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Ask HN: Did you delete your Facebook account in 2018?

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Re: Ask HN: Did you delete your Facebook account in 2018?

#141
No. I actually created a Facebook account in 2018.

The problem is that without Facebook you will miss out. Sure, close friends and family will invite you to their social events, but more distant acquaintances will not; you know, the bloke you met at the pub last week and had a 20 minute chat with, or that cute girl you talked to but then she suddenly she was dragged off to a birthday party by her friends. By missing out on the social opportunities you lose the chance to upgrade these people from acquaintances to friends (or even lovers), as well as meet new people.

Some back story: I moved to a different country two years ago with my ex-girlfriend (for her job), and we both didn't really know anyone there. I work remote, so I don't meet a lot of people from work, either.

We broke up after a year and much to my dismay I discovered I had not really made any new friends in that year, and that I was quite ... alone. So I set out to change that. Facebook – as much as I dislike the company – was helpful. I moved to yet another country two month ago, and again Facebook has been helpful.

I dislike Facebook for all the standard reasons. I had an account but I deleted it about 5 or 6 years ago, but I decided that having a good social life was (and remains) vastly important to the quality of my life, and that Facebook is a tool to help achieve that goal.

(Facebook didn't really "delete" my old account, as after I rejoined it remembered many of my previous friends; some of whom I had no contact with outside of Facebook, like many Egyptians I was in contact with during the 2011 rebellion whom I had met through a friend and only knew through Facebook; my "suggested friends" list was full of Arabic names).

On a more deeper level, I am a little bit exasperated of always being the "different" and "difficult" person (which extends to things beyond Facebook). Standing up for your principles and "voting with your wallet" is good and all, but ... I'm not so sure it's all that effective. In this case, a more effective strategy is probably to first create a really good Facebook alternative (I'm not so sure there is one now), make sure decent privacy laws are enacted, etc.

Re: Ask HN: Did you delete your Facebook account in 2018?

#144
I am probably one of the few who has gone the other way. I had a Facebook when it was college e-mail only. I got rid of it... and then I added it back this year.

It turns out that Facebook is fundamentally required if you want to schedule events which contain a lot of individuals. At first I assumed I would only use it for messaging/coordination. But then I decided I liked having the ability to post jokes.

I have also found it easy to filter out all of the nonsensical political argumentation. But that's probably because I have personally learned to just not argue.

Re: Ask HN: Did you delete your Facebook account in 2018?

#146
I thought it would be hard but once I jumped on deleting my account I feel much better. Friends get in touch with me over text or email. Many of my friends prefer using email at this point anyhow, possibly since most of my male friends are programmers or luddites or both.

My girlfriend still gets Facebook invites for things but increasingly we get email invites for parties and similar. I get my news more actively through browsing sources now; I navigate to Pitchfork or a subreddit for music stuff.

It's easier than it sounds; people will find a way to get in touch and new people you meet will just be fine with texting.

Re: Ask HN: Did you delete your Facebook account in 2018?

#148

No. I actually created a Facebook account in 2018. The problem is that without Facebook you will miss out. Sure, close friends and family will invite you to their social events, but more distant acquaintances will not; you know, the bloke you met at the pub last week and had a 20 minute chat with, or that cute girl you talked to but then she suddenly she was dragged off to a birthday party by her friends. By missing…

> Facebook didn't really "delete" my old account, as after I rejoined it remembered many of my previous friends

Do you happen to live in Europe, by chance?

Re: Ask HN: Did you delete your Facebook account in 2018?

#149
Nope. Definitely use it a bit less because I've realized that there aren't that really any benefits of using it for anything other than messaging/events. Despite the shitstorm against them from NYT/HN I really couldn't care less about what they do with the data I willingly share on their platform

Re: Ask HN: Did you delete your Facebook account in 2018?

#150

No, and I won't delete my Facebook account in 2018 or 2019. I log in to Facebook Feed maybe once every 2 - 3 months, just to see how the space looks like, always disappointed in how irrelevant the information is to me. No friend posts, no insightful publishing, just randomly shared articles, ads, sponsored content and page suggestions. I also do Instagram sometimes, that feels a bit more towards what I want in that I…

> […] it's not necessary to drop a service as long as you get to control how it works for you > The data mining and shadow profiling are the cost you pay for a free service That seems a bit contradictory to me. If you could control how something worked, you could also control what data is being mined and so on. Fact is, you can't; even when you tell Facebook not to, they still manage to find ways to do so. Also, once…

> […] it's not necessary to drop a service as long as you get to control how it works for you

I agree with this, and this is why I still have a FB account (for now).

> The data mining and shadow profiling are the cost you pay for a free service

I believe the OP was saying that “the way FB mines your data is the cost they charge for their service”, not necessarily that this has always been the cost of every free service, or that this is a cost that everyone should be willing to pay.

It’s more like “if you manage the notifications so it’s only a part of your life when you want it to be, and you understand and are okay with the data mining and shadow profiling they do to support their service, then there’s not much to be gained from deleting your FB account.” At least that’s how I feel (again, for now).

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