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There's a ton of reasons to not use Messenger. 1. The mandatory "seen" indicator 2. All of your messages are beholden to a private company, permanently stored

There's a ton of reasons to not use Messenger. 1. The mandatory "seen" indicator 2. All of your messages are beholden to a private company, permanently stored in plaintext 3. They analyze said messages to deliver advertisements. Seriously, one time I mentioned buying a Samsung SSD to my friend in chat, and all of a sudden I got a ton of SSD advertisements on the sidebar. Same thing when I mentioned Rick and Morty. 4. It's Facebook, for crying out loud.

alexland 10y ago
Most of these sound like reasons not to use Facebook in general. While the seen indicator is a legitimate annoyance, it's been commonplace for some years now. I don't know of a modern chat app that doesn't have it. As for the rest of your points, Facebook's money comes from ads. These concerns are not limited to chat, but using Facebook in general. As you browse the web, Facebook is tracking you and using the data to deliver more relevant ads. As you comment and make posts, Facebook uses the data to deliver more relevant ads. Every part of the service is designed to help them do this, saying that these are reasons to "not use Messenger" is missing the point. The point of using Messenger is that you're not tied to any other portion of Facebook. You just get to message friends, plain and simple. The benefit is you're not being enticed into scrolling your news feed, spammed with notifications about upcoming events etc. Plus, there are rumours they're going to bring e2e encryption in a la Whatsapp, which would pretty much squash points 2 and 3.
- CrazedGeek 10y ago
  You can turn the seen indicators off in iMessage, fwiw.
- andrewmutz 10y ago
  > As you browse the web, Facebook is tracking you and using the data to deliver more relevant ads. As you comment and make posts, Facebook uses the data to deliver more relevant ads. This is why Facebook is best used in an incognito-mode browser window.
  - newscracker 10y ago
    [This is about desktop browser use] I use multiple tabs with FB whenever I do have to use it, and private/incognito mode wouldn't work well for that scenario because it would force me to login in every tab. So instead I use normal mode with extensions to block ads, tracking cookies, social features on websites and Facebook Redirection (where clicks are handled by FB to track which site is being visited). This is with a combination of uBlock Origin, Privacy Badger and a few others. That way, I get to have multiple FB tabs but don't see my profile in the comments section on another site to allow further tracking. Any link I visit from FB isn't exposed to FB either.
- pikachu_is_cool 10y ago
  > I don't know of a modern chat app that doesn't have [the seen indicator]. I don't use those either. I stick to texting and iMessage. > The point of using Messenger is that you're not tied to any other portion of Facebook. You're tied to their ad platform. Whether you view those ads or not are up to you; but you are nonetheless tied to it. They analyze your private conversations with the eventual hope to manipulate you.
- greggman 10y ago
  It seems unlikely they'd bring the encryption in. I often have several messengers open. My phone, my tablet, my home desktop, my home laptop, my other home laptop, my work desktop, my work laptop. How will encrypting like Whatsapp keep that working? Some how they'll always be tunneling to my phone from all the various machines? Also, as an alternative, Hangouts stores my chat history in gmail (opt in), so unlike Messenger/Line/Whatsapp I have a history of all my chats on Hangouts which I actually find very useful. That said, 99% of my friends and family are on FB Messenger
- gcr 10y ago
  I'm waiting for the next chat service to emulate the 'ytalk' and 'talkd' practice of the 1980s to echo all keystrokes to the other party as they're typed, rather than waiting for the user to press send. "Instant Messaging" indeed! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk_(software) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk_(software)
  - christop 10y ago
    There's a nice XMPP extension for that. Spec: https://xmpp.org/extensions/xep-0301.html https://xmpp.org/extensions/xep-0301.html Demos: http://www.realjabber.org/ http://www.realjabber.org/ Not that Google (or whoever) are going to implement it now...
- travis_bickle 10y ago
  Problems of Messenger App (and not Facebook company): 1. Can't log out 2. Can't turn off the 'online' indicator 3. 'Seen' indicator
kobayashi 10y ago
I'm interested as to why someone like yourself, a likely tech-savvy HN user, the kind of person who notices how their chats effect ad serving, does not block ads on facebook. Care to share?
- pikachu_is_cool 10y ago
  The ads are also embedded in the News Feed itself, in the form of "friend X likes Y page" and the like. I'd imagine it would require an ad blocker specifically designed for Facebook to block it. Same goes for the sidebar. I don't use Facebook enough to care; uBlock Origin suits my needs just fine.
  - kobayashi 10y ago
    The embedded ads in the News Feed can also be blocked by a extension like uBlock Origin. The additional filter is found from ABP, if I recall.
    - pikachu_is_cool 10y ago
      Good to know, thanks.
- gcr 10y ago
  Adblocking wouldn't address any of the four points that pikachu_is_cool raised. For point 3, Facebook could still be analyzing the contents of messages.
  - kobayashi 10y ago
    Yah, I agree. But I'm still surprised that a adblocker/tracker blocker isn't used by that kind of individual.
    - pikachu_is_cool 10y ago
      An adblocker just treats the symptoms. I'd rather just not have the disease :)
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
superuser2 10y ago
>2. All of your messages are beholden to a private company, permanently stored in plaintext >3. They analyze said messages to deliver advertisements. Seriously, one time I mentioned buying a Samsung SSD to my friend in chat, and all of a sudden I got a ton of SSD advertisements on the sidebar. Same thing when I mentioned Rick and Morty. These are poor complaints, unless your circle of friends is so insular on the the (justifiably) paranoid side of tech that everyone is running their own mail servers and using GPG day to day.
- dvtv75 10y ago
  You appear to have no problem with a company building up a profile of your likes and dislikes, so they can try and sell stuff to you. That's fine. Why expect that of others, though?
  - superuser2 10y ago
    Because it is overwhelmingly what they deliver. The very edgiest of the edgy use Telegram 1-2% of the time. Exactly one person in my social network installed Signal and he gave up on it after about 2 days. No one would dream of touching GPG. The .5% of the time an email address does not end in @gmail.com, it is a Google Apps account. Are your friends all Tor developers or something? I just can't imagine a set of family/friends/acquaintances who actually run their own Postfix and care what a public key is. I'll accept the existence of an advertising profile (I don't see the ads, anyway) before I'lll cease all communication with everyone in my network, which is what it would take to avoid Facebook (or the exact same problem with a different company).
    - pikachu_is_cool 10y ago
      Am I the only person who is totally fine with just texting people? I mean, given this is HN, maybe all of you people use Android and have no idea how amazing iMessage is.
      - superuser2 10y ago
dreamfactory2 10y ago
5. Accesses and mines your phone book. (My rolodex is my business and no way FB or LI are getting it direct from me.)
lazzlazzlazz 10y ago
1. This is ubiquitous among chat apps. 2. This is not likely to remain the case for long, among rumors Messenger is adding end-to-end encryption. 3. There is no evidence they analyze messages for ads. Zero. All attempts to prove this have been disproven. 4. This is not an argument.
- pikachu_is_cool 10y ago
  I was answering the question "Why not use Messenger?" To answer that question, I opted to list personal reasons why I don't use it; reasons I'm sure are shared by many. Your response is basically telling me my experience and opinions are wrong.
  - lazzlazzlazz 10y ago
    Your "opinion" that Facebook analyzes Messenger text for ads is an unsubstantiated myth, and factually incorrect.
    - pikachu_is_cool 10y ago
      It is not factually incorrect. Sure, nobody could prove it with certainty, but you can't just dismiss it like that. ...Especially when you're trying to convince someone who saw it with their own two eyes.

