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I was using Facebook, for a lot of reasons, but deleted my account yesterday. I'm living fine without it. No one is forcing me to use it, and email (free! but
by ihodes 16y ago
I was using Facebook, for a lot of reasons, but deleted my account yesterday.
I'm living fine without it. No one is forcing me to use it, and email (free! but using Mail.app and my iPhone to give it a boost I want and need–though I wouldn't mind Letters.app to appear) handles most of my needs, along with Flickr and Twitter, which are also both closed platforms.
I'm not too burdened by the software I use. I use what pleases me most. Right now that spectrum includes emacs at one end and iPhone OS at the other.
As someone pointed out above, free software fundamentalism has its place, and I respect it. But I also respect the hard work and effort that goes into software like 1Password and Things, and they both make my life a little bit better.
- jgg 16y agoOf course no one is "forcing" you (at least in the general sense) to use Facebook. My point was that if you want a social networking site, switching to some fair, free and open alternative doesn't go as smoothly as switchin.g something like an e-mail client or a text editor
- mquander 16y agoNote that this is the whole point -- if Facebook were free software, it would be that easy, because other software could interoperate with it effectively. Free software naturally ameliorates this kind of lock-in effect. Not using free software in the first place is what gets people into this mess.
- zts 16y agoWere all of Facebook's service free software, that wouldn't guarantee interoperability. Conversely, providing effective interoperability doesn't require free software. Those concerns are orthogonal.