Why no one really quits Google or Facebook • Hacker News Board

Re: Why no one really quits Google or Facebook

#21

Post by prophesi » Mon, Feb 04, 2019, 4:04 PM UTC

mehrdadn wrote: post #19

epistasis wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What you describe sounds exactly like giving up privacy to me, even if it doesn't sound like giving up privacy to you. And then when you add in all the other tracking that Google does of your web history, search history, location data, that is pretty much all your privacy gone. Let's say I pay an assistant to help with my email. Even though they are in my employ, I'm still giving up my privacy for the service. Google…

I never understood how scanning emails to show ads is a privacy violation? No information about you is leaking to anyone.

I think it's the whole _scanning emails_. The information is already leaked at that point.

Re: Why no one really quits Google or Facebook

#22

Post by srpablo » Mon, Feb 04, 2019, 4:04 PM UTC

lmao, or: it is actually hard to quit these companies even if you're educated, well-informed, and set to do it. Aside from many articles[1] written precisely about this, casual conversations with anyone who tries to exercise their consumer agency and giving them up talk about why it's hard to do.

Has this author ever spoken to anyone who's tried using a smartphone or OS that isn't Apple or Google? "People love free stuff" isn't a sufficient explanation, it reads like someone trying to blame consumers, to say nothing of the ethical implications behind the conscious, deliberate decisions behind each of the scandals they're happy to wave away.

[1]: https://gizmodo.com/c/goodbye-big-five

Re: Why no one really quits Google or Facebook

#23

Post by mehrdadn » Mon, Feb 04, 2019, 4:10 PM UTC

prophesi wrote: post #21

mehrdadn wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I never understood how scanning emails to show ads is a privacy violation? No information about you is leaking to anyone.

I think it's the whole _scanning emails_. The information is already leaked at that point.

Leaked to whom though? That's what I don't get. No human is involved in the process and your information is in the hands of the same company as before.

Re: Why no one really quits Google or Facebook

#24

Post by codingdave » Mon, Feb 04, 2019, 4:15 PM UTC

The people who feel that they cannot quit Facebook seem to think that quitting Facebook means replacing it with something else. Most people who have quit do not move 2000 contacts to new platforms - they simply stop using Facebook.

Re: Why no one really quits Google or Facebook

#25

Post by fixermark » Mon, Feb 04, 2019, 4:22 PM UTC

Animats wrote: post #20

It's not that hard to do without Google, except for search. My phone has all Google user-facing services removed. Mail is on an Sonic IMAP server and accessed with K-9 mail. Browsing is is with Fennec. Apps come from F-Droid. Navigation is based on Open Street Map. GPS assistance comes from Mozilla's location provider. No Facebook on mobile. Messaging is SMS and email. On desktop, documents are in Libre Office. Priva…

Part of the issue the article notes is: once you start with Google (or any large, interconnected service ecosystem), there's quite a bit of activation-energy cost to leaving it.

Consider Drive as an example. You can download the entire contents of your Drive at any time. Where do you upload it to? How many services will provide a clean and easy way to import all Drive documents? Will they maintain folder hierarchy? Individual files in Drive can also be shared with zero, a few, or all users with a given URL---can your new collaborative document editing tool be set up to manage that state? Is it automatable, or something you'll have to set up by hand for 10s - 100s - 1000s of documents?

This is the kind of thing an enterprise can pay someone to sort out, but individual users really have to care about leaving a service family (that one assumes at some point in the past they were already happy with the privacy / security tradeoff) to invest the time and effort to do so without data or functionality loss.

Re: Why no one really quits Google or Facebook

#26

Post by fixermark » Mon, Feb 04, 2019, 4:24 PM UTC

srpablo wrote: post #22

lmao, or: it is actually hard to quit these companies even if you're educated, well-informed, and set to do it. Aside from many articles[1] written precisely about this, casual conversations with anyone who tries to exercise their consumer agency and giving them up talk about why it's hard to do. Has this author ever spoken to anyone who's tried using a smartphone or OS that isn't Apple or Google? "People love free s…

I believe this article mentions that the ecosystems are hard to switch away from once adopted.

Re: Why no one really quits Google or Facebook

#27

Post by Animats » Mon, Feb 04, 2019, 4:26 PM UTC

fixermark wrote: post #25

Animats wrote: post #20

It's not that hard to do without Google, except for search. My phone has all Google user-facing services removed. Mail is on an Sonic IMAP server and accessed with K-9 mail. Browsing is is with Fennec. Apps come from F-Droid. Navigation is based on Open Street Map. GPS assistance comes from Mozilla's location provider. No Facebook on mobile. Messaging is SMS and email. On desktop, documents are in Libre Office. Priva…

Part of the issue the article notes is: once you start with Google (or any large, interconnected service ecosystem), there's quite a bit of activation-energy cost to leaving it. Consider Drive as an example. You can download the entire contents of your Drive at any time. Where do you upload it to? How many services will provide a clean and easy way to import all Drive documents? Will they maintain folder hierarchy? I…

I didn't "leave". I didn't "enter" the Google ecosystem.

Re: Why no one really quits Google or Facebook

#28

Post by mcv » Mon, Feb 04, 2019, 4:27 PM UTC

chosenbreed37 wrote: post #11

ptah wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you take a picture of a person naked on a beach without their permission, is it ok to use that picture as you like?

> If you take a picture of a person naked on a beach without their permission, is it ok to use that picture as you like? Sounds like a straw man argument. People voluntarily upload/submit their data to Google, Facebook, etc

They do, but with the intent to share it with their friends, not to have Facebook/Google use them for completely different purposes.

Re: Why no one really quits Google or Facebook

#29

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Feb 04, 2019, 4:28 PM UTC

fixermark wrote: post #26

srpablo wrote: post #22

lmao, or: it is actually hard to quit these companies even if you're educated, well-informed, and set to do it. Aside from many articles[1] written precisely about this, casual conversations with anyone who tries to exercise their consumer agency and giving them up talk about why it's hard to do. Has this author ever spoken to anyone who's tried using a smartphone or OS that isn't Apple or Google? "People love free s…

I believe this article mentions that the ecosystems are hard to switch away from once adopted.

[deleted]

Re: Why no one really quits Google or Facebook

#30

Post by fixermark » Mon, Feb 04, 2019, 4:29 PM UTC

Animats wrote: post #27

fixermark wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Part of the issue the article notes is: once you start with Google (or any large, interconnected service ecosystem), there's quite a bit of activation-energy cost to leaving it. Consider Drive as an example. You can download the entire contents of your Drive at any time. Where do you upload it to? How many services will provide a clean and easy way to import all Drive documents? Will they maintain folder hierarchy? I…

I didn't "leave". I didn't "enter" the Google ecosystem.

Based on the article title ("Why no one really quits Google or Facebook"), your experience doesn't align with the scenario the article is talking about; it's scoped to people who already adopted these service ecosystems.