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Nobody Trusts Facebook, Twitter Is a Hot Mess, What Is Snapchat Doing?

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Re: Nobody Trusts Facebook, Twitter Is a Hot Mess, What Is Snapchat Doing?

#111

Post by jandrese »

at-fates-hands wrote: post #3

Spiegel miscalculated and its cost him billions. He had multiple opportunities to sell Snapchat to the competitors who are now still growing and copying his features while his own platform has essentially stalled out. A verge article detailed its decline a few months ago: https://www.theverge.com/2018/5/18/17366528/snapchat-decline... And the previous HN discussion on said article: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?i…

I have to admit I heard about Snapchat for the first time when they turned down IIRC a billion dollars from Facebook. Then I looked into it and realized that the CEO must be crazy because his audience was almost entirely composed of fickle teenagers.

Re: Nobody Trusts Facebook, Twitter Is a Hot Mess, What Is Snapchat Doing?

#112

Post by chrischen »

Maro wrote: post #64

Based on my brief time at FB (in 2016-2017), FB is not evil. MZ is trying to do the right thing, overall. Using this as a major piece of positioning/propaganda is not going to work for Spiegel. Also, if they ever want to make money, they'll be playing the exact same game as FB. That's going to be tough, as by now Snapchat is just a feature (of FB). Also, I can tell you, FB employees are laser focused on executing and…

Nobody will tell you straight up they are evil.

It’s the things they do, that they may not even be aware of.

https://www.macrumors.com/2018/08/22/facebook-removing-onavo...

Re: Nobody Trusts Facebook, Twitter Is a Hot Mess, What Is Snapchat Doing?

#113

Post by slugiscool99 »

Maro wrote: post #81
samstave wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The correct phrase, IMO, would be "cumulative shadiness" for FB... Individually, and within groups, the work of the employees and teams at FB is nothing short of amazing (and apple, google, etc)... cumulatively though? The nature of these companies are not in the best interests of individual users, and when looked at the power and impact the company as a whole has over any individual in specific, is pretty obviously…

I have a great time on FB/Messenger. It's a tool, it's up to everybody to use it in a way that is a net positive for them. I have friends/acquintances in 10+ cities, and it's a great way to keep in touch. As you mention, this "way" is very different then if we would meet in person, but that is out of the question, as we are separated by 1,000 - 10,000 km. The alternative, on average, is not to hear anything about the…

I think the fact that you can’t turn off read receipts is a kind of shady way to keep you using the app. You also can’t turn off notifications for a chat without going into it and notifying the participants you’ve read the message.

Re: Nobody Trusts Facebook, Twitter Is a Hot Mess, What Is Snapchat Doing?

#114

Post by buboard »

scrumbledober wrote: post #108
buboard wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Was the same for doctors a hundred years ago. Now doctors take an oath and lose their license The Hippocratic oath is 2200 years old.

I don't really care what oath the doctor took (especially considering the actual wording of the hippocratic oath) but I definitely take comfort in the medical board's ability to revoke their license.

The point is that the comparison with doctors doesn't make much sense (and neither is medical ethics a recent thing). Doctors are judged by their continuous practice, but developers/entrepreneurs would not be ethically "judged" because of their programming style, but because of the things they create, which transcend them and remain in their absence, much like anything in engineering.

(let alone that revokign a license does nothing to stop them from building it anyway)

Re: Nobody Trusts Facebook, Twitter Is a Hot Mess, What Is Snapchat Doing?

#115

Post by sutterbomb »

pmulv wrote: post #13
late2part wrote: post #4

I don't know anyone over 18 who uses Snapchat besides celebrities.

As some anecdata, my mid-twenties group of friends and I use snapchat frequently. My brother is a freshman in college and he uses it with his friends as well. For whatever reason, starting "streaks" has become popular with my friends, where the same friends will snap me everyday and expect a snap in reply so that our counter of consecutive days increases over time. I hate to admit it, but I enjoy this gamification of…

650 consecutive days?! Lock your phone in a safe for a weekend and take a walk in the woods, I beg you.

Re: Nobody Trusts Facebook, Twitter Is a Hot Mess, What Is Snapchat Doing?

#116

Post by [deleted] »

Maro wrote: post #64

Based on my brief time at FB (in 2016-2017), FB is not evil. MZ is trying to do the right thing, overall. Using this as a major piece of positioning/propaganda is not going to work for Spiegel. Also, if they ever want to make money, they'll be playing the exact same game as FB. That's going to be tough, as by now Snapchat is just a feature (of FB). Also, I can tell you, FB employees are laser focused on executing and…

[deleted]

Re: Nobody Trusts Facebook, Twitter Is a Hot Mess, What Is Snapchat Doing?

