I am reminded of an old Dilbert cartoon where they bring in a usability expert to help them write an app. After suggesting that the computer shock the user when they do the wrong thing, he quips, "I found this job to be a lot easier once I realized I hated people"
Seriously, Facebook. Do one thing and do it well. Enough of this conquer-the-universe bullshit. I'm already at the point where I want to jump ship; I just can't figure out how to do it without losing contact with my friends. It's like you're using our own friends against us. Pretty slimy.
My reaction to Facebook trying to take control of my email was that Facebook can go jump in a lake (My language was actually much worse than that.) I'm already primed to leave. I'm just waiting on the right opportunity to come along.
> "This is the computer industry as it used to be: people sharing ideas and solutions without the greed and grit with associated with today's corporate driven, litigation-laced, industry"
(remember this was written 23 years ago).
And so now, looking at Facebook, I see some similar features. They have their own email; their own "CB simulator"; etc.
Um, when people start waking up they will realize that it isn't, hasn't ever, and will never work. Facebook only functions on one core input; your demographic info. I would bet significant amounts of money that Facebook has permanently backed up everyone's demographic info for all eternity. It is the vulnerable point in the Facebook deathstar. No one already looks at or intentionally clicks on any adds on Facebook, imagine how difficult it would be to sell marketers that facebook flavored bull if the user demographics were junk info.
The thing about permanently backed up demographic info though: it changes. My age, for example, changes every year. My location changes every few years. My interests change. Hell, even gender changes.
All of those things are fairly trivial for FB to track. Age (obvious), Location (trackable through Places, geolocation, etc. through that thing in your pocket), Gender (presumably you would post a status update about something that big?), Employment (status, amassing colleagues as 'friends'?).
It seems like they've hit on a constantly self-updating demographic info machine...
I was referring to your mention of "permanently backed up", i.e., stale demographic information, whose value decreases predictably with time. While FB is in business, you're spot on.
Demographic info may not be the only thing they know about. Given a lot of sites embed some sort of Facebook widget on their pages, they have a tracking mechanism.
If I had not explicitly signed-out of Facebook before visiting all these other sites, Facebook knows about it. And maybe also the browsing habits of people in my network. That gives a really deep profile about me - a lot more than just my demographics.
Check out screen shots of their respective ad platforms in that article: the level of targeting that is possible with Facebook (which is only going to become deeper, given all the additional details they are gathering about me) is simply not possible with Google. This is one major reason why Google is pushing hard with Google+
"If I had not explicitly signed-out of Facebook before visiting all these other sites, Facebook knows about it."
Even if you have explicitly signed-out of Facebook, the presence of the like button on a site allows Facebook to track your movements on that site. Their like button javascript reports back a unique login cookie that is not erased when you sign off of Facebook. Pressing the like button is a small part of its purpose. Its purpose is to track you around the web as long as you have ever logged into Facebook before. This was all covered here on HN months ago, when I first learned of it.
They're worried about search but Facebook hasn't even tried any kind of search yet. Personally I'm not convinced they're as dangerous and plugged in as people think. Everything they've done seems to me to be the most obvious thing every time (e.g. instead of selling info to advertisers they just dump email addresses) and quite lazy.
They won't stop or slow down until something else makes them irrelevant.
I so hope open data combined with web-intents and a slew of standardized service-negotiation protocols comes and solves this in a final, crushing, open move.
Want event-management? Fine. That's data. Stored in your calendar. Which can be stored and managed somewhere else, just loosely connected, with OAuth to make sure nothing bad happens.
Want participant-management for those events? Fine. That's data attached to your events. Which can use your contact-data as a source. Which can be stored and managed somewhere else, just loosely connected, to one or many services, with OAuth to make sure nothing bad happens.
Want photos tied to those events? That's data. You get the idea. There should be no need to consolidate all your stuff one place. We don't do it in real life and we shouldn't have to do it on the internet either.
I dream of an internet composed of micro-services of open data talking together, composing new wonderful things.
You use the service which you think does things best for the things it does best, and you use other services for things you think they do better. You put together your own cloud of services and data.
In this world, horrible and monolithic beasts like facebook are not only not needed. They are not wanted.
We just need to standardize. We just need to chisel out the semantics of how we hook services together in a way which normal users can handle.
This is the only true path I can see forward, which stays true to the roots of the internet. This is the one path maximizing freedom, choice and reliability through network distribution.
That's right; facebook, google, apple and possibly others are on a course of mutually assured destruction. If they neglect any aspect of social networking (mail, friends, shopping, instant messaging) they fear that dominance in one aspect will lead to dominance in all.
