depends on the quality of the people you connect with, but I found myself more disconnected from people who previously occupied a nostalgic fondness in my mind.

On the other hand, the people who I cared the most about were routinely the quietest people on Facebook because--let's face it--smart, productive people don't waste time on things like that.

I'm relatively old (40's), so my experience is also skewed by that.

I left by editing my hosts file to block all FB-related servers and never looked back.

Re: Facebook is an attack on the open web

#377

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…

Just install Todobook (or even News Feed Eradicator) and you'll be fine. I check my FB usage using TimeYourWeb and it fell down by 90% since then.

Re: Facebook is an attack on the open web

#378

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I get that it's the network effects, but I guess I don't understand how your relationships are structured. I have a core group of friends with whom I talk every day on IM or the phone or face to face, then a larger group with whom I talk a few times a week, and then the rest are acquaintances I talk to rarely. If anything happens in any of the first two groups, I hear about it because I'm directly invited. There aren…

Your core group of friends may use Messenger for IM and FB events for meeting up. You can still probably catch up but it will take a _lot_ more effort.

I can attest to that. It is like herding cats.

Re: Facebook is an attack on the open web

#379
post #79

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Deleted my account 2 years ago along with Twitter's and Instagram's. It's just a better life for me now. Less stress, less anger.

Facebook and Twitter I get, but you were being angered and stressed by Instagram? It's the only social media I actively use precisely because it's not stressful or rage inducing. I'm into photography so it gives me an outlet that way (even though taking a picture with a real camera, editing it on a computer, then sending it to my phone to post on Instagram is a bit of a pain), and the annoying content from other peop…

I see 0 ads on Instagram. When it first started, I just blocked and reported every account that posted an advert. And I marked every advert as uninteresting (or whatever the function was called) and I haven't seen an Instagram ad in over a year.

Re: Facebook is an attack on the open web

#380
post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh god, the shit where incredibly overweight pages make you click the slow "load more" buttons just to load a few more kb of text that could've been immediately shown to you for basically no extra cost drives me crazy. And as much as facebook sucks, most web sites suck. It's amazing to me how many sites I read on my phone are basically unusable until I fall back on Safari's reader mode. Javascript handlers that fuck…

I think this is where Google's AMP succeeds. As much as people don't want to be in Google's walled garden and for them to destroy the open web, they have made visiting websites and reading articles much more pleasant. Their incredible engineering talent has done a great job tackling the problems you mentioned.

I prefer to use Safari's Reader Mode. Why shouldn't we just have native support for that on all other major browsers (looking at Chrome).
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