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Facebook the Devourer

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Re: Facebook the Devourer

#41

Post by clobber »

nuclear_eclipse wrote: post #13

> Facebook ... produces nothing of value > If Facebook disappeared tomorrow, nobody would give a shit. There are plenty of people who would give a shit. You may not be one of them, but there are countless people who rely on Facebook to communicate with family members on the other side of the globe, or share their private pictures and memories with their loved ones, or just to keep in touch with friends who no longer…

> there are countless people who rely on Facebook to communicate

They can try e-mail, IM, SMS, picking up the telephone, smoke signals. Let's stop pretending Facebook is so ingrained in people's lives that they cannot live without it. We're talking about a website that's merely a time waster.

> a billion people log into Facebook every month

I'd bet that number is way off once you account for spam profiles and how Facebook defines 'active' [1]

Edit: to satisfy ghost downvoters (HN, go figure) here is previous discussion on the billion users

1. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4611734

Re: Facebook the Devourer

#42

Post by timpeterson »

jiggy2011 wrote: post #6

This is one thing that has always made me skeptical about FBs survival. The majority of it's use seems to be for very short term things, like friends sharing what they are currently doing. There is little value in most FB posts that are years old. As opposed to wikipedia which is a gradually building blob of knowledge. Let's say FB was down for a week, many people would use G+ instead for their social networking need…

"There is little value in most FB posts that are years old. As opposed to wikipedia which is a gradually building blob of knowledge."

actually never thought of it so simply like this, thanks for that,

Re: Facebook the Devourer

#43

Post by tambourine_man »

benihana wrote: post #18

Oh look. Another blog post decrying the evils of facebook that is in reality saying "I don't like facebook, therefor it offers no value whatsoever to anyone else," like it's some universal truth. A lot of hacker/geek types seem 1. to hate facebook and 2. to be unable to empathize with anyone who doesn't share their dogmatic technological beliefs. Can we stop this already? Most people on facebook enjoy using it. Most…

Can we stop this already?

No we can't.

Imagine yourself going back to the 80s and explaining the Web to someone. It's as close to utopia as you can get. Most people probably wouldn't believe it. But it's real, it's here and it's amazing.

I'd argue that Facebook undermines a lot of what makes the Web great. And since it's being confused with the Web itself, by being so popular and pervasively devouring, it could be a treat to it.

Us nerds have failed, for whatever reason, to provide a decent competitive way to share stuff that's more aligned with the ethos of the Web. But that's not a reason to excuse Facebook.

But I disagree no one would give a shit if Facebook went away tomorrow. I for one would throw a big fucking party.

Re: Facebook the Devourer

#44

Post by drumdance »

xxbondsxx wrote: post #38
firichapo wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you not getting it, or are you not agreeing with the author's point?

The author is saying that Facebook doesn't deliver a shred of value to any of it's 1 billion users, and if it disappeared tomorrow, "no one would give a shit." Tptacek disagrees, saying Facebook helps him connect with friends and local businesses. That's why he doesn't "get" the point. I would say the Pages product is one of Facebook's strongest value points outside all of the peer-to-peer social networking. Small bu…

+100. Facebook has reinvented the AOL keyword from the outside in. Even major brands that can afford to spend big money on their web sites mention the Facebook url in their promotions. Twitter too, but they haven't done as much to let brands to customize their pages.

Re: Facebook the Devourer

#45

Post by drumdance »

clobber wrote: post #41
nuclear_eclipse wrote: post #13

> Facebook ... produces nothing of value > If Facebook disappeared tomorrow, nobody would give a shit. There are plenty of people who would give a shit. You may not be one of them, but there are countless people who rely on Facebook to communicate with family members on the other side of the globe, or share their private pictures and memories with their loved ones, or just to keep in touch with friends who no longer…

> there are countless people who rely on Facebook to communicate They can try e-mail, IM, SMS, picking up the telephone, smoke signals. Let's stop pretending Facebook is so ingrained in people's lives that they cannot live without it. We're talking about a website that's merely a time waster. > a billion people log into Facebook every month I'd bet that number is way off once you account for spam profiles and how Fac…

None of those are good for passive communication. No one said they "can't live without it." But it certainly adds value to a lot of people's lives.

Re: Facebook the Devourer

#47

Post by clobber »

drumdance wrote: post #45
clobber wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> there are countless people who rely on Facebook to communicate They can try e-mail, IM, SMS, picking up the telephone, smoke signals. Let's stop pretending Facebook is so ingrained in people's lives that they cannot live without it. We're talking about a website that's merely a time waster. > a billion people log into Facebook every month I'd bet that number is way off once you account for spam profiles and how Fac…

None of those are good for passive communication. No one said they "can't live without it." But it certainly adds value to a lot of people's lives.