I don't see any of them winning out, certainly not Google. Google did pretty well with email though personally I haven't touched my gmail in years (I let my iphone client manage it) and search seems extremely vulnerable to me. It's clear at this point that they're never going to "get" social.
If it was this simple than Facebook would never have caught on in the first place. The answer isn't "rollback" because clearly there is some value here. The answer is finding out how to maximize that value to our lives, not maximize the payout for investors.
The main thing Facebook provides that isn't addressable with the systems we'd be left with in a "rollback" is a universal way to stay linked to other people that provides both people with control over whether that link exists or not. Everything else is just features glommed on top of that basic feature.
AFAICT there are only two ways to provide that basic feature:
(!) A centralized service like Facebook that manages the identity network. Any centralized organization is most likely ultimately going to exploit the fact that they own the network for their own gain, financial or otherwise.
or
(2) A decentralized service based on the similar cryptographic math as bitcoin, where every user gets one token representing their identity, and some sort of way to propagate changes to their identity signed by that token to everyone they are connected to and this needs to be accomplished in such a way that you can always re-establish the links to your friends in the network to be able to sync data.
I can't even begin to imagine how you'd develop the latter into a form that would be usable and therefore adoptable by the average person.
I am still trying to work out why something approximating (2) can't be done through a simple combination of:
- tried-and-tested public key cryptography techniques
- using e-mail as a buffered delivery mechanism (everyone has an e-mail account that can store plenty of messages until they're next on-line)
- borrowing the typical DVCS copy-the-whole-repo approach so you've got distributed back-ups
- writing a native client for whichever platforms you wanted to support.
If someone wants to make money off it, come up with a neat physical way to connect something personal but memorable to keys of sufficient complexity to encrypt everything robustly: mobile app, USB device, whatever.
The only obvious limitation is physical bandwidth and storage capacity, which would make copy-the-whole-repo unsustainable if people kept sharing lots of photos/multimedia content but their friends don't want to "download" all of it. How much this will matter as data storage and communication network capacity increases is anyone's guess.
In the meantime, if you were willing to accept a delay you could have a request/reply system to fetch larger items, or someone could charge a modest sum of real money to people who want to use an actual centralised escrow-like system that is always available to their friends even when they're not on-line. The system doesn't need to be able to see into any content, just to act as a more real-time substitute for the default buffered transmission via e-mail.
Hi, I'm actually in the process of designing such a system, with the goal of maximizing privacy, sovereignty, decentralization, and overall empowerment (not to mention destroying the facebook spying machine). If you'd like to help out with ideas and brainstorming, please do email me at bash.vcs [squigllydoo [SHIFT+TWO]] <google's mail service> . com. I already have some ideas for unique features that will set this apart from other similarly oriented efforts in a significant way. I'm getting close to starting up a mailing list and code repository, so please be in touch if you're at all interested. I'll keep you filled in.
PS it will be completely F/OSS, most likely GPL depending on contributor consensus.
Hi, I'm actually in the process of designing such a system, with the goal of maximizing privacy, sovereignty, decentralization, and overall empowerment (not to mention destroying the facebook spying machine). If you'd like to help out with ideas and brainstorming, please do email me at bash.vcs [squigllydoo [SHIFT+TWO]] <google's mail service> . com. I already have some ideas for unique features that will set this apart from other similarly oriented efforts in a significant way. I'm getting close to starting up a mailing list and code repository, so please be in touch if you're at all interested. I'll keep you filled in.
But yeah, you've hit the nail right on the head. Obviously, my will fall into your (2) category, so we've got some major usability and cryptographic hurdles to tackle. But please rest assured that the solutions exist and that I've got most of them hammered out in my mind - the rest just require a little brainstorming and puzzle solving.
PS it will be completely F/OSS, most likely GPL depending on contributor consensus.
I have unique ideas for solutions to unsolved problems. I plan to use a painless and ubiquitous deployment platform, as well as an unparalleled level of decentralization (not federation where you're still a slave to the pod operator who can still sell you out) and sovereignty. I plan on publishing essays of my ideas as proposals on a site in the near future when I get around to doing so. I can keep you filled in if you're interested in contributing. (it'll all likely be GPLd.)
I guess the FB cookies in your browser is a simplified version of the token. It's used to identify you not only on FB but also on other sites that load their javascript for comments & likes. There was some anger a while back about how fb could track you with cookies even if you're logged out - due to the ubiquity of their js on the web.
I forgot one detail. They don't just provide the links, but a way of discovering the link via other unique identifiers, some of which are confirmed. e.g. email addresses and phone numbers.
With #2 you'd still need trusted sources that can verify that a person i found via johndoe@acme.com or +1 (914) 555-1212 is in fact the owner of that email or phone number.
