Towards a world without Facebook • Hacker News Board

Re: Towards a world without Facebook

#101

Post by TimJRobinson » Sun, Mar 25, 2018, 6:42 PM UTC

baggachipz wrote: post #90

TimJRobinson wrote: post #81

This already exists. It's called scuttlebutt and it's awesome. No coin or ICO involved, just a bunch of smart programmers solving hard problems. The best bit is you can use it with just an app, you don't need to setup your own sever or trust someone else's to host your content like every other decentralized social network I've seen.

From what I see, last commit was a year ago and that was just to bump the version number. Is more work being done on this? It looks interesting. edit never mind, I was looking at https://github.com/dominictarr/scuttlebutt

See scuttlebutt.nz the team and user count is still small, but it works well and development is very active.

Re: Towards a world without Facebook

#102

Post by JumpCrisscross » Sun, Mar 25, 2018, 6:47 PM UTC

cornholio wrote: post #5

The quintessential moat Facebook has is its strong network effect facilitated by ease of use. Facebook is simple. To the point where my elder relatives refer to Facebook as "the Internet": the place where they can see funny clips, talk to friends and share their photos and thoughts. For every person bemoaning how Facebook extended and proceeded to take a dump into her favorite aspect of the Internet - be it online pu…

We need the DoJ to take Facebook to court for being a social network monopoly. If AT&T exhibited destructive network effects, Facebook is them times ten. “Market share” measured solely in purchasing consumers is no longer a good sole metric for monopolies.

Re: Towards a world without Facebook

#103

Post by whataretensors » Sun, Mar 25, 2018, 6:49 PM UTC

tlb wrote: post #25

cornholio wrote: post #5

The quintessential moat Facebook has is its strong network effect facilitated by ease of use. Facebook is simple. To the point where my elder relatives refer to Facebook as "the Internet": the place where they can see funny clips, talk to friends and share their photos and thoughts. For every person bemoaning how Facebook extended and proceeded to take a dump into her favorite aspect of the Internet - be it online pu…

When people propose blockchain solutions, I always think: How would it work with just a regular database? How would a blockchain make it better? What coalition of people will run the blockchain, and why would they be more trustworthy than whoever would run the database? There are good answers to these for some applications, but I don't see what they are here.

> How would it work with just a regular database?

You'd set up another centralized honey pot that these psychopaths actively look for.

> How would a blockchain make it better?

Besides censorship protection, the platform could reward users to make itself better. Lots of things become possible when you have control over the reward system and don't just extract the value to the top.

> What coalition of people will run the blockchain, and why would they be more trustworthy than whomever would run the database?

This is the decentralized aspect. Whoever starts the project isn't necessarily more trustworthy. They might build that trust over time(or not). Either way the project doesn't live and die by them if successful.

Re: Towards a world without Facebook

#104

Post by asabjorn » Sun, Mar 25, 2018, 6:49 PM UTC

nordsieck wrote: post #98

asabjorn wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A moat is only useful if the project serves its purpose well. The question I ask myself is how a product that so demonstrably[1] makes people unhappier the more they use it can be sustainable. What problem does Facebook cure? The engagement loops trigger behavioral patterns that are supposed to encourage healthy relationships, but in this case it pulls us into a low-fidelity world of screens that pulls us away from e…

Despite the title of the article, it doesn't show that Facebook use makes people unhappy - merely that it is correlated with unhappiness. > A moat is only useful if the project serves its purpose well. It's not clear to me that the purpose of Facebook is to make people happy. Instead, I think it's purpose is to be an low friction way to keep connected to lots of people. It seems to fulfill that purpose quite well. Th…

> Despite the title of the article, it doesn't show that Facebook use makes people unhappy - merely that it is correlated with unhappiness.

True. Correlation is not causation. However, my argument is that it doesn't seem to solve a problem I can think of well that leads to healthier real-life relationships and heavy use instead seem to correlate with the opposite. Can you think of any? I do think it solves image-sharing and life-updates with remote-family as well as remote-friends well.

> It's not clear to me that the purpose of Facebook is to make people happy.

I agree with you there. What problem Facebook cures is dependent on the person and situation. Things I can think of is; boredom, anxiety, loneliness, social recognition, etc

> That people are uncomfortable with boredom is not an inditement of the balm with which they sooth themselves.

