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Facebook – You are the Product

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Re: Facebook – You are the Product

#151

Post by enjdbsgaga »

Sir_Cmpwn wrote: post #100
yawz wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seriously?!? Would you write that letter to dozens of people in 3 different languages? Or should I pick "only one" of my aunts and uncles to share my son's first school day pictures? Or maybe we can create a human chain where one sends the letter and pictures that he/she receives to the next one in line. (hmm... maybe there's a business idea there...)

You're used to pushing information to them with a firehose. Use a bucket instead. Send letters out infrequently, one per household.

This assumes the recipients have consistent addresses, and requires significant additional time and labour. Why would he drop Facebook in favour of snail mail, when e-mails (a more convenient version of the same thing) provided an inadequate solution for him in the past?

You can put just as much time and thought into an email as you can a letter. Technology is not the issue here, merely etiquette.

Re: Facebook – You are the Product

#152

Post by mbesto »

cortesoft wrote: post #118
olympus wrote: post #31

I'm here to fix some ignorance, since the source of the "you are the product" idea is not these books. Metafilter user blue_beetle first put this idea online when he said "If you are not paying for it, you're not the customer; you're the product being sold" in response to the Digg revolt of 2010. The idea apparently existed for a few decades prior regarding TV advertising. I prefer to think blue_beetle was the one wh…

I really don't like that phrase; you are NOT the product that facebook creates. Facebook creates a product which is a social media network. You PAY for that product with your data and your eyeballs. Facebook takes your payment, turns around, and sells it to advertisers and others interested in the data. That is not the same as saying you are the product.

> sells it to advertisers and others interested in the data

Advertisers don't care about the data, they care about converting you into a customer. Data happens to be the medium in which the exchange happens. Just like I don't buy a whole convenience store - I buy a soda from a convenience store - I am buying customers from Facebook's social media network. So, yes, it's appropriate to say "YOU are the product".

Re: Facebook – You are the Product

#153

Post by mseebach »

lloydde wrote: post #133
cortesoft wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really don't like that phrase; you are NOT the product that facebook creates. Facebook creates a product which is a social media network. You PAY for that product with your data and your eyeballs. Facebook takes your payment, turns around, and sells it to advertisers and others interested in the data. That is not the same as saying you are the product.

It's a pithy saying that gets across that you as the user and the proprietor's interests may not align. We are manipulated with low doses of pleasure, nostalgia, etc. This often involves some level of deception. Sophisticated psychology is used in advertisers. When you pay with money the incentives and transactions are more clear. I'm most aware of this through my children's interactions with entertainment where YouT…

Yeah, but it's mostly wrong, and it's a sophomoric commercephobic understanding of business (also, it's an arrogant and misanthropic view of Facebooks two billion actual users as ignorant victims of something that sounds almost like a scam).

The exact same argument can be made for supermarkets: they are conduits for putting you in front of goods from suppliers (supermarkets invest a lot more in their relationship with powerful suppliers than they do with individual customers!) - your desire to buy food and go home and make dinner is entirely orthogonal to the supermarket, their interests aren't aligned with yours! Yet, despite this, in more than half a century of supermarkets being wildly popular, serving billions of people, the number of times when the supermarket failed to satisfy the customers actual desire is a rounding error next to the times they did.

Adam Smith saw and understood this 250 years ago: It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest.

And so it is with Facebook. If it does not fundamentally provide some value that you care about, you will stop using it, and in that important aspect their interests are aligned with yours.

Re: Facebook – You are the Product

#154

Post by jarsin »

olympus wrote: post #40
akeck wrote: post #6

I wonder if, in the future, being able not to be on any social media will be an higher class privilege.

I think it already is. I recently deleted my FB and Twitter accounts. I had to keep my LinkedIn account because a recruiter told me that if I didn't have at least some online persona then I was weird and wouldn't be hired. I guess I'm not rich enough to delete all my social media.

Recruiters say stupid shit all the time. They are like attorneys nothing they say matters :)

Re: Facebook – You are the Product

#155

Post by acomjean »

Sir_Cmpwn wrote: post #116
debaserab2 wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not really possible if the majority (or even portions) of your social life use facebook to organize events. If you're interested in being a diligent contributor to your social group, you're either stuck trying to evangelize some other tool (usually less convenient for everyone else who doesn't mind facebook) or you're stuck asking for someone to check the FB event for you. You can't really disconnect and easily…

You will be surprised by how easy it is. Take the approach I suggested. Wane yourself off of it and don't quit entirely until you feel comfortable with it.

I help out with an Art open studio event. Its really starting to be the case that people who are organizing events want to let members know about events and invite people via Facebook. We use that and email. Facebook is easy and somewhat effective.

Some people use it for their whole social calendar. This is different from the old evite.com days, which was more email list based.