Number 2 is very interesting. I don't know either how it would work, but Bitcoin proves that intelligent stuff in this direction can be done and have some success
>> "you don't need an application to managed personal relationships"
You do when you're keeping in touch with friends you've made throughout your life and not just your current ones. That's the thing Facebook makes easy.
Also email and writing letters don't really work. If I sent a letter to a friend I seriously doubt they would bother responding, and most people I know personally don't use email. They use Facebook. That's the big problem - Facebook has replaced email for a lot of people making it one of the only ways (besides visiting/calling) to contact them.
> You do when you're keeping in touch with friends you've made throughout your life and not just your current ones.
Your friends are the current ones. Those other people aren't friends anymore, they're acquaintances, people you used to know but don't see anymore. Friend isn't a permanent status, it's the people you hang out with and see on a regular basis. If your only contact with a person is through facebook, they aren't your friends.
You know what? You don't get to decide who people's friends are. 30 years ago people had all kinds of friends they only got to communicate with on the phone and through letters. Non-face-to-face friendships (and romantic relationships) have existed since we had semi-reliable postal services. People happen to find things like Twitter & Facebook really helpful in this regard.
I'm not telling anyone who their friends are, I'm telling you you're using the English language sloppily if everyone in your Facebook you really consider a "friend". You've devalued the word to nearly meaninglessness. Everyone you've ever met is not your friend. Everyone you've had a friendly conversation with and looked up on Facebook is not your friend.
This is a ridiculous argument. There are plenty of people I see every day that I would consider, at best, an acquaintance. There is also a very small group of people that I see maybe once or twice a year that I would consider friends.
Your definition of friendship is outrageously shallow and is contrary to any other definition I have heard.
Agree. My best friend is moving to another state, 16 hours away. I skypechat with him on a daily basis, and he knows me like a brother. I haven't "seen" him in over two years, and when I joked that he was going to leave town without saying goodbye, he said "what will be different?"
He was right, nothing is different. It's like friends back in the 1800s exchanging letters. Doesn't mean that our friendship is less because we don't go out on Fridays and pound down a few pints.
In contrast, the people I work with, I spend far more time with, and interact directly with more frequently than my friend. Yet I wouldn't consider any of them friends.
> There are plenty of people I see every day that I would consider, at best, an acquaintance.
Ditto, where did I say seeing someone every day made them a friend? If it's this "it's the people you hang out with and see on a regular basis" that wasn't meant to qualify everyone you see daily as a friend.
> There is also a very small group of people that I see maybe once or twice a year that I would consider friends.
But you see them, which is my point. If your only contact with them is on Facebook, and losing Facebook would end your contact with them; they aren't your friends.
> Your definition of friendship is outrageously shallow and is contrary to any other definition I have heard.
I don't think you've understand what I'm saying well enough to say what my definition is since you've gotten it so clearly wrong.
That's highly subjective. For example, if I moved abroad the people I hung out with regularly before would still be 'friends' to me. I would still care about what's happening in their lives and Facebook is a great way to continue that relationship. To me a friend is someone, not related, that I care about. Not someone that I hang out with regularly.
> Replace the "friends" in his original post with "acquaintances," and his point stands.
That's changing the argument, those words mean totally different things. My point is, Facebook makes keeping in touch with acquaintances easy, but isn't necessary to keep in touch with actual friends. Friends are people you see outside of Facebook.
For less introverted people, "friend" and "acquaintance" are more-or-less synonymous. See why Facebook chose the word "friend" now? (I agree with your assessment of course, I consider them very different. My best friend doesn't even have Facebook, I only succumbed a few months ago...)
> For less introverted people, "friend" and "acquaintance" are more-or-less synonymous.
Ask any of those less introverted people to name someone who's an acquaintance but not a friend, I bet they come up with a name showing that when pressed, they can make the distinction and do have different meanings for those words.
I do not believe there are people who cannot make that distinction.
Facebook has monetized the hardship of letting friendships go. People change, shit happens, and you have to move on. Facebook, however, makes us believe we can keep these relationships going forever. I'm sure there are many successful reconnection stories, but I bet there are magnitudes more 'talked for a few days after not seeing each other for a few years, and that was that' stories.
That's not to say there isn't value in that. I've been really happy to connect with old acquaintances over just a message or two. I don't really want much more contact than that.
I agree with you, but there's another issue here: some of your friends may not actually respond to email messages. Personally, I'm a fan of email and letter writing (and not a fan of the phone), but I've fallen out of touch with several friends because if you don't contact them via Facebook or Twitter (I do neither), you won't hear back from them.
Another thing email doesn't do well: the idea of "I have something to say, but passively". Maybe you want to announce a change in your life, or a party, or some thought that you had. It's far less annoying to put it on Facebook where your friends can digest it (or not) at their leisure, rather than in an email demanding to be read.