Yes, that is the issue. Real life is hard and when attempting to connect we might receive the same rejections that we are afraid of. At least on facebook someone will like your post and comment on it, although maybe it doesn't strengthen a core group of friends like comments/likes in real life would.

Re: Towards a world without Facebook

#105

Post by [deleted] » Sun, Mar 25, 2018, 6:57 PM UTC

gerbilly wrote: post #42

cornholio wrote: post #5

The quintessential moat Facebook has is its strong network effect facilitated by ease of use. Facebook is simple. To the point where my elder relatives refer to Facebook as "the Internet": the place where they can see funny clips, talk to friends and share their photos and thoughts. For every person bemoaning how Facebook extended and proceeded to take a dump into her favorite aspect of the Internet - be it online pu…

>"The quintessential moat Facebook has is its strong network effect facilitated by ease of use. Facebook is simple. To the point where my elder relatives refer to Facebook as "the Internet" I don't think people actually want the Internet, they want a walled garden. Facebook is the new Compuserve, or AOL.

[deleted]

Re: Towards a world without Facebook

#106

Post by nordsieck » Sun, Mar 25, 2018, 7:01 PM UTC

asabjorn wrote: post #104

nordsieck wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Despite the title of the article, it doesn't show that Facebook use makes people unhappy - merely that it is correlated with unhappiness. > A moat is only useful if the project serves its purpose well. It's not clear to me that the purpose of Facebook is to make people happy. Instead, I think it's purpose is to be an low friction way to keep connected to lots of people. It seems to fulfill that purpose quite well. Th…

> Despite the title of the article, it doesn't show that Facebook use makes people unhappy - merely that it is correlated with unhappiness. True. Correlation is not causation. However, my argument is that it doesn't seem to solve a problem I can think of well that leads to healthier real-life relationships and heavy use instead seem to correlate with the opposite. Can you think of any? I do think it solves image-shar…

> However, my argument is that it doesn't seem to solve a problem I can think of well that leads to healthier real-life relationships

Perhaps you're young and haven't known life without Facebook? It used to be that people just lost track of each other all the time.

Move for a school? Lose all your friends.

Move for a job? Lose all your friends.

That was normal.

Facebook (and other social networks) allow people to maintain orders of magnitude more weak links than before.

Re: Towards a world without Facebook

#107

Post by allannienhuis » Sun, Mar 25, 2018, 7:03 PM UTC

ColinWright wrote: post #28

allannienhuis wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That sounds like what the folks at Mastodon are trying to do. On the surface they seem to have decent implementations. But every time I think about signing up to an instance, I realise that all the friends I care about (in the social media sense) are on Facebook. It becomes a non-starter for me. The value of Facebook is the social graph, and we put up with it's shortcomings because of that.

Then sign up on a Mastodon instance, make some new friends, and set up a cross-poster. Edit: I'm getting down-voted - let me expand ... I've set up a Mastodon account, started to integrate, and made new connections. I've also set up a cross-poster, so I can work on either, and I'm finding that my more valuable connections are also migrating to Mastodon. So although it's playing the long game, that's a strategy. If yo…

on the first point - I'm not looking for new friends or to promote any of my own views. I'm looking to get birthday party pictures and the occasional meme from my existing friends and family. Like most people I think - I post pretty rarely, but like to comment from time to time on other people's posts/content.

I agree it's a chicken-egg problem. But there has to be enough value in it for people like me to be worth the pain of transition.

For me there's very little incremental value in another solution. The privacy benefits of using a different service are nebulous - I treat anything I post on facebook as 'public', regardless of my privacy settings, and I really have no reason to believe some other service run by volunteers will be capable of protecting my data, or respecting it at all.

I'm paying for facebook by looking at ads and having 'someone' know something (maybe a lot) about my public facing self. I think for most people that's been a reasonable trade.

I actually _wish_ there were more competition in this space, and a way for these social graphs to be more transferable in some way, but I haven't seen any options yet that are attractive enough to be worth the cost of switching.

[edit] for what it's worth, I didn't downvote you :) the idea of crossposting is a valuable addition to the conversation.

