Deleted both Facebook and Instagram (requested permanent data deletion etc). Its been a couple of months, and I've never felt better. Sure, I lost touch with some people but managed to find other ways to get in touch whenever I needed to. Not to mention my phone battery now lasts like 3 days and I dont scroll through Instagram like a zombie every time I'm bored for a few seconds.
Ask HN: Did you delete your Facebook account in 2018?
61–70 of 408 posts
Re: Ask HN: Did you delete your Facebook account in 2018?
#62Yes - in Feb-18. Had pangs of regret some months later .. the network I'd built over many years was an unused asset, I just never looked it like that. Luckily those feelings didn't last long ... I just go on with life.
Re: Ask HN: Did you delete your Facebook account in 2018?
#63I had an account for about a month in 2010 and deleted it because of the constant notifications for Farmville and some other game. That was my one and only flirtation with any kind of social media (unless you count HN as social media). Haven't looked back, pretty sure I haven't missed anything important in my social life.
Re: Ask HN: Did you delete your Facebook account in 2018?
#64I never had one.
Re: Ask HN: Did you delete your Facebook account in 2018?
#65I actually, in a strange way, don't really care about all this privacy stuff. A for-profit company looking into my personal preferences just to show me better targeted ads, instead of boring, generic ones? What's better than that? They're either going to charge me monthly subscription fees, which would kill the whole business in an instant, or find a way to make a profit off ads.
You are right. Nothing better than a company using your private messages for targeted ads!
I don't consider this recent news as any sort of surprise. On the contrary, I have always disapproved of Facebook tricking users into thinking any of the data they hand over is "private".
Re: Ask HN: Did you delete your Facebook account in 2018?
#66I actually, in a strange way, don't really care about all this privacy stuff. A for-profit company looking into my personal preferences just to show me better targeted ads, instead of boring, generic ones? What's better than that? They're either going to charge me monthly subscription fees, which would kill the whole business in an instant, or find a way to make a profit off ads.
Hard to tell if you’re sarcastic here. Facebook is now a tool that endangers elections. It worsens political dialog and keep people in a bubble that strengthens their uninformed opinions. It does not only shows ads but works super hard on making you addicted to the service, so you spend all your available time looking at ads, even when they don’t look like such (your friends and family are unimportant there, they don’t pay Facebook).
So, Facebook does screw up a lot, most of all they screw their users. The monthly fee might help but at this point I’ve lost most trust.
Re: Ask HN: Did you delete your Facebook account in 2018?
#67I deleted my account in 2017, and it was the best decision I’ve made in a long time. I redoubled efforts to connect with my friends in real life, which is what I thought I’d been doing all along in Facebook.
It took some time and the expense of a few airline tickets, but the result was more than worth it.
Re: Ask HN: Did you delete your Facebook account in 2018?
#68I actually, in a strange way, don't really care about all this privacy stuff. A for-profit company looking into my personal preferences just to show me better targeted ads, instead of boring, generic ones? What's better than that? They're either going to charge me monthly subscription fees, which would kill the whole business in an instant, or find a way to make a profit off ads.
You are right. Nothing better than a company using your private messages for targeted ads!
I don't know man. I'm just perfectly ok with them sneak peeking into my conversation trends and extracting key phrases for targeted ads..
I mean, what is the alternative? You can pay subscription fees(noone would), or see generic ads(no company would advertise due to next to zero CR).. Either way, facebook is dead.
What makes companies like Facebook, Google etc unique is that, their ability to appease to both sides of the market.
If they don't, they simply cannot exist. And lack of privacy is a price we have to pay if we want these services in our lives.
Maybe I'm morally corrupt. Idk.
Re: Ask HN: Did you delete your Facebook account in 2018?
#69No, but I've just completed exporting as many of my contacts as possible to vcard format and have added them to my Protonmail account. I've also set my existing Gmail accounts to forward to my Protonmail, and I'll sunset those accounts down the road once I'm confident I've transitioned everything off it. Facebook and Google will soon be eliminated from my life. Amazon will probably be next, but I'm less concerned wit…
> Facebook and Google will soon be eliminated from my life.
I have been trying to do that for a while without success. I have to keep Facebook account because of some professional reasons and at personal level I also it useful to look someone up quickly on Facebook if I am not sure who that person is.
As per google some jack ass coworker decides to use google docs and I am forced to keep google account. Sometimes I am also forced to use some google forums for work.
Re: Ask HN: Did you delete your Facebook account in 2018?
#70Deleted mine way back in 2010.
I'd been on it since high school in 2005 and treated it like the new version of MSN Messenger (oh 2002...). After a while it just got stale and it felt like I was pouring way too much of my personal data on to the platform. I think the turning point came after a friend of mine had committed suicide and his profile continued to live on the platform for at least a year. People kept posting to it and it just didn't sit well with me at all and I didn't like the idea of having an FB profile tombstone for myself either.
So, I nuked it. Haven't missed it for a second.