6 ms·

This is a challenging debate. What does it mean to be open vs. closed. And what would a service like Facebook look like if it was "open"? > the Facebook founde

This is a challenging debate. What does it mean to be open vs. closed. And what would a service like Facebook look like if it was "open"? > the Facebook founder has no intention of allowing anyone to build anything on his platform that does not have his express approval. I assume this is based on the fact that you can not directly use facebooks APIs, and can not utilize Facebook itself. Facebook does allow for people to link out to other sites content, so in that way there is no barrier to seeing external sources in Facebook. An external site can't extend the experience of Facebook though, but I don't know of any successful web business that does allow this. I'm curious of examples that actually meet the definition of open which he's using. Almost all sites require a form of login, many news sites are putting up paywalls, and there have always been private services requiring login to get at secure data. So, the openness that I think people want, is access to the Facebook user base, but I would argue that everyone already has that, in is the rest of the web. The difference is Facebook is not going to give that to any other companies, because that user base is their revenue stream. To me this isn't a problem until people are incapable of accessing anything other than Facebook. This would be like the AOL of 1992, before most AOL users realized there was more to the Internet than what AOL gave them. I don't think people will want to go back to that. But competition will constintently pull on this. Email is not dead, Messenger is not the only messenging platform. Btw, I find myself barely ever using Facebook these days. And a question, what sites operate in the way this article wants? There were no examples. Reddit?

AnthonyMouse 10y ago
> Almost all sites require a form of login Almost no sites require a form of login. You can login to most sites, but primarily so that you can keep a persistent pseudonym and set preferences. You can browse almost every site without logging in. There is nothing that stops you from e.g. linking to a YouTube video from your own site regardless of whether you have a YouTube account. For Facebook you need an account to even see the large majority of the content. > So, the openness that I think people want, is access to the Facebook user base, but I would argue that everyone already has that, in is the rest of the web. The difference is Facebook is not going to give that to any other companies, because that user base is their revenue stream. Which is why people dislike them. Who wants to be somebody else's "revenue stream"? Replacing Facebook with a decentralized social network that no single party controls would be better for everyone but Facebook.
- S_Daedalus 10y ago
  It's hard to imagine anyone who understands the adage, "If you are not paying for it, you're not the customer; you're the product being sold." -Andrew Lewis not agreeing with you. That doesn't mean that Facebook should be stopped or censured though, just that only fools should be left using it with their real identities.
- postmaster 10y ago
  > For Facebook you need an account to even see the large majority of content. For Facebook you only need an account to see content that the user / page has deemed not public. This has nothing to do with Facebook and everything to do with the owner of the account / page that publishes the content you're wanting to see. https://www.facebook.com/YCombinator/ https://www.facebook.com/YCombinator/ Do you need to be logged in to view PUBLIC posts or comments on that page? No, you don't. Now if you were trying to visit Mark Zuckerberg's personal profile obviously, yes, a very large amount of content is NOT going to be visible to you. This is no different than every other site out there. Sure, you can read the news and comments posted on this (https://news.ycombinator.com/ https://news.ycombinator.com/) webiste, but you most certainly CANNOT post comments without having an account.
  - craigsmansion 10y ago
    > For Facebook you only need an account to see content that the user / page has deemed not public. Or want to view public pages without them being covered by some obnoxious "See more of PAGE by logging in." Yes, it's the account owner's fault for using Facebook in the first place. But they're likely always logged in, and so are most of their visitors, so they're only marginally aware such problems even exist. Blame that can be squarely placed at Facebook is exploiting such gaps in knowledge from their users to pressure non-users into signing up. > This is no different than every other site out there. This is vastly different from almost every other site out there, except for a few big players. The Internet is still a huge place, at least for the time being. Facebook is a major erosive force on the Internet as it tries to quietly subsume and privatise it, and using it to publish content on is contributing to the demise of one of the few globe-spanning projects our species ever managed to get right.
jpalomaki 10y ago
I can't come up with a good definition for "open site", but open protocols come to my mind. Things like NNTP, SMTP, XMPP and building the services on top of those. It might be that I'm required to login to a specific site in order to access my email account that is hosted there, but since everything is based on the "open" SMTP protocol, I'm not dependent on that specific site if I want to exchange messages with my friends.
- bluejekyll 10y ago
  It's not just standard protocols, though is it? It's also the ability to freely use those protocols with Facebook. An example: SMTP, to prevent spam many SMTP hosting companies activity block anyone they deem to be spammers, or those who don't properly use things like SPF. So even SMTP is t really open any more. There's a general agreement from most SMTP providers that they will accept and deliver emails for those that play by the rules. (I don't disagree with this, just pointing out that it's not quite as simple as just standards, etc)
yabatopia 10y ago
Facebook being a little bit more open would go a long way, RWX like a good old FTP-server. I'm not active on Facebook and I can't even read the posts of my wife without becoming a member or signing in. A read-only mode would allow me at least to read her posts - or other. I completely understand that Facebook requires you to become a member to post messages and upload stuff on its platform (write), let alone execute things, but now it's way too closed.
- JBiserkov 10y ago
  >but now it's way too closed I think this to keep all the data to themselves (from crawlers, Google, Baidu); not necessarily for the benefit of their users.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]