alexland 10y ago

Most of these sound like reasons not to use Facebook in general. While the seen indicator is a legitimate annoyance, it's been commonplace for some years now. I don't know of a modern chat app that doesn't have it. As for the rest of your points, Facebook's money comes from ads. These concerns are not limited to chat, but using Facebook in general. As you browse the web, Facebook is tracking you and using the data to deliver more relevant ads. As you comment and make posts, Facebook uses the data to deliver more relevant ads. Every part of the service is designed to help them do this, saying that these are reasons to "not use Messenger" is missing the point. The point of using Messenger is that you're not tied to any other portion of Facebook. You just get to message friends, plain and simple. The benefit is you're not being enticed into scrolling your news feed, spammed with notifications about upcoming events etc. Plus, there are rumours they're going to bring e2e encryption in a la Whatsapp, which would pretty much squash points 2 and 3.

CrazedGeek 10y ago
You can turn the seen indicators off in iMessage, fwiw.
andrewmutz 10y ago
> As you browse the web, Facebook is tracking you and using the data to deliver more relevant ads. As you comment and make posts, Facebook uses the data to deliver more relevant ads. This is why Facebook is best used in an incognito-mode browser window.
- newscracker 10y ago
  [This is about desktop browser use] I use multiple tabs with FB whenever I do have to use it, and private/incognito mode wouldn't work well for that scenario because it would force me to login in every tab. So instead I use normal mode with extensions to block ads, tracking cookies, social features on websites and Facebook Redirection (where clicks are handled by FB to track which site is being visited). This is with a combination of uBlock Origin, Privacy Badger and a few others. That way, I get to have multiple FB tabs but don't see my profile in the comments section on another site to allow further tracking. Any link I visit from FB isn't exposed to FB either.
pikachu_is_cool 10y ago
> I don't know of a modern chat app that doesn't have [the seen indicator]. I don't use those either. I stick to texting and iMessage. > The point of using Messenger is that you're not tied to any other portion of Facebook. You're tied to their ad platform. Whether you view those ads or not are up to you; but you are nonetheless tied to it. They analyze your private conversations with the eventual hope to manipulate you.
greggman 10y ago
It seems unlikely they'd bring the encryption in. I often have several messengers open. My phone, my tablet, my home desktop, my home laptop, my other home laptop, my work desktop, my work laptop. How will encrypting like Whatsapp keep that working? Some how they'll always be tunneling to my phone from all the various machines? Also, as an alternative, Hangouts stores my chat history in gmail (opt in), so unlike Messenger/Line/Whatsapp I have a history of all my chats on Hangouts which I actually find very useful. That said, 99% of my friends and family are on FB Messenger
gcr 10y ago
I'm waiting for the next chat service to emulate the 'ytalk' and 'talkd' practice of the 1980s to echo all keystrokes to the other party as they're typed, rather than waiting for the user to press send. "Instant Messaging" indeed! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk_(software) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk_(software)
- christop 10y ago
  There's a nice XMPP extension for that. Spec: https://xmpp.org/extensions/xep-0301.html https://xmpp.org/extensions/xep-0301.html Demos: http://www.realjabber.org/ http://www.realjabber.org/ Not that Google (or whoever) are going to implement it now...
travis_bickle 10y ago
Problems of Messenger App (and not Facebook company): 1. Can't log out 2. Can't turn off the 'online' indicator 3. 'Seen' indicator

