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A lot of people need to use Facebook to stay in touch with family members and friends they otherwise would not be able to communicate with due to distance, past

A lot of people need to use Facebook to stay in touch with family members and friends they otherwise would not be able to communicate with due to distance, past, or what have you. This is a problem of "not enough good competition." Facebook has a de facto monopoly on social networking. Google tried in vain, but they lost miserably. Until someone can step up to Zuckerberg, Facebook will do what they want when it comes to shitty news, annoying notifications, and over-bloated web design. I've used Facebook since the day it was released. It used to be really, really good. Now it's just crap. I hope a new competitor shows them what's up.

harlanji 10y ago
I'm hoping the competitor will be a light and universal Authentication+Authorization protocol under a ubiquitous set of service contracts like contacts, calendar, tasks, etc... the direction LiveJournal was going essentially, possibly with some modernized stack pieces. Paired with low energy+cost home servers like RasPis, reasonably reliable broadband in at least one extended family home, and perhaps some self-maintaining systems in the cloud with self-owned AWS keys similar to "mail in a box". My thinking is you can present and recombine data in any number of ways and we have the tools to do it, there "just" needs to be some organization. One could even make an ironically named FakeBook that presents a familiar UI on top of a federated system. It could even import FB data dumps. I've lead a couple/few attempts to rally my techie friends to build something like this with limited success, though not since ~2008. > It used to be really, really good. Now it's just crap. I hope a new competitor shows them what's up. My last effort was cloning MySpace with open source stuff like XMPP but Facebook got really good during that time frame, kinda sad I didn't keep going now (hindsight). I made an AOL/AIM alternative in VB3 that a bunch of people at my high school were using in 2000 at age 15 when I got my first DSL line, no technical reasons anyone can't come out of left field and overthrow them esp. in 2016. From parent: > Are people really that helpless? But as I've made my way around Silicon Valley, the "VHS vs Beta" anecdote keeps coming to mind as I see marketing dollars behind the proliferation of inferior but wildly popular tech. In my view now this is a war for attention FB is winning, the only way to overthrow FB is to really show people that it's a piece of the worst smelling thing you can imagine. I had a visceral reaction seeing Zuck in a suit, I can't be the only one--not disgust or anything, just that it wasn't a hoodie as his MO previously dictated... could sell the sell-out story to some, now, with deep implications on privacy/freedom of expression/access to "true" information.
greenhatman 10y ago
It's really simple, if you need to be on Facebook, just set it up to send you notifications to your email. Only check Facebook when you get a notification. If you want to talk to people, talk to them directly. Just never go on the feed.
- BipolarElsa 10y ago
  In my heyday, when Facebook was amazing, I had between 2-3K "friends." Since then I've whittled it down to about 27. I get maybe a handful of notifications a week. Much better.

harlanji 10y ago

I'm hoping the competitor will be a light and universal Authentication+Authorization protocol under a ubiquitous set of service contracts like contacts, calendar, tasks, etc... the direction LiveJournal was going essentially, possibly with some modernized stack pieces. Paired with low energy+cost home servers like RasPis, reasonably reliable broadband in at least one extended family home, and perhaps some self-maintaining systems in the cloud with self-owned AWS keys similar to "mail in a box". My thinking is you can present and recombine data in any number of ways and we have the tools to do it, there "just" needs to be some organization. One could even make an ironically named FakeBook that presents a familiar UI on top of a federated system. It could even import FB data dumps. I've lead a couple/few attempts to rally my techie friends to build something like this with limited success, though not since ~2008. > It used to be really, really good. Now it's just crap. I hope a new competitor shows them what's up. My last effort was cloning MySpace with open source stuff like XMPP but Facebook got really good during that time frame, kinda sad I didn't keep going now (hindsight). I made an AOL/AIM alternative in VB3 that a bunch of people at my high school were using in 2000 at age 15 when I got my first DSL line, no technical reasons anyone can't come out of left field and overthrow them esp. in 2016. From parent: > Are people really that helpless? But as I've made my way around Silicon Valley, the "VHS vs Beta" anecdote keeps coming to mind as I see marketing dollars behind the proliferation of inferior but wildly popular tech. In my view now this is a war for attention FB is winning, the only way to overthrow FB is to really show people that it's a piece of the worst smelling thing you can imagine. I had a visceral reaction seeing Zuck in a suit, I can't be the only one--not disgust or anything, just that it wasn't a hoodie as his MO previously dictated... could sell the sell-out story to some, now, with deep implications on privacy/freedom of expression/access to "true" information.

greenhatman 10y ago

It's really simple, if you need to be on Facebook, just set it up to send you notifications to your email. Only check Facebook when you get a notification. If you want to talk to people, talk to them directly. Just never go on the feed.

BipolarElsa 10y ago
In my heyday, when Facebook was amazing, I had between 2-3K "friends." Since then I've whittled it down to about 27. I get maybe a handful of notifications a week. Much better.