#117

Post by skywhopper »

Maro wrote: post #64

Based on my brief time at FB (in 2016-2017), FB is not evil. MZ is trying to do the right thing, overall. Using this as a major piece of positioning/propaganda is not going to work for Spiegel. Also, if they ever want to make money, they'll be playing the exact same game as FB. That's going to be tough, as by now Snapchat is just a feature (of FB). Also, I can tell you, FB employees are laser focused on executing and…

You don't have to actively wish ill on society to damage it. The thing is, Zuckerberg has a level of power that in many ways is unprecedented. I don't think he has poor intentions, but his and Facebook's naivete about the impacts of their every decision, and the emergent properties of the systems they are creating, make them truly dangerous.

Re: Nobody Trusts Facebook, Twitter Is a Hot Mess, What Is Snapchat Doing?

#118

Post by sp527 »

slugiscool99 wrote: post #113
Maro wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a great time on FB/Messenger. It's a tool, it's up to everybody to use it in a way that is a net positive for them. I have friends/acquintances in 10+ cities, and it's a great way to keep in touch. As you mention, this "way" is very different then if we would meet in person, but that is out of the question, as we are separated by 1,000 - 10,000 km. The alternative, on average, is not to hear anything about the…

I think the fact that you can’t turn off read receipts is a kind of shady way to keep you using the app. You also can’t turn off notifications for a chat without going into it and notifying the participants you’ve read the message.

It absolutely is a "shady way to keep you using the app", in addition to a whole host of other subtle things you wouldn't even notice. My intern project one summer was a (failed, thankfully) experiment with one of the darkest patterns imaginable. Everything is very carefully tuned and measured against relevant stats. If it looks good in some place like Venezuela or Zimbabwe, it gets lined up for general rollout.

Re: Nobody Trusts Facebook, Twitter Is a Hot Mess, What Is Snapchat Doing?

#119

Post by Maro »

bduerst wrote: post #104
Maro wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Re "Facebook has wholesaled your information": FB does not sell user data (it doesn't need to, it makes so much on ads). CA gained user information on people who installed one of their FB apps whose purpose was to specifically get user data, and additionally because of a shitty choice FB made, it allowed apps like this to also access friends-of-friends data, afaik. Additionally, there was no monitoring in place to de…

Oh no, Facebook sold 50M users worth of data to Cambridge Analytica through API access. The fact that FB didn't charge more to make it comparable to ads revenue is their own fault. The user data access was a feature , meant to entice more companies like CA to use Facebook APIs. Again, this flagrant violation of privacy is why people distrust Facebook, because they have proven they will fork over user information whol…

Re "Facebook sold API access to Cambridge Analytica": it was free, CA didn't pay any money to FB, they simply had an app on FB.

Re "they have proven they will fork over user information wholesale if it means continued company growth": that's very fair criticism imo. I would just note that "fork over" here means "give access to apps on the platform". Also, they changed this mechanism years ago, this scraping vector is no longer around.

Re "I take it you work at Facebook, right?": as I wrote in the original comment, I worked there for 18 months in 2016-2017, I no longer work there nor do I own any stock. I'm a heavy FB user since 2013 when I got divorced, the net of FB for me as a user is very positive, every day. Based on seeing FB internally, I think it's a great company, and I'm comfortable to entrust them my data (I was a Data Engineer, so I have an idea what they do with data).

Re: Nobody Trusts Facebook, Twitter Is a Hot Mess, What Is Snapchat Doing?

#120

Post by Maro »

slugiscool99 wrote: post #113
Maro wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a great time on FB/Messenger. It's a tool, it's up to everybody to use it in a way that is a net positive for them. I have friends/acquintances in 10+ cities, and it's a great way to keep in touch. As you mention, this "way" is very different then if we would meet in person, but that is out of the question, as we are separated by 1,000 - 10,000 km. The alternative, on average, is not to hear anything about the…

I think the fact that you can’t turn off read receipts is a kind of shady way to keep you using the app. You also can’t turn off notifications for a chat without going into it and notifying the participants you’ve read the message.

I'm not a big export on notifications, but afaik on current Android there's OS level ways to turn off notifications. Eg. in the swipe-down thing if I tap-and-hold a FB notification, it offers to turn off all notifications of this category (eg. FB comment notifications). I just tried it.
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