Never used it. Still don't get the point.
Nicely put. I never saw what it would do for me that I wasn't already doing with email. Never signed up.
When will we stop using Facebook?
111–120 of 252 posts
Re: When will we stop using Facebook?
#112Earlier quoted context omitted.
> The fact that 1.5 billion people use Facebook kind of suggests that you are wrong. I'm wrong? No I'm an individual with my own preferences. Each to their own. I wasn't telling anyone else to leave. I was just describing my experiences.
I kind of had the same thought the person you are responding to had. You switch from "I" to "you" in your last paragraph, which seemed to imply that you were using your experience to declare how things are for others. I found myself nodding while reading the prior paragraphs, as I have similar experiences, but disagreeing with your last paragraph as it clearly wasn't true for many others. It's somewhat true for me no…
Thanks Roger. I hadn't realised that you could read it in that way. I was talking about myself, but it wasn't clear.
Re: When will we stop using Facebook?
#113Is it time yet to repost this classic article? "Will MySpace ever lose its monopoly?" http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2007/feb/08/business.c... Key quote: MySpace is well on the way to becoming what economists call a "natural monopoly". Users have invested so much social capital in putting up data about themselves it is not worth their changing sites, especially since every new user that MySpace attracts adds t…
True, but one thing I've noticed with Facebook is that it was the first big social network that saw widespread adoption across almost all segments of (at least US) society.
I don't doubt that it will eventually go the way of AOL and MySpace but there are some key things keeping it in use. With early ISPs like AOL, there was nothing really stopping you from moving to another provider that offered something better. Combined with the move toward broadband, any AOL-exclusive features just weren't enough to keep people around for the most part and you could still access the rest of the web, email, etc. regardless of your provider.
With Facebook, you need to use their service in order to interact with people on it. I can't just use Google+ because I like the interface and mobile app better than Facebook. No matter how much I prefer another service, they aren't based on any common protocol like email so I need to use Facebook to interact with people who use it.
And with MySpace, the audience was mostly younger people. Sure, some of us had parents or employers that maintained a profile but Facebook was the first big social network that got your mom, your grandma, your boss, your doctor, your old college professor, and all the neighbors on your block to sign up. The under-30 crowd will switch services for something newer and better but the critical mass of Facebook users is hard to get around.
Coming back to Google+, I really am one of the (few apparently) people who think it's a much better alternative to Facebook. Chat is better. Levels of sharing work better and are easier to manage. The interface is smoother. There aren't game and app requests. The mobile app is better. Photo sharing is better. Basically on a technical level, it's better all around.
But when it came out and I started using it, the thing I quickly came to realize was that even if my techie friends also were trying it out, the vast majority of non-enthusiasts found the idea of setting up a profile to be annoying and not worth their time. They already had a Facebook after all. To use G+ you would either need to maintain two profiles on two services or decide to only talk to the 10% of your contacts who took the time to set up this new thing.
In the end, it never really made a dent outside of niche uses (Photography, Ingress players, etc) and has largely become the butt of jokes. Another failed challenger undone by lack of interoperability and the momentum of a large incumbent.
If there were some way to choose your platform and still communicate with the same people (a la email) then Facebook would have some sort of competition but there's no way in hell they would open themselves up to that sort of competition. And currently, there aren't any must-have features compelling enough to make people either maintain multiple profiles or just uproot en masse.
Re: When will we stop using Facebook?
#114Earlier quoted context omitted.
It doesn't take a lot of effort to maintain contact with people that are important in our life today. The relationships that are important to us need to be nurtured, not followed. Facebook has created this (inadvertent) anti-social follow use case, and I think a lot of people have fallen into it.
Eh, I remember the days of trying to keep in touch via email, and not getting replies, or feeling bad that I wasn't sending a reply. Just to keep in general contact, with no specific goal in mind. I don't look forward to going back to them.
Facebook has become something of a "Third Place," in this respect.
Re: When will we stop using Facebook?
#115Earlier quoted context omitted.
> No social network does a good job at allowing a person to share with those groups as desired. Doesn't g+ solve this with the whole "circles" idea? You control which groups you share with.
Sorry, I actually forgot about g+, since none of my friends/family/acquaintances actually use it... mostly followed industry people's posts for a while, but I get most of that on twitter. G+ was a really nice imo way to work through it... too bad nobody used it in practice. I also hope that they work through a few of the issues I have with hangouts, mostly in taking over Google Voice duties, and the limited UX on the…
That's just it though. G+ did most of what was listed here without the annoying app/game requests and a better interface. They had cross-platform text and video chat long before Facebook did either.
But in the end, the only thing that matters on a closed communications platform is where the people are. Most people won't bother switching platforms and in order for any competitor (G+ or otherwise) to take off is for everyone voluntarily migrate over.
Re: When will we stop using Facebook?
#116My best friendships are maintained by calling by phone or Skype, calling regularly when it comes to closer friends. I keep in touch with important people in my life using technology available to my parents when they were my age, and I feel more satisfied for it.
Re: When will we stop using Facebook?
#117Earlier quoted context omitted.
I have trouble leaving Facebook because for better or worse it is how many of my friends and acquaintances communicate. I ended up finding a nice compromise: I installed an extension which hides all the content on news feed but still allows FB chat. When I couple this extension with ublock, the only thing I see when I go to Facebook is the chat interface, which is perfect for how I use the service.
Facebook have done that themselves! No extensions required! www.messenger.com is literally just FB chat, nothing else.
Wow thanks!
Re: When will we stop using Facebook?
#118I stopped two years ago. As far as I am aware I'm not missing much. I did have a lot of old friends on FB, but I didn't stay in contact with them in real life. I was just lazily snooping on their lives, without giving anything in return. To be completely honest, I don't have space or time for them in my real life. It isn't because I didn't like them anymore, it was simply that I didn't have the time or energy to stay…
I also stopped using Facebook, shortly before the revelations of massive surveillance. At that time I was convinced I shouldn't be in the arms of companies, stopped using many services and started self-hosting stuff. People didn't understand me.
Then, Edward Snowden revealed that the possible abstract threats I wanted to avoid can in fact become real. We are fortunate to have received this information. People still didn't understand me.
In the beginning of my time without the services I clearly felt that something was missing, but it wasn't hard to withstand, for the idealistic flame burning within me.
After some time my interest for the services faded away, like an addiction you successfully cured. Now, I'm not even thinking about using them anymore.
Many don't understand me even now, and I'm not holding my breath, anymore.
Re: When will we stop using Facebook?
#119When we will start using https://diasporafoundation.org
Re: When will we stop using Facebook?
#120Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Why should you post life updates? Because it's the "done thing". No - it's because you've done something you think your friends would be interested in and it's a lot easier to take a photo and click 'post to Facebook' than to write to 30 people. That's really the fundamental function of Facebook and any successor will probably succeed by doing it better in some way. eg. Snapchat enabling you to send naughty pics wi…
My problem with Facebook is that whenever I do something I think my friends would be interested in, I actually do take a photo and upload it to Facebook. Then, Facebook filters all my friends' feed so only 50% of them see it. All I want from Facebook is a way to reliably see all the posts from all the people I want to follow, and have it keep doing that. I have found settings in the past that let it happen, but it se…
I think what you're talking about was an option at the bottom of the feed which allowed one to see everything everyone's posted. Unfortunately, upon making the feed endless, this option is no longer available.
Is there an easy way to choose who sees a particular post (ie, the way one sees a display of friends to click on when inviting them to an event)? They should implement this, allowing for deselecting unwanted viewers (rather than selecting for wanted viewers - for those with too many friends).