Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Facebook – You are the Product

lrb.co.uk

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

141–150 of 321 posts

Re: Facebook – You are the Product

#141

Post by wott »

debaserab2 wrote: post #123
Sir_Cmpwn wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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. It is. You have the power to choose what you want to be a part of. And these groups have more members than yourself - people who you can ask to help you stay up to date on meetings and such.

I'm sorry, but get real. People use technology because it assists and speeds up areas of their life. For many people, facebook far and away is the most convenient way to manage their social life simply because they have the greatest adoption within their social groups. Yes, we could "write someone a letter in the mail instead" or "ask a friend about the events on facebook" but that would defeat the point for the vast…

> I'm sorry, but get real. People use technology because it assists and speeds up areas of their life.

Get real: people waste a lot more time on 'tech' than they save, compared to doing without. The goal of most of those 'techs' is to take up as much of your time as possible, that's the foundation of their business.

Re: Facebook – You are the Product

#142

Post by elorant »

cortesoft wrote: post #118
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…

I really don't like that phrase; you are NOT the product that facebook creates. Facebook creates a product which is a social media network. You PAY for that product with your data and your eyeballs. Facebook takes your payment, turns around, and sells it to advertisers and others interested in the data. That is not the same as saying you are the product.

So my data are the product but not me? Where's the distinction?

Re: Facebook – You are the Product

#143

Post by Torgo »

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…

"Television Delivers People" (1973) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vfnm5XHsHkc

Re: Facebook – You are the Product

#144

Post by elorant »

parthdesai wrote: post #49
notadoc wrote: post #5

I stopped using Facebook years ago and I could not recommend it more. I found it to be mental pollution at best and and a total waste of time. If you want to 'keep in touch' with people, call or text them. Make an effort to actually interact with the people who matter to you.

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…

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?

You throw a party and get to talk to everyone. I mean come on, we used to socialize before social networks.

Re: Facebook – You are the Product

#145

Post by debaserab2 »

Sir_Cmpwn wrote: post #134
debaserab2 wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sorry, but get real. People use technology because it assists and speeds up areas of their life. For many people, facebook far and away is the most convenient way to manage their social life simply because they have the greatest adoption within their social groups. Yes, we could "write someone a letter in the mail instead" or "ask a friend about the events on facebook" but that would defeat the point for the vast…

The point I'm making is thus: if you acknowledge that Facebook is a bad influence on your life but you feel stuck with it, here's a low risk strategy for dipping your toes into life without it that you can try out. I don't spend hours managing my social contacts and calendars and I still feel connected with my family and my friends without Facebook. I'd like to point out that this thread has depressingly similar patt…

Or, perhaps, just maybe people have different social lives and expectations within a social group that yours don't share. Just maybe.

Re: Facebook – You are the Product

#146

Post by wott »

saimiam wrote: post #88
bluGill wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Facebook is a much better way for me to share pictures of my kids to all my relatives. Sure I can text that picture to each individually, but some people want to see all pictures in full detail while some want to see just a few. I have no way of knowing who wants to see any individual pictures. My parents want to see nearly all. What about my second cousin who I haven't seen in person in 15 years because she lives so…

> Facebook solves a real social problem With all due respect, until FB nominally solved this problem, you (I) never even knew this problem existed. Before it became trivial to share pictures with a long lost acquaintance using FB, we got by just fine showing pics to a tiny subset of friends. There was literally no idea in anyone's head that they needed to show pictures of their children to some guy they last spoke to…

That's the rhetoric of "the pressing 'demand' that must be satisfied". Each time I ask where the mass that actually 'demanded' something is, I get no answer.

Re: Facebook – You are the Product

#147

Post by rdruxn »

abyssin wrote: post #83
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…

I stopped using the harmful part of Facebook, ie the newsfeed, which is designed to create an addictive behaviour, using the following technique. On every single post in my newsfeed, I tell the application I no longer want to see content from the source. It takes some weeks to dry up, but you end up with an empty page. You still get notifications related to your events, group activities, and you can still use the mes…

There are dozens of browser extensions that just hide the newsfeed. No need to go through all that labor.

Re: Facebook – You are the Product

#148

Post by tucif »

abyssin wrote: post #83
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…

I stopped using the harmful part of Facebook, ie the newsfeed, which is designed to create an addictive behaviour, using the following technique. On every single post in my newsfeed, I tell the application I no longer want to see content from the source. It takes some weeks to dry up, but you end up with an empty page. You still get notifications related to your events, group activities, and you can still use the mes…

I also adopted a similar approach, where I unfollowed ALL my firends so that none of them will show up in newsfeed.

Then I added the few ones I truly wanted to know about to the "Close friends" list which allows you to activate notifications for everything they post.

Now when I log in I only see a bunch of notifications which have a very handy "Mark all as read" link, and I only click further when I see a non-meme status update or an interesting share from them.

I can always search someone and go to their profile, or click on a firend list and see what certain group is up to. And I still find messenger useful, except for the forced "Add to your day" part, from which I daily hide any friends "day" as they post it without opening it (hold click to show that option). I'm about 1 year like this and it has been great, don't feel like I'm missing anything.

Re: Facebook – You are the Product

#149

Post by subnaught »

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…

That may be the origin of this particular phrasing, but the idea is much older:

In 1973, the artist Richard Serra made a film called Television Delivers People which declares "You are the product of TV" [0]

Key to Noam Chomsky's _Manufacturing Consent_ (1988) is the idea that advertising-supported media caters to the desires of the advertiser, not the media consumer [1]

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Television_Delivers_People [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manufacturing_Consent

Re: Facebook – You are the Product

#150

Post by ktRolster »

cortesoft wrote: post #118
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…

I really don't like that phrase; you are NOT the product that facebook creates. Facebook creates a product which is a social media network. You PAY for that product with your data and your eyeballs. Facebook takes your payment, turns around, and sells it to advertisers and others interested in the data. That is not the same as saying you are the product.

Advertisers use terminology that matches the user as the product. They talk about "inventory" and that means page views. They talk about "supply side" and that means people who come to gawk. They talk about "demand side" and that means advertisers.

Facebook knows who pays the bills, and they kowtow to those people.

The system is entirely set up to sell users to advertisers. Content is merely there to allow them harvest users. That's how the whole chain operates.

Post reply on HN