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Facebook – You are the Product

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Re: Facebook – You are the Product

#291

Post by hohenheim »

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.

Look at it the other way. Do you want to join a company that judges its employees based on online presence? And denies entry to employees who lack such presence?

Re: Facebook – You are the Product

#293

Post by xtrimsky1234 »

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.

This is not a good solution. It's not about keeping in touch, it's also a way to send news to other people. I live in the US but most of my family is in Europe, how do you want me to post a picture of my daughter so that all my family views it? By texting it (which I can't really right now because Google Voice doesn't support international texting), it would require me to send the picture to at least 20 people who I think would be interested in it.

Texting and calling is mostly a 1 to 1 relationship. Which is good to wish happy birthday or such. But it sucks to actually update people about news, post pictures.

Now I could potentially open a blog, but then again a lot of the people checking my Facebook profile aren't really that into tech. I have my 97 years old grandfather that checks Facebook because we taught him how to. If I tell him to go this blog to check my news, to another blog to check my sisters news, etc... It will become very difficult.

I think Facebook is a great platform, but over the years it filled up with too many ads. They are attempting too much to maximize profit, which is a crappy goal. If I would control Facebook, I would reduce the ads to a minimum survivable. And then I would offer a premium option with no ads.

Re: Facebook – You are the Product

#294

Post by ionised »

grwthckrmstr wrote: post #274

I'm using Facebook to earn my "fuck you money". The advertising tools are so powerful it is downright scary, the level of targeting one can do using it is just insane. That's partly the reason why I stopped posting updates. After seeing the depth of the advertising tools. I don't use Facebook for posting personal updates anymore but only to fuel my business. I realise that the only way I can "choose" to stay out of a…

So you don't like Facebook tracking and advertising to you but you happily make your money using those tools you describe as downright scary on others?

Does this not scream hypocrisy to you?

Re: Facebook – You are the Product

#295

Post by mattnewton »

provost wrote: post #266
alexman wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is similar to what I did too but the newsfeed is still polluted with lots of "likes" (e.g. liking a page, liking a post) by my close friends which are irrelevant to me 99% of the time. I wish Facebook let me hide "likes" from my friends.

If it really bothers you, a simple Greasemonkey script can fix that.

Or just don't visit the newsfeed ever.

Re: Facebook – You are the Product

#296

Post by Alex3917 »

zamber wrote: post #289
olympus wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He meant that he posted it prior to blue_beetle's comment in 2010. I had claimed that blue_beetle was the first person to put it on the internet, and he posted proof that he had posted a similar idea before blue_beetle did.

Alex3917 is either a time traveler or he's got superhuman memory. Speculation: 3917 is his mother year.

The reason I remember it is because I posted it as a HN comment, and then a few weeks later someone basically rewrote it into a blog post and got tens of millions of page views and tons of mainstream media coverage. Had that not happened, there's no way I'd remember now.

Re: Facebook – You are the Product

#297

Post by CalChris »

jeffdavis wrote: post #169
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.

Fisherman don't create fish. They lure them in with bait, trap them, and sell them.

Most of the fish you eat is farmed fish.

Re: Facebook – You are the Product

#298

Post by omikun »

mseebach wrote: post #153
lloydde wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 wit…

I think you are essentially right, but I want to make a distinction. Just because a product or service is perceived as valuable, does not mean they benefit the consumer. Examples include products laced with sugar or other drugs (legal/illegal). Sure consumers want them, but they also hurt consumers (addiction of one type or another).

I guess what I am saying is, sure their interests may align with ours, but are our interested aligned with us to begin with? If our interests leads to self destructive tendencies, is that still ok?

Re: Facebook – You are the Product

#299

Post by michaelmrose »

skinnymuch wrote: post #264
pessimizer wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That it is true, and a communication system?

But if many don't use email much, how does it help? I barely check my personal email. And no one in my normal life knows my business email. Once in while a family member or friend will send something unimportant via email. Either I never see it. Or I see it a week or month afterward. My career relates strongly to the internet too.

If you don't respond to email and I don't communicate with you in person or on the phone I assume you are uninterested personally or professionally and take my friendship or business elsewhere.

Answering email is really a pretty normal expectation.

Re: Facebook – You are the Product

#300

Post by mseebach »

omikun wrote: post #298
mseebach wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 wit…

I think you are essentially right, but I want to make a distinction. Just because a product or service is perceived as valuable, does not mean they benefit the consumer. Examples include products laced with sugar or other drugs (legal/illegal). Sure consumers want them, but they also hurt consumers (addiction of one type or another). I guess what I am saying is, sure their interests may align with ours, but are our i…

I think it is indeed a distinction: Facebook is no doubt a bad habit for some portion of its users, just like many other things are. But casting doubt on the legitimacy of their business model by using the "you are the product" trope is really a different matter. The things that are actually worrying about Facebook would still be worrying even if we paid for it, and suddenly weren't "the product" anymore.

"Benefit" is a fraught word. History is littered with those campaigning against presumed vices. I can't find the quote right now, but I'm pretty sure Dr Kellogg, the cornflakes guy, had some things to say about young women reading fiction that IIRC wasn't all that different from what critics have to say about Facebook today.

Whatever is wrong with Facebook is analogues to what's wrong with any number of vices, from sugar to alcohol to weed (and Facebook is probably in the very light end of that spectrum). They all benefit users, but also potentially do harm. The solution isn't moral zealously, it's being responsible, being aware of not letting it get to you and helping a friend before they get in too deep.

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