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Facebook – You are the Product

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Re: Facebook – You are the Product

#91

Post by yawz »

Sir_Cmpwn wrote: post #82
yawz wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is hardly practical :), let alone slow and expensive with all the pictures printed etc.

Of course it's practical! How do you think people kept in touch before the internet? How difficult is it to write up a letter, put it in an envelope with a stamp (which you can pick up at the gas station, grocery store, etc) and drop it in your mailbox? Printing pictures is only a few bucks, and as a side effect the recipient can easily frame it and put it on their hearth!

Seriously?!? Would you write that letter to dozens of people in 3 different languages? Or should I pick "only one" of my aunts and uncles to share my son's first school day pictures? Or maybe we can create a human chain where one sends the letter and pictures that he/she receives to the next one in line. (hmm... maybe there's a business idea there...)

Re: Facebook – You are the Product

#92

Post by ProAm »

ageitgey wrote: post #55
ProAm wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> call or text them There is no difference between a call or text and a message on FB, the medium doesn't change the context.

Of course the medium changes the context. It has a huge effect! Phone calls are typically person-to-person communication where you can hear the tone of voice of the person you are talking to, so you can better read their meaning. Also, you typically call people you already know well enough to disturb. It's a very personal form of communication. Facebook is different in all those areas. You are thrown into meaningless…

You can send voice messages over facebook. [1]

[1] https://www.facebook.com/help/377884675632666

Re: Facebook – You are the Product

#93

Post by yawz »

Sir_Cmpwn wrote: post #84
bluGill wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That would work for my parents. It means my second cousin and I exchange "Christmas cards" and no more which leaves a lot out.

You have almost 9,000 hours in a year. Surely you can find time in them to write to your second cousin.

I prefer not to repeat myself and spend that time for more happy memories ;).

Re: Facebook – You are the Product

#94

Post by brodock »

occultist_throw wrote: post #10

Indeed. Any service online, where you do not explicitly pay money for goods/services rendered, you can rest assured that you are paying with data or influence (advertisement). HN is no different. They control the news, and how the news is displayed. They run the YCombinator venture capital fund. You do not pay them, but they control influence (advertising). I would expect different if I paid YC for news access... But…

Middleground alternative is to have a non profit behind the "free service". This works relatively well for some opensource critical resources like rubygems.org which has a foundation paying the bills, sponsored by companies. I think there are other good examples.

Problem is that social networks are hard to build, and tech people behind efforts like Diaspora, while they may understand the tech part, can't make something appealing enough for grandma or everage joe.

Re: Facebook – You are the Product

#95

Post by [deleted] »

guyzero wrote: post #36
olympus wrote: post #31

I'm here to fix some ignorance, since the source of the "you are the product" idea is not these books. Metafilter user blue_beetle first put this idea online when he said "If you are not paying for it, you're not the customer; you're the product being sold" in response to the Digg revolt of 2010. The idea apparently existed for a few decades prior regarding TV advertising. I prefer to think blue_beetle was the one wh…

As much as I give blue-beetle credit for having one of the earliest print references for that exact turn of phrase, I had definitely heard it before then. I don't think he really brought it into the zeitgeist, but then again I haven't talked to the entire zeitgeist about it yet.

[deleted]

Re: Facebook – You are the Product

#96

Post by silassales »

steaknsteak wrote: post #52
hk__2 wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Research shows that most people use FB to keep in touch with their close friends and family. I don’t think it’s bad to be addicted to that. Edit: Some references for the people who downvoted: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0193397308000701 (also talks about how FB is a good help for people with low self-esteem) http://www.cairn.info/revue-sociologie-2017-1-p-57.htm (French) http://www.cairn.info/re…

That's my experience. I use it to keep in touch with friends and family, and to keep on top of events being held in my community and by my friends. I'm not sure what I would do without the Event and Group parts of facebook, as many of my friends and communities I'm a part of use those to plan/organize social activities and it works pretty well. One of my close friends who never checks his facebook is constantly out o…

I think the more dangerous problem than being addicted to it, is the affect it can have on you even if you are only on it for a few minutes a day. I find social media causes people to only see the best parts of other people lives and therefore wonder why their life is not that great, and than theres a nice downward spiral of discontent and depression.

Social media, used by some only to keep in contact is okay, but the subconscious comparison of your real life to others social media life, can be really harmful.

Re: Facebook – You are the Product

#97

Post by compiler-guy »

Sir_Cmpwn wrote: post #68
parthdesai wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So tell me, how do i replace around 5 different group chats i have on messenger which can have anywhere between 5-10 people in each chat? Music events that i go to are exclusively promoted on facebook. How do you recommend i find out about these events so that i can get a cheaper ticket price? if anyone wants to organize a plan that has more than 8 people, facebook groups make it much much easier. I personally hate f…

It's not that hard, you've just forgotten how to do these things without Facebook. >I personally hate facebook's mobile apps and some it's policies ( Internet.org comes 1st to my mind), but it's hard to completely stop using it. Try it! Deactivate your account for a week. Do it again later for two weeks. Maybe for a month. When you learn how to live without it, delete it.

This is a painfully simplistic response.

No matter what I do, several activities and groups I want to be a part of are only advertised and organized on facebook. It's not within my power to change that.

And that, in fact, _does_ makes it hard to avoid using facebook without being left out.

Re: Facebook – You are the Product

#98

Post by Alex3917 »

olympus wrote: post #31

I'm here to fix some ignorance, since the source of the "you are the product" idea is not these books. Metafilter user blue_beetle first put this idea online when he said "If you are not paying for it, you're not the customer; you're the product being sold" in response to the Digg revolt of 2010. The idea apparently existed for a few decades prior regarding TV advertising. I prefer to think blue_beetle was the one wh…

Different phrasing, but I had posted basically the exact same idea on HN and gotten tons of upvotes a few weeks earlier:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1325103

I only posted it because one of my friends told me about hearing a speaker bringing up the idea at a conference, but it's an idea that's been around for decades.

Re: Facebook – You are the Product

#99

Post by kristianc »

> Whatever comes next will take us back to those two pillars of the company, growth and monetisation. Growth can only come from connecting new areas of the planet.

This is a questionable assertion. Giant tech companies like Oracle and IBM don't tend to expand in this way, they make acquisitions of smaller companies, and use them to enhance the platform capabilities of the larger product.

I'm sure Zuck will be delighted if the "bottom billion" do all sign up and use Facebook, but they're never going to be massively profitable accounts.

Imo the acquisitions of Instagram and WhatsApp show the way that Facebook will go - Instagram adds a new and lucrative ad format, a profitable user segment and a base for adding in ideas from other platforms, such as Snapchat. WhatsApp builds out Facebook's graph and can be mined for intel.

Re: Facebook – You are the Product

#100

Post by Sir_Cmpwn »

yawz wrote: post #91
Sir_Cmpwn wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course it's practical! How do you think people kept in touch before the internet? How difficult is it to write up a letter, put it in an envelope with a stamp (which you can pick up at the gas station, grocery store, etc) and drop it in your mailbox? Printing pictures is only a few bucks, and as a side effect the recipient can easily frame it and put it on their hearth!

Seriously?!? Would you write that letter to dozens of people in 3 different languages? Or should I pick "only one" of my aunts and uncles to share my son's first school day pictures? Or maybe we can create a human chain where one sends the letter and pictures that he/she receives to the next one in line. (hmm... maybe there's a business idea there...)

You're used to pushing information to them with a firehose. Use a bucket instead. Send letters out infrequently, one per household.
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