"Hey, what's your new address?"
"I emailed it to you, go search through your messages"
The only problem I see with your email sentence is that some clients lack a decent search functionality.
Some improvements and it would IMHO be as easy, if not easier, as opening Facebook, trying to find a contact and fight against the timeline to find the information you are looking for.
I think the party part is a bit of personal choice. If I run a party I want to notify $foo people. And $foo is always a smaller number than my Facebook "friends". I just prefer the ability to select people and only tell them what I want to say without creating tons of groups for everything.
This might be locale-specific, but there's a lot of times I'm notified of a party/get-together via a Facebook post saying "I'll be down at $taphouse tonight at 9, feel free to stop by!" That's a very passive invite, and Facebook (or Twitter or G+ et al) is perfect for that.
I get what you are saying. The one good thing about Facebook is that it took a lot of that fluff out of my inbox. But could I not have learnt to manage/gloss over it?
The thing that Facebook does well - is tracking down contacts - to add to your 'address book.' It's not so easy in the world of email. That's because we aren't publishing our address books publicly (probably for good reason.)
You're missing the point -- those people aren't your friends anyway. The fact that you can "like" a picture of someone's kid or say happy birthday on their Wall doesn't change that fact.
Facebook can be a great tool for sharing photos and other things with your friends. But most of what is actually happening on Facebook is voyeurism -- you get to stalk people whom you sort of know.
I know hating FB is all the rage (and sometimes well deserved) but you're attributing your feelings about FB to all the users. Failbook.com isn't indicative of all the FB users.
Do you need phones to manage personal relationships? What about a postal service? What about automobiles? Of course not. I could choose to only maintain relationships with people within walking distance of my home, but I prefer using technology to facilitate communication over longer distances.
I'm already at the point where I want to jump ship; I just can't figure out how to do it without losing contact with my friends.
I'm in the exact same boat, but I decided that the risk of losing contact with a few people I don't talk to often is worth it at this point. I've spent the last few days making sure everyone has my email address, phone number and google+ and will be deleting my account in about a weeks time.
There are many reasons why I am deleting my account, this issue (and their response to it) are just the latest problems that finally pushed me over the edge.
Jumping ship was easy for me. I catch-up with my local friends in person at a local bar or cafe. I catch-up with my remote friends by traveling to their city and going to a bar or cafe there. Or they come visit me. It's infinity more satisfying and relaxing that consuming status updates containing skewed and filtered representations of someone's life.
Same here. It occurred to me at some point that while I had a fairly large group of "friends" on Facebook, there were only 10-15 people that I really actually cared about.
And those are people that I communicate with on a regular basis outside of Facebook, either by hanging out with them in person, or phone/email for the ones who have moved away. So there's no love lost with them by ditching Facebook.
That leaves the group of people that I knew from college and high school, but had nothing else in common so we lost touch until Facebook came around. I graduated from college 5 years before joining Facebook, and looking back I don't feel like my life was any worse off in those intervening years because I didn't have those people on an e-friends list.
You're right it's not always easy. I often wonder about how the perceived convenience of visiting someone varies with the strength of the friendship. I think they vary directly. For example I have no problem fighting through rush hour traffic when I'm on my way to seeing a friend who I'm looking forward to seeing.
consuming status updates containing skewed and filtered representations of someone's life.
I much prefer skewed and filtered representations of my friends.
It's much easier to interact with a caricatured, mean-field average of my 900 or so Facebook friends (aka "the audience") than to do it (shudder) one-on-one.
Good point. When you're dreading interacting with someone one-on-one they're probably not a true friend. So perhaps fb is good for maintaining acquaintances rather than actual friendships.
The steps will disable facebook. Unless you're on ICS or rooted, there's nothing else you can do (except perhaps install a launcher that lets you hide apps--out of sight/out of mind).
I think that Dilbert cartoon is very apropos. Facebook employees seem to treat their site as one big Skinner box and they're trying to see how far they can go.
>> I'm already primed to leave. I'm just waiting on the right opportunity to come along.
How many opportunities is it going to take?
Just try it out for awhile, I consider it pretty low-risk. "Deactivate" your account, it will still be there if you change your mind. I left two years ago, I don't miss it, and my relationships haven't suffered.
Seriously, Facebook. Do one thing and do it well. Enough of this conquer-the-universe bullshit. I'm already at the point where I want to jump ship; I just can't figure out how to do it without losing contact with my friends. It's like you're using our own friends against us. Pretty slimy.
My reaction to Facebook trying to take control of my email was that Facebook can go jump in a lake (My language was actually much worse than that.) I'm already primed to leave. I'm just waiting on the right opportunity to come along.