I'm not on it so Facebook, but my Partner is so she keeps me posted on the social aspect of whats going on. If she wasn't I probably would have to be. Not being on it means stuff happens and I won't know. I'm ok with that, but it can be a bit isolating. There is only so much you can expect acquaintances to work to keep you in the loop.

People like that its free (not like the services you pay for like meetup.com)

Re: Facebook – You are the Product

#156

Post by mouldysammich »

parthdesai wrote: post #49
notadoc wrote: post #5

I stopped using Facebook years ago and I could not recommend it more. I found it to be mental pollution at best and and a total waste of time. If you want to 'keep in touch' with people, call or text them. Make an effort to actually interact with the people who matter to you.

So tell me, how do i replace around 5 different group chats i have on messenger which can have anywhere between 5-10 people in each chat? Music events that i go to are exclusively promoted on facebook. How do you recommend i find out about these events so that i can get a cheaper ticket price? if anyone wants to organize a plan that has more than 8 people, facebook groups make it much much easier. I personally hate f…

For music i find songkick https://www.songkick.com/ is very good. I usually get information for bands i like from them before i see it on facebook.

Re: Facebook – You are the Product

#157

Post by silassales »

hk__2 wrote: post #120
silassales wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the more dangerous problem than being addicted to it, is the affect it can have on you even if you are only on it for a few minutes a day. I find social media causes people to only see the best parts of other people lives and therefore wonder why their life is not that great, and than theres a nice downward spiral of discontent and depression. Social media, used by some only to keep in contact is okay, but th…

> but the subconscious comparison of your real life to others social media life, can be really harmful. Do you happen to have some papers on that subject? I’ve seen papers on how people present themselves on FB; not on how they "judge" others’ feeds.

Not anything more than various blog posts or web articles that I've read. I should have been more clear that I was mainly speaking from a personal perspective and what I, and those around me, have discussed and experienced. Sorry for being misleading.

Re: Facebook – You are the Product

#158

Post by Sir_Cmpwn »

yawz wrote: post #139
Sir_Cmpwn wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I never said handwritten. I send printed letters every month or two.

Why would you print a typed letter and send it by mail instead of e-mailing? Waste of resources, if you ask me, and pretty expensive depending on the country you're sending it to. Good for USPS, though. A typed letter is not more personal than e-mail, I'm afraid.

>Why would you print a typed letter and send it by mail instead of e-mailing? Waste of resources, if you ask me, and pretty expensive depending on the country you're sending it to. Good for USPS, though.

I just checked with USPS. It costs _a dollar_ to mail a letter from Philly to Madagascar.

>A typed letter is not more personal than e-mail, I'm afraid.

Comparing it to an email is clever, because it helps your point seem more valid. But this is about Facebook, so I'm going to compare it to that - though many of these points are valid when comparing against email as well.

Facebook is a constant barrage of snippets from constant mini mind dumps of everything each person is thinking, mixed with ads and distracting videos all carefully served by an algorithm that uses machine learning to steal your attention for as long as possible and addict you to the service.

A letter, typed or not, is going to be read in the real world, probably sitting down somewhere comfortable without any ads or distractions. It will be written more thoughtfully because it is an infrequent occurance. It may have been mailed with photos or a small trinket that made you think of them. How would you react if you received a thoughtful letter from your sister instead of of a hundred thoughtless shouts into the void? I certainly hope you would be touched, and I feel bad for your sister if you wouldn't.

All you're doing in this thread is deflect, deflect, deflect. I have no idea what you're trying to accomplish. I am fully convinced that you are a Facebook addict in denial.

Re: Facebook – You are the Product

#159

Post by gertef »

elorant wrote: post #144
parthdesai wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So tell me, how do i replace around 5 different group chats i have on messenger which can have anywhere between 5-10 people in each chat? Music events that i go to are exclusively promoted on facebook. How do you recommend i find out about these events so that i can get a cheaper ticket price? if anyone wants to organize a plan that has more than 8 people, facebook groups make it much much easier. I personally hate f…

So tell me, how do i replace around 5 different group chats i have on messenger which can have anywhere between 5-10 people in each chat? You throw a party and get to talk to everyone. I mean come on, we used to socialize before social networks.

Many of us did not, because throwing a party is expensive and complicated.

Re: Facebook – You are the Product

#160

Post by Sir_Cmpwn »

enjdbsgaga wrote: post #151
Sir_Cmpwn wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're used to pushing information to them with a firehose. Use a bucket instead. Send letters out infrequently, one per household.

This assumes the recipients have consistent addresses, and requires significant additional time and labour. Why would he drop Facebook in favour of snail mail, when e-mails (a more convenient version of the same thing) provided an inadequate solution for him in the past? You can put just as much time and thought into an email as you can a letter. Technology is not the issue here, merely etiquette.

I wrote about the difference between snail mail and letters here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15031357
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