Disagree. I feel e-mail can serve the same purpose but then some would argue the usefulness or value in 'passive' communication.

Re: Facebook the Devourer

#48

Post by auggierose »

Just one thing: If they were the best and brightest, they would not have let themselves lured into Facebook :-) Maybe another reason why not much interesting stuff is coming out of Facebook!

Re: Facebook the Devourer

#49

Post by waterlesscloud »

notatoad wrote: post #19
jamesaguilar wrote: post #10

> Remember Facebook? This delusion that Facebook is somehow dramatically more replaceable than Google or Amazon is kinda amusing. There are plenty of other places to buy online and plenty of other places to search. I can't imagine the mental contortions that are required to hold both of these beliefs at once: "Facebook is replaceable," and, "Google is irreplaceable." They are both replaceable, but it would be tough i…

Google has a search algorithm that outperforms any other. Their value proposition is that they can help you find what you are looking for better than their competitors can. Amazon has a vast network of suppliers and infrastructure. Their value proposition is that they can provide better selection and delivery than their competition. In both cases, the value is provided by the company. Facebook is a website that lets…

Google has almost no lock-in at all for their main economic engine, search.

If a notably better competitor comes along tomorrow, within a year the whole money empire could crumble. People would just go to the new place, one at a time.

Facebook has TREMENDOUS lock-in. For any new place to have value, it's got to have the majority of the people Facebook has change over in a very short timeframe.

The problem with technical advantage is that when it's gone, it's gone.

Re: Facebook the Devourer

#50

Post by jlujan »

coffeemug wrote: post #20

It devours everything it touches and produces nothing of value, including—ironically—their stock price. It produces something of value to me . I live in CA, my parents live in NY. We're in different worlds. I can't possibly communicate what my world is like to them via a daily phone call. But I can share bits and pieces of info on Facebook that they see, and it's a wonderful medium for us to have shared experiences f…

>it's a wonderful medium for us to have shared experiences for things that otherwise would be extremely difficult to share.

His rant doesn't touch this because that is the perceived value to individuals that facebook provides. Cannot really argue against that and I am glad people are able to use it like this. However, there is something in this "value" that bothers me and why I do not use facebook. From the facebook ad link at the beginning of his post:

"We make the tools and services that allow people to feel human, get together, open up. Even if it's a small gesture, or a grand notion -- we wanted to express that huge range of connectivity and how we interact with each other,"

The ad does not show that. It shows people doing things together. It shows real people interacting in a physical world. It shows physical, tangible, things. Not pictures of things, or short quips and a link to an article or an emoticon. The feeling the ad tries to carry across to the viewer is the exact reason that facebook is a terrible medium to "connect" in the human sense. Lets compare it to Apple's FaceTime ad (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yatSAEqNL7k). Not only is the product in almost every scene, but the ad shows exactly how it directly integrates and impacts peoples lives. The last scene with the sign language drives home the technology empowering humans to connect in an almost surreal new way. Another example is the Kodak Carousel scene from Mad Men (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=suRDUFpsHus). How facebook goes from their Timeline ad (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hzPEPfJHfKU) to "Chairs are like Facebook" is incredible to me. The commonality in all of these is capturing intiment moments between individuals. That is where the value proposition falls down with facebook. There is no sense of intimacy in the communication channel. A photo of your mom and dad probably has a different value to you than to your other facebook friends. It has very little to do with the photo itself as the photo has no intrinsic value either. It is the memories and emotions tied to it. That is the extent of it. Your mom doesn't need you to like the photo. Your friends don't need to see your comment saying your dad looks like a dork in that sweater. I argue that the passive nature and resulting noise to signal ratio makes facebook insufficient to build real human connections. For these things, not sure how facebook is better than email... it is no where close to live voice or video chat. Having a billion people on it means nothing when you only really want to communicate with 50 of them on a regular basis and only 1-4 of them at a time. Everything else on facebook is just self absorption and ego.

But I digress. His rant is really about how facebook is trying to make everything a part of its ecosystem. I can barely get older generations on email or MMS messaging let alone facebook. Trying to include facebook in every website serves no one but facebook and to what end? It definitely isn't user experience. Facebook is going the way of AOL as a ubiquitous term describing what the internet is and that is a scary thought.

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