An ex-Facebook employee told me that to stay productive, developers unfollow everyone and only use Facebook for events - it's too addictive otherwise.
My advice was: sell your shares, because developers are canaries for customers.
Facebook lost around 2.8M U.S. users under 25 last year
311–320 of 365 posts
Re: Facebook lost around 2.8M U.S. users under 25 last year
#312Facebook suffered from 2 waves of "Eternal September" [0]: wave 1: the addition of everybody outside your immediate friends and close family. You get the goofy uncle, the distant high school acquaintances, and all the work acquaintances from every previous job that submitted a "friend request" that you didn't reject out of politeness. The newsfeed gets polluted by nonsense such as forwarded memes, politics, and other…
And the thing is that social networks are not nearly as sticky as they seem. As https://spectrum.ieee.org/computing/networks/metcalfes-law-i... makes clear, multiple lines of evidence suggests that the total possible value out of a social network scales like O(n log(n)). (Yes, I am biased as one of the authors. But what shocked me was how many independent lines of argument the other authors came up with for the same…
In a relatively recent discussion, I think on HN, Metcalfe apparently aadmitted his "law" was intentionally overstating the case.
My view is that networks also see an unavoidable per-node cost function, and that this ultimately defines network size. (You can work the relationship backwards to find the actual value.) I've suggested this to Odlyzko. He's not yet invited me to co-author a paper.
https://www.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/1yzvh3/refutat...
Re: Facebook lost around 2.8M U.S. users under 25 last year
#313Earlier quoted context omitted.
Sounds like facebook has a pretty effective scam for getting people to give them driver's licenses, passports and untold other treasure troves of personal information.
Twitter has been using a similar scam for a couple of years now. After several years of Twitter, my account was locked and they demanded my cell number to "verify" my account. No thanks - said goodbye to Twitter and never looked back.
It was funny because a fresh account worked for me until I confirmed my e-mail address, then I was suspended until I gave them my phone number.
If they are so desperate to not have me as a potential user, then they can have it...
Re: Facebook lost around 2.8M U.S. users under 25 last year
#314Facebook has usefulness to me in three ways: 1. As a public opinion board. I post a question on my wall and people answer. 2. Chatting with my friends. 3. One Facebook group where me and my friends are in. This is my setup to not get completely sucked into Facebook: 1. I changed my real accounts name to a fictional name that is related to my name. I changed my lastname to a French version of it (my lastname is a noun…
Facebook to me is that place where everyone is. I love reddit and have been there about a decade, but I'm the only person I know there. If I meet someone new, or join a local group, I can always catch up, or connect with them on Facebook.
I think Facebook in general acts like a greedy business with data gathering and over advertising. It's toxic in that respect. It's a shame something as "open" as Diaspora didn't take off. I still think a new social platform might still arise from something like a chat app (like WhatsApp), but ultimately risk getting bought by FaceBook as they fear losing their stronghold in the market.
Re: Facebook lost around 2.8M U.S. users under 25 last year
#315The masses generally follow whatever is trendy. People initially followed facebook, and when Whatsapp and Instagram came, they followed them. FB is going through it's natural life cycle, and we will see it desperately trying to survive as it's stats get negative and shares dwindle.
This is problem with any service where users care about userbase. For netflix, userbase is not a concern for users. Hence such services are more likely to survive long term, as long as they keep themselves relevant.
FB, Whatsapp and Instagram however, are destined to die very soon(I'd bet a lifecycle of 2 decades). Users are eventually going to move on.
Re: Facebook lost around 2.8M U.S. users under 25 last year
#316Earlier quoted context omitted.
This. Facebook was really useful for keeping up with life events. I could stay connected and updated even with more distant friends and relatives. As soon as the algorithm "knew best" what I looked at I no longer got the occasional, but wanted, updates from those more distant. I would see what FB told me was popular - and some would play to that popularity. It would downplay to the point of censorship updates from so…
If you don't already have an email address for all your spam, get one, then change your email address in Facebook to that one. While the annoying emails still get send, you are at least no longer bothered with it in your day to day email use. Not ideal, but slightly better. Of course you can also use email filtering rules, but seperating it physically makes it more likely you do not burn time on it by accident.
Why jump through all those hoops, just disable notification mails in the FB preferences?!
Re: Facebook lost around 2.8M U.S. users under 25 last year
#317Re: Facebook lost around 2.8M U.S. users under 25 last year
#318Facebook suffered from 2 waves of "Eternal September" [0]: wave 1: the addition of everybody outside your immediate friends and close family. You get the goofy uncle, the distant high school acquaintances, and all the work acquaintances from every previous job that submitted a "friend request" that you didn't reject out of politeness. The newsfeed gets polluted by nonsense such as forwarded memes, politics, and other…
Also, I get invited to "groups" all the time. Because my friends want to win beauty cream and free flights to X. I leave the group, then I get re-invited again. Then I leave, then I get re-invited again. Why is this a thing?
Is unfriending them the only way to stop it properly?
Re: Facebook lost around 2.8M U.S. users under 25 last year
#319Earlier quoted context omitted.
I know this is one tiny use case, but it's one that's bothered me for some time. I can't change my profile picture without it becoming a huge news story for family and "friends" to comment on. I change a little picture of me, remove the event from my timeline, and I still get hokey comments or messages reminding me how bored and lonely everyone I know must be. I severely miss when it was just a place to chat up a cut…
I can't comment on a friend's public post without it being broadcast to my timeline! this is the one dark feature that has most affected any good feelings I might have had towards facebook and my usage thereof
I have a separate account (with no "friends" apart from my main account) just for commenting on anything public, and for posting in public groups.
Re: Facebook lost around 2.8M U.S. users under 25 last year
#320I'm 34 and Facebook lost me as well. I can't remove my account as I need to use as a developer, but I unfollowed everyone and my newsfeed is empty. It's a bliss. Funny thing is, it's all Facebook's fault. Back in the days, the service was simply brilliant to see what's going on at your friends, at home and abroad. But when Facebook introduced the algorithmic newsfeed, the usefulness ended. I could no longer see all t…
I do this too. It's really eye-opening when you go to 'new posts', see some 'friends' have new posts, and don't bother clicking through to read their posts.