kobayashi 10y ago

I'm interested as to why someone like yourself, a likely tech-savvy HN user, the kind of person who notices how their chats effect ad serving, does not block ads on facebook. Care to share?

pikachu_is_cool 10y ago
The ads are also embedded in the News Feed itself, in the form of "friend X likes Y page" and the like. I'd imagine it would require an ad blocker specifically designed for Facebook to block it. Same goes for the sidebar. I don't use Facebook enough to care; uBlock Origin suits my needs just fine.
- kobayashi 10y ago
  The embedded ads in the News Feed can also be blocked by a extension like uBlock Origin. The additional filter is found from ABP, if I recall.
  - pikachu_is_cool 10y ago
    Good to know, thanks.
gcr 10y ago
Adblocking wouldn't address any of the four points that pikachu_is_cool raised. For point 3, Facebook could still be analyzing the contents of messages.
- kobayashi 10y ago
  Yah, I agree. But I'm still surprised that a adblocker/tracker blocker isn't used by that kind of individual.
  - pikachu_is_cool 10y ago
    An adblocker just treats the symptoms. I'd rather just not have the disease :)

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

superuser2 10y ago

>2. All of your messages are beholden to a private company, permanently stored in plaintext >3. They analyze said messages to deliver advertisements. Seriously, one time I mentioned buying a Samsung SSD to my friend in chat, and all of a sudden I got a ton of SSD advertisements on the sidebar. Same thing when I mentioned Rick and Morty. These are poor complaints, unless your circle of friends is so insular on the the (justifiably) paranoid side of tech that everyone is running their own mail servers and using GPG day to day.

dvtv75 10y ago
You appear to have no problem with a company building up a profile of your likes and dislikes, so they can try and sell stuff to you. That's fine. Why expect that of others, though?
- superuser2 10y ago
  Because it is overwhelmingly what they deliver. The very edgiest of the edgy use Telegram 1-2% of the time. Exactly one person in my social network installed Signal and he gave up on it after about 2 days. No one would dream of touching GPG. The .5% of the time an email address does not end in @gmail.com, it is a Google Apps account. Are your friends all Tor developers or something? I just can't imagine a set of family/friends/acquaintances who actually run their own Postfix and care what a public key is. I'll accept the existence of an advertising profile (I don't see the ads, anyway) before I'lll cease all communication with everyone in my network, which is what it would take to avoid Facebook (or the exact same problem with a different company).
  - pikachu_is_cool 10y ago
    Am I the only person who is totally fine with just texting people? I mean, given this is HN, maybe all of you people use Android and have no idea how amazing iMessage is.
    - superuser2 10y ago

dreamfactory2 10y ago

5. Accesses and mines your phone book. (My rolodex is my business and no way FB or LI are getting it direct from me.)

lazzlazzlazz 10y ago

1. This is ubiquitous among chat apps. 2. This is not likely to remain the case for long, among rumors Messenger is adding end-to-end encryption. 3. There is no evidence they analyze messages for ads. Zero. All attempts to prove this have been disproven. 4. This is not an argument.

pikachu_is_cool 10y ago
I was answering the question "Why not use Messenger?" To answer that question, I opted to list personal reasons why I don't use it; reasons I'm sure are shared by many. Your response is basically telling me my experience and opinions are wrong.
- lazzlazzlazz 10y ago
  Your "opinion" that Facebook analyzes Messenger text for ads is an unsubstantiated myth, and factually incorrect.
  - pikachu_is_cool 10y ago
    It is not factually incorrect. Sure, nobody could prove it with certainty, but you can't just dismiss it like that. ...Especially when you're trying to convince someone who saw it with their own two eyes.