AnthonyMouse 10y ago

> Almost all sites require a form of login Almost no sites require a form of login. You can login to most sites, but primarily so that you can keep a persistent pseudonym and set preferences. You can browse almost every site without logging in. There is nothing that stops you from e.g. linking to a YouTube video from your own site regardless of whether you have a YouTube account. For Facebook you need an account to even see the large majority of the content. > So, the openness that I think people want, is access to the Facebook user base, but I would argue that everyone already has that, in is the rest of the web. The difference is Facebook is not going to give that to any other companies, because that user base is their revenue stream. Which is why people dislike them. Who wants to be somebody else's "revenue stream"? Replacing Facebook with a decentralized social network that no single party controls would be better for everyone but Facebook.

S_Daedalus 10y ago
It's hard to imagine anyone who understands the adage, "If you are not paying for it, you're not the customer; you're the product being sold." -Andrew Lewis not agreeing with you. That doesn't mean that Facebook should be stopped or censured though, just that only fools should be left using it with their real identities.
postmaster 10y ago
> For Facebook you need an account to even see the large majority of content. For Facebook you only need an account to see content that the user / page has deemed not public. This has nothing to do with Facebook and everything to do with the owner of the account / page that publishes the content you're wanting to see. https://www.facebook.com/YCombinator/ https://www.facebook.com/YCombinator/ Do you need to be logged in to view PUBLIC posts or comments on that page? No, you don't. Now if you were trying to visit Mark Zuckerberg's personal profile obviously, yes, a very large amount of content is NOT going to be visible to you. This is no different than every other site out there. Sure, you can read the news and comments posted on this (https://news.ycombinator.com/ https://news.ycombinator.com/) webiste, but you most certainly CANNOT post comments without having an account.
- craigsmansion 10y ago
  > For Facebook you only need an account to see content that the user / page has deemed not public. Or want to view public pages without them being covered by some obnoxious "See more of PAGE by logging in." Yes, it's the account owner's fault for using Facebook in the first place. But they're likely always logged in, and so are most of their visitors, so they're only marginally aware such problems even exist. Blame that can be squarely placed at Facebook is exploiting such gaps in knowledge from their users to pressure non-users into signing up. > This is no different than every other site out there. This is vastly different from almost every other site out there, except for a few big players. The Internet is still a huge place, at least for the time being. Facebook is a major erosive force on the Internet as it tries to quietly subsume and privatise it, and using it to publish content on is contributing to the demise of one of the few globe-spanning projects our species ever managed to get right.

jpalomaki 10y ago

I can't come up with a good definition for "open site", but open protocols come to my mind. Things like NNTP, SMTP, XMPP and building the services on top of those. It might be that I'm required to login to a specific site in order to access my email account that is hosted there, but since everything is based on the "open" SMTP protocol, I'm not dependent on that specific site if I want to exchange messages with my friends.

bluejekyll 10y ago
It's not just standard protocols, though is it? It's also the ability to freely use those protocols with Facebook. An example: SMTP, to prevent spam many SMTP hosting companies activity block anyone they deem to be spammers, or those who don't properly use things like SPF. So even SMTP is t really open any more. There's a general agreement from most SMTP providers that they will accept and deliver emails for those that play by the rules. (I don't disagree with this, just pointing out that it's not quite as simple as just standards, etc)

yabatopia 10y ago

Facebook being a little bit more open would go a long way, RWX like a good old FTP-server. I'm not active on Facebook and I can't even read the posts of my wife without becoming a member or signing in. A read-only mode would allow me at least to read her posts - or other. I completely understand that Facebook requires you to become a member to post messages and upload stuff on its platform (write), let alone execute things, but now it's way too closed.

JBiserkov 10y ago
>but now it's way too closed I think this to keep all the data to themselves (from crawlers, Google, Baidu); not necessarily for the benefit of their users.

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]