4 ms·

I love amid all of this uproar on HN and other tech sites approximately 0.00002% of facebooks user list have actually cared enough to cancel their accounts. Thi

I love amid all of this uproar on HN and other tech sites approximately 0.00002% of facebooks user list have actually cared enough to cancel their accounts. This will blow over next week when Gizmodo steals new hardware from someone else.

samd 17y ago
Exactly, and Facebook knows this. Real change will take competition, and competition will take years to grow.
- res0nat0r 17y ago
  They know they are getting a lot of flack for it, but really? I actually like having these fine grained settings, I don't let any of my coworkers see any of my pics or status updates, it is extremely nice being able to set such fine tuned views. Don't complain about your privacy when you don't understand how to setup your account imo.Also this is like amazon, does anyone actually shop at bn.com? Amazon was there first and still the best, a 2nd site to this arena just ain't gonna ever come close to the same user base.
  - nitrogen 17y ago
    Those fine-grained settings are nice, but Facebook appears to be slowly eliminating them one by one. Originally it was possible to control who saw your work and education info, now it's public only. By the way, Facebook is the second major entrant in this space (the first being MySpace). It's almost always possible for someone new to take a big chunk of a market, given enough time and resources. See Firefox+Chrome+Safari+Opera vs IE as an example.
    - jteo 16y ago
      Anyone remember friendster? ... My point exactly.
    - skinnymuch 16y ago
      How is Friendster not the first? Friendster > Myspace > Facebook, each got a ton bigger than the previous one.
lkozma 17y ago
I wouldn't bet on it, if you search "stupid boss" on that facebook status search someone hacked together or on twitter, half of the results are comments about the facebook search site or about facebook privacy. Don't underestimate how quickly it spreads to everyone.
potatolicious 17y ago
Few people are about to quit - sure - but I posted the ReclaimPrivacy link to my profile last night and already have had it "re-tweeted" by a lot of non-technophile friends already. People care about this more than you're giving them credit for.
jacquesm 17y ago
Better still, every hour there are probably more new signups to facebook than have cancelled in the last months because of this flap. That doesn't mean it is wasted time though, facebook is a brand and brands are vulnerable to more than just absolute numbers of people leaving. Advertisers will take note, for instance.
- bad_user 17y ago
  Rate of new signups is also important because that's in correlation with the number of active users and with projections of growth advertisers love so much. I have lots of friends that aren't on Facebook, and I have friends that are inactive on Facebook, logging only when they get a direct message. Contrary to popular belief, IMHO switching from Facebook to something else is not that hard. People that are active online do have multiple accounts on multiple social apps. And you can use Facebook to advertise your new favorite social app to your friends.
zmmmmm 17y ago
Things may be coming to a head. Lots of people see movies. Some really scary things are actually starting to happen in part due to the Facebook which may really see a different view taken of it soon. Check out the lead story in the main paper here in Melbourne (Aus) today: "Facebook leads to death" - http://www.theage.com.au/national/teenager-found-dead-after-meeting-new-facebook-friend-20100515-v5ix.html http://www.theage.com.au/national/teenager-found-dead-after-.... I think a lot of stuff like this is going to happen and we're going to either see regulation or something else really damage Facebook over the coming year or two as the public gains consciousness of the inherent risks in what they are engaging in when they expose their entire lives to the world.

samd 17y ago

Exactly, and Facebook knows this. Real change will take competition, and competition will take years to grow.

res0nat0r 17y ago
They know they are getting a lot of flack for it, but really? I actually like having these fine grained settings, I don't let any of my coworkers see any of my pics or status updates, it is extremely nice being able to set such fine tuned views. Don't complain about your privacy when you don't understand how to setup your account imo.Also this is like amazon, does anyone actually shop at bn.com? Amazon was there first and still the best, a 2nd site to this arena just ain't gonna ever come close to the same user base.
- nitrogen 17y ago
  Those fine-grained settings are nice, but Facebook appears to be slowly eliminating them one by one. Originally it was possible to control who saw your work and education info, now it's public only. By the way, Facebook is the second major entrant in this space (the first being MySpace). It's almost always possible for someone new to take a big chunk of a market, given enough time and resources. See Firefox+Chrome+Safari+Opera vs IE as an example.
  - jteo 16y ago
    Anyone remember friendster? ... My point exactly.
  - skinnymuch 16y ago
    How is Friendster not the first? Friendster > Myspace > Facebook, each got a ton bigger than the previous one.

lkozma 17y ago

I wouldn't bet on it, if you search "stupid boss" on that facebook status search someone hacked together or on twitter, half of the results are comments about the facebook search site or about facebook privacy. Don't underestimate how quickly it spreads to everyone.

potatolicious 17y ago

Few people are about to quit - sure - but I posted the ReclaimPrivacy link to my profile last night and already have had it "re-tweeted" by a lot of non-technophile friends already. People care about this more than you're giving them credit for.

jacquesm 17y ago

Better still, every hour there are probably more new signups to facebook than have cancelled in the last months because of this flap. That doesn't mean it is wasted time though, facebook is a brand and brands are vulnerable to more than just absolute numbers of people leaving. Advertisers will take note, for instance.

bad_user 17y ago
Rate of new signups is also important because that's in correlation with the number of active users and with projections of growth advertisers love so much. I have lots of friends that aren't on Facebook, and I have friends that are inactive on Facebook, logging only when they get a direct message. Contrary to popular belief, IMHO switching from Facebook to something else is not that hard. People that are active online do have multiple accounts on multiple social apps. And you can use Facebook to advertise your new favorite social app to your friends.

zmmmmm 17y ago

Things may be coming to a head. Lots of people see movies. Some really scary things are actually starting to happen in part due to the Facebook which may really see a different view taken of it soon. Check out the lead story in the main paper here in Melbourne (Aus) today: "Facebook leads to death" - http://www.theage.com.au/national/teenager-found-dead-after-meeting-new-facebook-friend-20100515-v5ix.html http://www.theage.com.au/national/teenager-found-dead-after-.... I think a lot of stuff like this is going to happen and we're going to either see regulation or something else really damage Facebook over the coming year or two as the public gains consciousness of the inherent risks in what they are engaging in when they expose their entire lives to the world.