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Don’t Fix Facebook, Replace It

nytimes.com

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Re: Don’t Fix Facebook, Replace It

#131

Post by p49k »

haylem wrote: post #112
p49k wrote: post #104

Has anyone seen a product that was functional, polished, and enjoyable to use that would be capable of replacing Facebook? I haven't. Diaspora, Mastodon, Ello are the only things that I can think of, and none of them come close to matching the basic functionality and the "it just works" factor of Facebook. Maybe someone should put in some resources to create a polished product and see what happens? It doesn't even ha…

True, I haven't seen another product "match" Facebook. But I also don't see much need for it (entirely), or at the very least for most of its features. The Facebook of ~2007 was about as good as it ever needed to be (minus the pokes). It served its purpose well. It could have used some of the UI polish it got afterwards, but no new feature addition has made any significant change to end users in my view, apart from p…

The biggest feature for me that no one has replicated is the ability to create events with extremely customizable privacy preferences in which you know people will get the invite, even if they’ve changed phone numbers (in other words, some level of contact redundancy).

Re: Don’t Fix Facebook, Replace It

#132

Post by brylie »

p49k wrote: post #104

Has anyone seen a product that was functional, polished, and enjoyable to use that would be capable of replacing Facebook? I haven't. Diaspora, Mastodon, Ello are the only things that I can think of, and none of them come close to matching the basic functionality and the "it just works" factor of Facebook. Maybe someone should put in some resources to create a polished product and see what happens? It doesn't even ha…

The closest open-source, distributed option I know of is Friendica;

https://friendi.ca/

Of course, there is room for improvement in the Friendica UX, but it still seems like a viable option for federated social network. The Friendica devs seem to strive for interoperability with other networks and support open standards for the social Internet.

Re: Don’t Fix Facebook, Replace It

#133

Post by Pamar »

skocznymroczny wrote: post #126
Pamar wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Didn’t Opera offer something similar in the past? A small “private space” you could optionally share with others (as long as they used Opera too). I ask because Beaker claims to be “the first and only...”

Opera had Opera Unite, but it was basically a webserver with extensions in the browser, it didn't require the other person to use Opera.

I see, thanks: I wasn't sure about the details.

Re: Don’t Fix Facebook, Replace It

#135

Post by jamesrcole »

bamboozled wrote: post #97
vinniejames wrote: post #46

We did replace it, almost 10 years ago. It was called Diaspora[1], no one cared about privacy then. No one really cares about privacy now, at least not enough to do anything about it. 1. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diaspora_(social_network)

Really? I don't think so, it would be good if someone did a study on this though. Most people I know think privacy is important. I do think people are communicating via other mediums more than before though. It's anecdotal but most of my family and friends just gravitate towards iMessage , Facetime and Telegram to communicate by default now. Could it be that people don't care about this issue because they care about…

> Most people I know think privacy is important.

The question is, how representative are those people of the population at large?

Re: Don’t Fix Facebook, Replace It

#136

Post by jhasse »

Sir_Substance wrote: post #120
vinniejames wrote: post #46

We did replace it, almost 10 years ago. It was called Diaspora[1], no one cared about privacy then. No one really cares about privacy now, at least not enough to do anything about it. 1. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diaspora_(social_network)

Diaspora (still!) doesn't do: 1. Chat (It could just integrate a javascript XMPP client and let people use whatever chat server they liked) 2. Event management and invites When I suggest people leave Facebook, these are the things people complain there are no alternatives to.

> 2. Event management and invites

https://github.com/diaspora/diaspora/issues/1359

Re: Don’t Fix Facebook, Replace It

#137

Post by losvedir »

hellofunk wrote: post #128
aaron-lebo wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If people really cared about their privacy they wouldn't broadcast their personal lives to millions of people (see social media). Until that's corrected (how do you get out of that social cycle where you have to market and yell louder than everyone else?), it's going to continue. People are mad at FB the same way people get mad when they realize they've been in manipulative relationships, but I'm not sure many people…

> If people really cared about their privacy they wouldn't broadcast their personal lives to millions of people Most FB users certainly do not expect that they are sending out their photos and opinions and chats to millions of people. They have a circle of friends and family that they think are behind a wall called their network, and that circle is usually a few hundred people or less.

To be clear, that's accurate, right? They're not sending their photos and opinions out to millions of people. As far as I know, this whole Cambridge Analytica thing was about profile data, not messages or photos.

Re: Don’t Fix Facebook, Replace It

#138

Post by rebuilder »

Sir_Substance wrote: post #120
vinniejames wrote: post #46

We did replace it, almost 10 years ago. It was called Diaspora[1], no one cared about privacy then. No one really cares about privacy now, at least not enough to do anything about it. 1. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diaspora_(social_network)

Diaspora (still!) doesn't do: 1. Chat (It could just integrate a javascript XMPP client and let people use whatever chat server they liked) 2. Event management and invites When I suggest people leave Facebook, these are the things people complain there are no alternatives to.

#2 is especially galling, as it's actually, to me, the only really compelling service Facebook provides.

Re: Don’t Fix Facebook, Replace It

#139

Post by omnimus »

newscracker wrote: post #41
TheAceOfHearts wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you seen Beaker [0]? It doesn't require you to setup a complex web server and configure a bunch of stuff, you just run the browser and it'll start sharing your website. It's a move back to a truly decentralized web. [0] https://beakerbrowser.com/

I actually tried this a while ago, and found that the audience also had to use Beaker to access the content. That's a huge barrier if current browsers don't support this.

True but i think that their plan is to get into web standards and have IPFS and DAT in other browsers. Beaker is just first implementation. I believe Firefox people are already doing some work on those protocols.

It will be interesting see Googles position on those protocols. Chrome might be huge weapon against those iniciatives. Google can simply kill the whole initiative if they won't support it.

Re: Don’t Fix Facebook, Replace It

#140

Post by zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC »

oblio wrote: post #130
8bitsrule wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I keep seeing the suggestion of 'federation' for soc.media and am not sure understand the use of this word. What are the characteristics of a 'federated system' and how is it immune to the problem of centralization? What are some successful examples?

I’m going to be a bit ironic here and say that email is an example of a federated system. I’m being ironic cause we did end up with a centralized system for email. Not a single center, but a few: Gmail, Yahoo, Microsoft, etc. Because of abuse (spam, primarily) and because of ease of use. Having an easy to use and safe federated system is discovering-the-theory-of-relativity hard, in my opinion.

On the other hand, even a few "centers" are way better than just one, in that that creates competetive pressure.

But also, those three are by far not the only ones, there are quite a few more significant email providers across the globe.

And also, there are tons of participants who use none of those services. Apart from some individuals running their own servers, lots and lots of companies run their own email infrastructure.

> Having an easy to use and safe federated system is discovering-the-theory-of-relativity hard, in my opinion.

The important thing is that it's way easier than a safe centralized system.

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