And my pet snake is one of them, so I'm not sure what that really means.
The sssstatistic is ssssub-optimal.
Facebook Hits 2 Billion Users
171–180 of 229 posts
Re: Facebook Hits 2 Billion Users
#172As insane as this number is, and it really is an incredible achievement, I'm left feeling Facebook hasn't delivered much real net positive value to the world just yet. Politics are in disarray. More people are "connected" online but more people than ever feel isolated in some way and mental health issues are on the rise. Highlight reels of your friends living a seemingly amazing life leave people feeling like they've…
When was Facebook about improving society? Oh sure they'll do that as long as it doesn't jeopardize profits, but after all we've learned about their social engineering, social experimentation, pattern recognition and various mechanisms to maintain engagement, is it really right to pretend they are any different than any other large corporation? The dollar is the endgame, and if improving society becomes a profitable…
I think that's kind of my point. Notwithstanding that they have shareholders to please, and metrics to aim for, I just wonder when they're actually going to do something with their enormous reach.
Implementing a true technical democracy? Meaningfully helping people stay in touch (like the recent social CRM that was on HN)? Suicide prevention? Mental health awareness - I read a study recently about how certain Facebook posts can indicate somebody has a mental health issue.
They must have some angle on trying to do good. The recent implementation of the "mark yourself safe" feature is a tiny gesture towards actually trying to do good but it's trivial really. There must be so much more that can be done.
Re: Facebook Hits 2 Billion Users
#173Dangerously approaching 2,147,483,647. Let's hope their user ID's are not 32-bit integers :-)
PHP uses 64-bit integers on 64-bit systems. Of course they have some compiled variant of PHP which might do anything...
Re: Facebook Hits 2 Billion Users
#174As insane as this number is, and it really is an incredible achievement, I'm left feeling Facebook hasn't delivered much real net positive value to the world just yet. Politics are in disarray. More people are "connected" online but more people than ever feel isolated in some way and mental health issues are on the rise. Highlight reels of your friends living a seemingly amazing life leave people feeling like they've…
> what's the point I can think of two answers to that. (1) Why does there have to be a point? How many of the other companies we discuss here have a point, other than the enrichment of their founders/investors? Personally I loathe the "financial performance is a company's only duty" attitude (which is contrary to the actual law BTW), but if we're going to say companies should have a point then we should apply an equa…
Google Maps alone has improved the life of me and a lot of my friends/family. Traffic-aware GPS, hours when places are open, hours when places are most and less crowded... It keeps getting better
Re: Facebook Hits 2 Billion Users
#175Earlier quoted context omitted.
> what's the point I can think of two answers to that. (1) Why does there have to be a point? How many of the other companies we discuss here have a point, other than the enrichment of their founders/investors? Personally I loathe the "financial performance is a company's only duty" attitude (which is contrary to the actual law BTW), but if we're going to say companies should have a point then we should apply an equa…
Good points well made. I think it's safe to say that Google and parent company Alphabet have legitimately, and for the most part positively, changed the world. Just their search facility without all the other "fluff" gives me access to more information than I ever dreamed possible when I was still using Microsoft Encarta as a teenager. They definitely lose points for lacking in transparency and shoddy advertising pra…
And I can say the same about Facebook. They have kept me in touch with friends and family that I would have no relationship with at this point if it wasn't for Facebook's absurd levels of adoption (which is driven by an amazing product, which surprisingly has to be said since a lot of people here on HN like to discredit the technological / design achievements of companies like FB, Twitter, etc...)
I mean, you could even argue that the levels of adoption that they have achieved is a hugely positive thing in itself. If those 2B people were scattered across multiple platforms, you would not be able to have one platform which is basically guaranteed to be used by the vast majority of the people you encounter.
Re: Facebook Hits 2 Billion Users
#176Hows it being old? Nearly no one in my age range uses FB, just snapchat + ig.
> Hows it being old?
If you want to comment here you need to be nice, regardless of how someone else behaved or how old you think they might be.
We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14648376 and marked it off-topic.
Re: Facebook Hits 2 Billion Users
#177Earlier quoted context omitted.
Facebook monopolized social advertising. Facebook makes your friends want things that they don't need and in doing so is distorting society's values and encouraging mindless consumerism.
So you want to make all advertising illegal?
A world free of ads.... what a wonderful dream
A better dream is a world free of marketing of any type
Re: Facebook Hits 2 Billion Users
#178Earlier quoted context omitted.
do they though? I consume Coca Cola, and so do approx 2B other earthing. Does Coca Cola have influence over me?
Do you share your life, connect with your friends, and get your news from Coca Cola?
I don't do any of that on facebook. The only FB product I use is WhatsApp and Instagram (view only).
Re: Facebook Hits 2 Billion Users
#179Earlier quoted context omitted.
do they though? I consume Coca Cola, and so do approx 2B other earthing. Does Coca Cola have influence over me?
When you buy a coke, is there an email from coke in your inbox the next day? When you interact with coke does it gently tailor what you see and what you do not see, month after month? If you cannot understand how people are influenced, maybe you'll never see the influencing happening. That doesn't make you immune, on the contrary...
How does an automated email from FB that gets filtered into my FB folder that I never read actually influence me?
Re: Facebook Hits 2 Billion Users
#180Earlier quoted context omitted.
Google's profile counts -- Android, Gmail, Youtube, and G+, mostly, in about that order, topped 3 billion a while ago. http://archive.is/zi4Uw (Origin site appears down.)
I have at least two Google accounts and a very old never-really-used Youtube account (from the days before it was a Google account), so it's very appropriate that you say "profile count" rather than "user count".
I'm quite aware of that, but yes, that's a crucial distinction.
Point being that very large user account collections do exist.