Re: Towards a world without Facebook

#108

Post by AHMagic » Sun, Mar 25, 2018, 7:03 PM UTC

danbruc wrote: post #51

Decentralization is a red herring, there is nothing wrong with centralized services, it may actually just add to the problems to overcome. What is wrong is that users are not paying for those services. Well, they are paying for them, but only indirectly via the share of the ad budget included in the price of all the things they buy. That is the core problem, if users would simply pay for the services they use there w…

Here's why I don't think decentralization is a red herring: in a centralized service, if you disagree, you don't have another option. If you didn't like AOL and quit, there was no way for you to maintain contact with AOL users unless both parties used a different platform.

Decentralized systems like phone, e-mail, and mail allow you to maintain contact with people while having control over your provider. I understand that we've lost some of that control, but the basic idea stands.

If you don't have Facebook, you can't reach out to other Facebook users. If you don't have Verizon phone service, you can still call Verizon users with AT&T or . If you don't have Gmail, you can still send e-mails to Gmail users from Yahoo or . If you don't like USPS, you can send mail through UPS or .

Re: Towards a world without Facebook

#109

Post by asabjorn » Sun, Mar 25, 2018, 7:13 PM UTC

nordsieck wrote: post #106

asabjorn wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Despite the title of the article, it doesn't show that Facebook use makes people unhappy - merely that it is correlated with unhappiness. True. Correlation is not causation. However, my argument is that it doesn't seem to solve a problem I can think of well that leads to healthier real-life relationships and heavy use instead seem to correlate with the opposite. Can you think of any? I do think it solves image-shar…

> However, my argument is that it doesn't seem to solve a problem I can think of well that leads to healthier real-life relationships Perhaps you're young and haven't known life without Facebook? It used to be that people just lost track of each other all the time. Move for a school? Lose all your friends. Move for a job? Lose all your friends. That was normal. Facebook (and other social networks) allow people to mai…

> Perhaps you're young and haven't known life without Facebook? It used to be that people just lost track of each other all the time.

Sure, but now many seem to loose track of people they are sitting in the same room with and maybe even choose to not be in that room due to a social media addiction.

As creators we have a lot of power to design experiences that amplify behavioral patterns. Maybe we've gamed them too much in this case and need to more balance?

> Facebook (and other social networks) allow people to maintain orders of magnitude more weak links than before.

I am old enough to remember that. :) Most people would still at some point settle into a social circle and routine that build healthy relationships where they lived for a while. People move, but few people move so much that this is not possible.

I think weak links are a poor replacement for a person that sits in the same room as you in an engaged conversation.

Re: Towards a world without Facebook

#110

Post by ColinWright » Sun, Mar 25, 2018, 7:16 PM UTC

allannienhuis wrote: post #107

ColinWright wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then sign up on a Mastodon instance, make some new friends, and set up a cross-poster. Edit: I'm getting down-voted - let me expand ... I've set up a Mastodon account, started to integrate, and made new connections. I've also set up a cross-poster, so I can work on either, and I'm finding that my more valuable connections are also migrating to Mastodon. So although it's playing the long game, that's a strategy. If yo…

on the first point - I'm not looking for new friends or to promote any of my own views. I'm looking to get birthday party pictures and the occasional meme from my existing friends and family. Like most people I think - I post pretty rarely, but like to comment from time to time on other people's posts/content. I agree it's a chicken-egg problem. But there has to be enough value in it for people like me to be worth th…

> ... I'm looking to get birthday party pictures and the occasional meme from my existing friends and family.

Noted. Mastodon really is a twitter substitute, not a FB replacement. For these things you're right - there is currently no FB substitute (at least not that I know of, I'd be happy to be proven wrong).

We wonder if Mastodon can become that.

> I treat anything I post on facebook as 'public', regardless of my privacy settings, and I really have no reason to believe some other service run by volunteers will be capable of protecting my data, or respecting it at all.

People are reporting that their FB data contains all their cell-phone call details - are you also happy with that?

> I'm paying for facebook by looking at ads and having 'someone' know something (maybe a lot) about my public facing self. I think for most people that's been a reasonable trade.

But it's not just the things you are explicitly saying are "your public face."

> ... I haven't seen any options yet that are attractive enough to be worth the cost of switching.

... or indeed, at all.

> [edit] for what it's worth, I didn't downvote you :)

You can't downvote a reply to your own comment or submission, so I know you didn't downvote me.

> ... the idea of crossposting is a valuable addition to the conversation.

Cheers.