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Facebook – You are the Product

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Re: Facebook – You are the Product

#211

Post by Splines »

zamber wrote: post #166
Alex3917 wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Few days? HN bug? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1325103 > 2659 days ago

The source of that article was posted 2659 days ago. Maybe Alex3917 is a time traveler? (Welcome to 2017 Alex, sorry about everything).

Re: Facebook – You are the Product

#212

Post by yawz »

jsemrau wrote: post #182
yawz wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well... As someone who has moved to various countries and across continents a few times over the last three decades, I can hardly find another medium that allows me to keep up with friends and family across many countries and time zones easily. Before Facebook I created and/or used e-mail aliases, e-mail groups, forums, file hosting services, etc. to share our story with friends and family. Facebook makes it much sim…

Well, I moved over the last years across several time-zones and continents. There are people that I knew back then and lost contact now. Do I care if they got babies, found a new job, like/dislike Trump, or are doing Toga on the beach ? No, I don't. I moved away. Having that knowledge does not make my life better or worse in any way. I can get the illusion that we are still in contact, but in reality I will never mov…

Sounds like you didn't care about them in the first place. I'd like to think that friendships and love (not necessarily romantic love) survives the distance.

Having said that, I totally get that one may not necessarily want to know what a friend had for lunch, for example :).

Re: Facebook – You are the Product

#213

Post by yawz »

bduerst wrote: post #163
yawz wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well... As someone who has moved to various countries and across continents a few times over the last three decades, I can hardly find another medium that allows me to keep up with friends and family across many countries and time zones easily. Before Facebook I created and/or used e-mail aliases, e-mail groups, forums, file hosting services, etc. to share our story with friends and family. Facebook makes it much sim…

This is what I don't get about the dichotomy of either quitting facebook or letting it run your life. Can't people just use fb minimally without it absorbing everything they do? I login probably once a week at most, and only check messenger if someone pings me on it. It's not difficult, so why are so many people advocating deleting accounts to improve their lives?

Totally! That's close to how I'm using Facebook normally. I don't even have Messenger on my mobile devices.

Re: Facebook – You are the Product

#214

Post by Prefinem »

Swizec wrote: post #203
Prefinem wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If I want to invite you to a party like that, are we not friends Acquaintances or good acquaintances. I think this boils down to each person's definition of friends and friendship along with the amount of social interaction each person needs. I need very little social interaction, so I tend to keep close friends and not much else. I know others who always like to be around someone. They don't care much who it is, a…

> Acquaintances or good acquaintances. So I'm throwing a party with just acquaintances and no friends are coming? That feels weird. > I need very little social interaction Me too. Which is why I tend to keep to myself, and throw a huge rager for as many people as I can get to show up a couple times per year. Maybe I don't really have any close friends anymore, the definition gets muddy when most everyone you used to…

> So I'm throwing a party with just acquaintances and no friends are coming? That feels weird.

Sorry, I took the inverted view of this. If you are inviting me, most likely I am an acquaintance.

I don't throw parties, but I do like to hang out, so generally I just invite friends over. Just friends. When I do throw a party, it's mostly for someone else and so is definitely mostly acquaintances.

> Maybe I don't really have any close friends anymore, the definition gets muddy when most everyone you used to consider a close friend is now a 12 hour flight away and you never really get to see them anymore.

Don't take this the wrong way, but this is depressing. Some of my good friends I have actually never seen in real life. Distance doesn't mean you can't be friends. But I do make a point to talk with them once a week (we game together) unless someone is gone on a vacation or something like that. I remember a time when I didn't have any real friends and it put me adrift. I would highly recommend that you try and give them a call, or shoot them a text.

Re: Facebook – You are the Product

#215

Post by lovemenot »

iaml wrote: post #63
ProAm wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A facebook message doesn't force you to scroll forever. It's a message, just like a text message.

I find it a bit ridiculous that on HN you are damned both ways: if you rarely use fb to contact folks, you are still contributing to fb stats and still addicted (actual claims from other threads regarding fb), and if you aren't you're ignoring a (valuable) message channel.

