Why I Canceled My Facebook Account
primevector.wordpress.com
Why I Canceled My Facebook Account
1–10 of 85 posts
Re: Why I Canceled My Facebook Account
#2I think, Mr. Zuckerberg is a more evil exploiter with weak ethics than I'm willing to accept.
Re: Why I Canceled My Facebook Account
#3Scary story about the Pandora thing. Since I am not an active FB user, I have not yet experienced this brave new world. So hearing such stories about "the Facebook experience" is actually interesting.
I have a FB account to be able to see the occasionally linked page on FB, but the interface was too complicated to me even before all this privacy mess.
Re: Why I Canceled My Facebook Account
#4I'm a little bit confused over what appears to be a mass hysteria about privacy problems for Facebook. I guess I really don't mind if Facebook tells company X that I listen to Modest Mouse, or lets advertisers know that I play disc golf.
Facebook is still the best communication tool out there for sharing everything (pictures, videos, messages, etc.). If, in return for using an excellent and free service, Facebook sends out a little bit of trivial information about me then so be it. It's really not that different from AdWords.
Re: Why I Canceled My Facebook Account
#5Yes FB is definitely becoming less useful. For example, it used to be that if I listed my employer and set it to "friends only" then that was that. Now, if you visit my profile, it's still friends only - but if you go to my employer's public page, my name is (actually was) listed there! Same with all my previous employers, the colleges I attended, my interests, etc etc. Hometown too maybe! So I have removed all of that.
I can't help but think this will backfire for FB. Their long-term value is being deeply embedded in people's real lives. The real value of FB for me is that my friends merely need to keep their profiles up to date and I have a self-updating address book and birthday calendar. If no-one lists that then FB is merely as sticky as Twitter which is to say, not much.
Re: Why I Canceled My Facebook Account
#6So you're mad they're basically turning from a free model to a freemium model? The whole "privacy" thing is just ridiculous. When is Facebook's selling of your info ever going to impair on your real life? The information they sell is never going to lead to someone knocking on your door and calling your house. It will impair your visual Facebook surfing experience, at worst. And impair is a strong word.
Flipping out over some weird privacy details is ridiculous. There may be small leaks, but they don't/won't last. Patch it up. Move on. Keep talking to your one-off acquaintances.
We need to be OK with people making money. Facebook provided me (and you) $1000s of dollars in value over the years. I have not given them a dime. Facebook, gladly take 5-10% of your visual mind-share back. You earned it.
Re: Why I Canceled My Facebook Account
#7I think, Mr. Zuckerberg is a more evil exploiter with weak ethics than I'm willing to accept.
My take is that Mr Z. is a relative kid (that is, relatively inexperienced), sitting in a room with a bunch of cagey investors who made him an "instant" multimillionaire, and are now asking, "So, what are you going to do for us?"
He has no idea.
My guess at a phenomenological relationship for ethics as a function of time in this situation would be E = E0 exp(-ĸt) where E0 is am empirically determined constant, and dependent on the individual, and ĸ = a measure of the social debt owed to the people pulling the strings. Note that the unit of ĸ is inverse time. This indicates that when the string-pullers obtain their leverage quickly, as in this case, ĸ is large. [/humor]
Re: Why I Canceled My Facebook Account
#8I think, Mr. Zuckerberg is a more evil exploiter with weak ethics than I'm willing to accept.
Money has proven to be very effective in bending ethics. Many people would do worse for a fraction of Mr. Zuck's money. I think judging him as a evil exploiter with weak ethics is a little harsh.
Re: Why I Canceled My Facebook Account
#9So you're mad they're basically turning from a free model to a freemium model? The whole "privacy" thing is just ridiculous. When is Facebook's selling of your info ever going to impair on your real life? The information they sell is never going to lead to someone knocking on your door and calling your house. It will impair your visual Facebook surfing experience, at worst. And impair is a strong word. Flipping out o…
This is rubbish. My privacy is important to me because I enjoy it. I enjoy being able to do things/have thoughts/express opinions that are not universally popular. I enjoy not having my interests analyzed by potential employers. I enjoy not having my details handed out to marketers. I enjoy all these things far more than having a free way to keep in contact with one-off acquaintances.
Re: Why I Canceled My Facebook Account
#10Yes FB is definitely becoming less useful. For example, it used to be that if I listed my employer and set it to "friends only" then that was that. Now, if you visit my profile, it's still friends only - but if you go to my employer's public page, my name is (actually was) listed there! Same with all my previous employers, the colleges I attended, my interests, etc etc. Hometown too maybe! So I have removed all of th…
FB also seems to get less useful over time as you add more people.
Initially, when you have a few people you know really well and get on with, you can post quite freely knowing that it's unlikely to come back and bite you.
Later, as you gain a truckload of acquaintances you have to be much more measured and it winds up feeling like you're running some sort of discount PR agency.