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Facebook exodus: Nearly half of young users have deleted the app

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Re: Facebook exodus: Nearly half of young users have deleted the app

#211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m curious as to whether it’s a rumour. I’m an iOS developer, and I know how difficult and seemingly implausible these rumours are, but the causal evidence to the contrary I’ve experienced is too ‘Black Mirror’ for my liking, or others. I have troubles convincing myself it’s not true because it just happens on an almost bi-daily basis - it’s too accurate and it regularly involves things either my friends or I have d…

Posted this below, but: While anything's possible, it would be pretty shocking and a big blow to Apple if Facebook figured out how to, on iOS (I can't speak for Android): * Record audio if the app's killed completely * Record audio with microphone permission disabled * etc. All of which have been claimed and seem unlikely. The far more likely scenario is that we're much more predictable than we think. Remember the ta…

I understand these things. I explained that explicitly. I had already seen that post.

But I explained that I'm a developer. I used the term 'implausible', and, yes, given legal requirements and whatnot there would have to be some extremely shady activity going on, but what I'm trying to explain is that whatever is going on has nothing to do with text or anything except spoken voice and occurs on such a regular basis to not just myself but other friends of mine that even though I absolutely know from a scientific perspective it's almost technically impossible, I literally have troubles believing it's technical implausibility/impossibility over the fact that it is simply happening.

That's how messed up and creepy it is. And I'm certainly not the only one saying or experiencing this. Many of the incredibly intelligent and talented developers at the major bank I work at have also experienced this and have extreme troubles explaining it. Many of the brilliant minds here at HN are having to say similar things.

It's like something out of Scooby-Doo. I want to pull the mask off the bad guy, but it really feels like one of those one-offs where the monster is real.

Re: Facebook exodus: Nearly half of young users have deleted the app

#212

I realized I was checking facebook a lot each day whenever I had a spare moment, but didn't have anything really interesting happening, and I wanted to engage more with those around me and have more time for down-time thinking. So I deleted the app, knowing that making the threshold higher for checking it would reduce my usage, now I might check facebook once a month on my desktop, and still nothing happening, so it…

Checking Facebook became the digital equivalent of looking in the fridge. You already know what’s in there, but you look anyways. Eventually people get over this. I notice far fewer of my friends seem to be posting and using it.

Re: Facebook exodus: Nearly half of young users have deleted the app

#213
post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You seem to be convinced that you've solved the application size problem that literally thousands of engineers have been working on for years. Or that you've got more insight into the engineering tradeoffs made at the company. I can assure you that's not the case.

You seem to be convinced that there is any way in hell an application that is a client for an existing web service that is little more than a glorified RESTful client needs to be more than 300MB. You’re either not aware how these kinds of applications are constructed, or you’re perhaps not familiar with just how simple putting an application together like this is. The other response to this comment says a very simila…

I would expect that the FB client app does a lot more than you would expect it does. There are probably features in there for gamers, businesses, marketers, sellers, etc.

Yes you could build out 90% of the app that most people use in a smaller download in a couple months, that's not really noteworthy though.

Re: Facebook exodus: Nearly half of young users have deleted the app

#216
post #6

Anecdotal obviously, but I'm surprised at how pervasive the "Facebook listens to your conversations through the app" rumors are, even among the more technically literate. I'm curious how much of an effect that rumor had on this finding.

I’m curious as to whether it’s a rumour. I’m an iOS developer, and I know how difficult and seemingly implausible these rumours are, but the causal evidence to the contrary I’ve experienced is too ‘Black Mirror’ for my liking, or others. I have troubles convincing myself it’s not true because it just happens on an almost bi-daily basis - it’s too accurate and it regularly involves things either my friends or I have d…

Are you sure that your friends haven't searched for whatever FB suggested? Perhaps not even the exact thing but something similar or associated (e.g. searched for dog treats, sees ads for dog beds)? Have you visited a place that sells that thing with location services enabled? Do your friends express a lot of interest in the things advertised (posts, pictures, comments on any FB platform)? Do you spend a decent amount of time with these friends? What about other people that use the same home/work networks that you do?

Being able to accurately predict what you might be interested in, or at least interested enough to click on is how FB makes their money. That is where a bulk of their R&D spend goes. Couple that with the fact that humans are creatures of habit and relatively predictable, and you can end up with the notion that FB or Google must be listening in on everything you are saying.

Re: Facebook exodus: Nearly half of young users have deleted the app

#217
post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's completely legal to be a monopoly by buying every competitor out fair and square.

> It's completely legal to be a monopoly by buying every competitor out fair and square. Pretty sure it's not in the US, or at least can be halted by the disapproval of antitrust regulators. For example: https://www.marketwatch.com/story/staples-office-depot-merge...

at least can be halted by the disapproval of antitrust regulators.

That's the key though, they can continue to try until someone sits up and takes notice. Depending on the regulatory climate at any given time a company will have varying degrees of success with this before they are stopped outright before buying any more competition. Either that or they suddenly start abusing their positions such that people/other companies complain enough for regulators to take notice of them.

Re: Facebook exodus: Nearly half of young users have deleted the app

#218

I did this. In the following sequence, over a few years, and am now to step 5: 1. Turn off notifications for the Facebook app on your phone; 2. Turn off notifications for the Facebook Messenger, Instagram, et cetera apps on your phone; 3. Delete the Facebook app from your phone; 4. Delete the Facebook Messenger, Instagram, et cetera apps from your phone; and finally 5. Log out of Facebook on your desktop. It took me…

facebook owns whatsapp too. I already did all 5 of thsoe steps some time ago... but I have friends in certain parts of the world where whatsapp is the only app. Not sure how to curtail that one.

Re: Facebook exodus: Nearly half of young users have deleted the app

#219
post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's completely legal to be a monopoly by buying every competitor out fair and square.

This is incorrect. Facebook already needs a permissions from multiple regulators if it attempts to buy competitor – not just from US regulators. WhatsApp and Instagram acquisitions needed approvals from EU before they could continue.

> WhatsApp and Instagram acquisitions needed approvals from EU before they could continue.

What would it mean for a US based company if they decided to acquire two other US based companies and US regulators approved it, but EU regulators didn't?

What would happen if the company went forward with the acquisition anyway?

Re: Facebook exodus: Nearly half of young users have deleted the app

#220

What we need are VIABLE solutions to social platforms... While people are deleting Facebook they're NOT deleting Instagram. Additionally, we're still vulnerable to a lot of the same attacks that impacted us in the 2016 election. These networks still hold your private connection graph, know what you're reading, can target you precisely with ads, etc. I'm building an app named Polar which is an offline-first document m…

As someone who basically reads only technical pdf's and long form articles, your software looks cool, I am definitely going to check it out!

IPFS/Filecoin/SIA would be a neat way to go. I would urge you to look into mastodon as well as twitter and fb. It is growing, its federated, and generally more in line with our privacy beliefs.

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