Are you insinuating that the many commenters here might have differing even - dare I say - contradictory opinions?

Re: Facebook – You are the Product

#216

Post by compiler-guy »

michaelmrose wrote: post #202
tedunangst wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or not. Maybe they just decide it's not worth the hassle of tracking down the outliers. I guess we can argue that anybody who's a real friend will message you using your preferred comm, though that cuts both ways. If you are a real friend, you'd message them back with their preferred system.

Email is a system which you can assume virtually 100% of users have and doesn't force users to participate in a social network that has been shown to be harmful for a lot of users. Further email doesn't force you to participate in any particular service at all because it is a federated service. Assuming that someone should get a facebook to talk to you is like assuming someone should switch to sprint to call you. Ima…

Regardless of the morality, weirdness or absurdness, that ship has sailed. Many, many groups only use facebook, and if you want to be a part of them, you have to as well.

I agree it is suboptimal, and whether or not it is worth the tradeoff is an individual decision, but that is the world we live in.

The group level is where most of the rubber meets the road here.

Re: Facebook – You are the Product

#217

Post by oneoffaug16 »

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…

Adbusters 1999 "the product is you" https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=xtAX0HfsBtk

Re: Facebook – You are the Product

#218

Post by compiler-guy »

Prefinem wrote: post #197
compiler-guy wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And here we see the mismatch between the two camps: Sure, [good|strong|old|pick your adjective] friends will contact you regardless of your facebook involvement. But there are plenty of acquaintances, groups, events and whatnot that only get organized or contacted on facebook. And even so, why would you put the extra burden on your friends to contact you in a special way? Why wouldn't you make it easy for them to con…

> And even so, why would you put the extra burden on your friends to contact you in a special way? Why wouldn't you make it easy for them to contact you? Texting is just as easy as facebook messaging. Or they can use discord, slack, etc etc. facebook isn't the only way to contact someone that is easy. > But there are plenty of acquaintances, groups, events and whatnot that only get organized or contacted on facebook.…

This is again an argument that the tradeoff is worth it, not that it is easy.

Trade that off if you like, not not everyone does.

Re: Facebook – You are the Product

#219

Post by tedunangst »

michaelmrose wrote: post #202
tedunangst wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or not. Maybe they just decide it's not worth the hassle of tracking down the outliers. I guess we can argue that anybody who's a real friend will message you using your preferred comm, though that cuts both ways. If you are a real friend, you'd message them back with their preferred system.

Email is a system which you can assume virtually 100% of users have and doesn't force users to participate in a social network that has been shown to be harmful for a lot of users. Further email doesn't force you to participate in any particular service at all because it is a federated service. Assuming that someone should get a facebook to talk to you is like assuming someone should switch to sprint to call you. Ima…

I would estimate at most 10% of my Facebook friends have the same email address today that they had on the day we connected.

Re: Facebook – You are the Product

#220

Post by compiler-guy »

michaelmrose wrote: post #205
compiler-guy wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And here we see the mismatch between the two camps: Sure, [good|strong|old|pick your adjective] friends will contact you regardless of your facebook involvement. But there are plenty of acquaintances, groups, events and whatnot that only get organized or contacted on facebook. And even so, why would you put the extra burden on your friends to contact you in a special way? Why wouldn't you make it easy for them to con…

Everyone has an email. You are comparing opening a different app on your phone which requires you to move your finger an inch to a 1000 mile trek. Anyone who can't move their finger an inch to click on a different ubiquitous app to contact you isn't your friend regardless of what you think.

It isn't just moving your finger an inch. It's contacting you differently than they contact literally every one else in their social circle.

And thanks for the incredible insight into who is my friend and who isn't. Your ability to judge from several paragraphs of my writing and nothing more is pretty impressive.

The things I missed weren't really, my friends exactly, but rather broad groups with common interests.

If one doesn't hang out where everyone else does, you can't expect people to invite you when they look at each other and say, "Let's go somewhere."

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