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I think you are taking this a little out of context. The best part for me is the feed into other peoples lives. It's a service I'd be sad to loose. It's inter

by bargl 9y ago

I think you are taking this a little out of context. The best part for me is the feed into other peoples lives. It's a service I'd be sad to loose. It's interesting to find someone on here who maintains all of their files/email/photos/etc locally in a redundantly backed-up manner at home on their own personal server. How did you do that? Can you recommend me a way to do that for a non-technical person? If you don't then it would horrify and frighten me to reflect upon the fact that so much of my personal data was tied up into one private company. See what I did there? Again, just to reiterate it's about the feed, and the loss of that connection to the people in my feed. I mean what would you do if apple/google wrote an update to their os that wiped all of your contacts for good? It's not going to happen, just like your example of loosing access to my memories because Facebook decides to destroy it's own brand.

gervase 9y ago
I know it may have been rhetorical, but I just don't think managing your own data is possible (yet) for the truly non-technical person, at least at a level that competes with FB in both price and simplicity; it's still a choose-2 situation. You can get a pretty good system set up with rsync, ZFS, RAID, etc. distributed between multiple machines and multiple sites, and have good security at a low price at the cost of a high knowledge bar. Alternatively, you can have a pretty simple cloud backup system through Backblaze, Carbonite, Crashplan, etc., which should provide good security to people with relatively basic technical knowledge, but at a non-negligible cost (compared to free). Finally, you've got the current cloud "ecosystem" players like Apple, Google, FB, etc., who can offer good technical security (ignoring the "we have locked your account" arguments) to absolutely all skill levels, with zero perceived cost. That being said, I think the kinds of people who (A) actually even think about the privacy of online services, and (B) care enough to do something about it, probably have sufficient technical skill to choose other options. They can decide how important that privacy is to them, in terms of investing time, money, or both to solve these problems.
- bargl 9y ago
  > I know it may have been rhetorical, but I just don't think managing your own data is possible (yet) for the truly non-technical person, at least at a level that competes with FB in both price and simplicity; it's still a choose-2 situation. That's what I was trying to show. It's hard to not rely on some sort of third party service in life. I think a lot of people here just don't like Facebook. I should probably create a Flex server at home to do this for my friends and family who aren't technical, but again if I host that on Amazon then I'm again relying on someone else.
  - icebraining 9y ago
    There are differences between relying on the existence of a commodity service/product or of a unique one. If my VPS provider boots me off or shuts down, I just move to another. I won't lose a single email, and just a few IRC messages during the transition. Meanwhile, if FB boots you off, you lose everything, and must hope they at least allow you to create a new profile.
khedoros1 9y ago
> It's interesting to find someone on here who maintains all of their files/email/photos/etc locally in a redundantly backed-up manner at home on their own personal server. How did you do that? Can you recommend me a way to do that for a non-technical person? ...You don't do that? If you don't have local "gold master" copies of your files, then you don't own your files. And if you don't copy them onto multiple devices, then you have a single point of failure. > I mean what would you do if apple/google wrote an update to their os that wiped all of your contacts for good? I'd be very impressed that they could also reach my copies of that data that aren't stored on Apple/Google services...
- bargl 9y ago
  > It's interesting to find someone on here who maintains all of their files/email/photos/etc locally in a redundantly backed-up manner at home on their own personal server. How did you do that? Can you recommend me a way to do that for a non-technical person? You missed a very important point I'm trying to make with my question. Can you recommend me a way to do that for a non-technical person? Many people on HN forget that there are many non-technical people in the world and that they don't have a data server with raid drives in their house running OwnCloud/Flex for all of their backup needs. Hence why they use the cloud and that shouldn't be appalling. I mean this analogy can be taken to some extreme places if you start looking at the fact that you trust a bank, the stock exchange, a government, etc. You could minimize how much you trust each of them because your personal happiness is based on them. And PLEASE don't tell me if your bank was all of a sudden taken to a negative balance you wouldn't be sad, mad, angry, etc. The point is, many people don't like Facebook, Microsoft, etc. and they press that opinion on others in a manner I don't always appreciate. It's a company that offers a service I like. If it goes away I'll be sad, but life will go on.
  - khedoros1 9y ago
    > Many people on HN forget that there are many non-technical people in the world and that they don't have a data server with raid drives in their house running OwnCloud/Flex for all of their backup needs. Hence why they use the cloud and that shouldn't be appalling. Right...but they've probably got a laptop and a USB flash drive. That's all you need to keep your own copy around. I don't maintain an always-on server, OwnCloud, etc...but I certainly have multiple copies of everything, such that if Google, Facebook, and other services disappeared, I wouldn't lose any very-important data. Doing it with less automation takes a little more manual work, but that's the way I'm doing it right now myself, and I don't think it's unreasonable. Even taking the option of cloud-only storage, set your phone to strip EXIF and upload to multiple unrelated accounts, preferably not connected to a social network. > And PLEASE don't tell me if your bank was all of a sudden taken to a negative balance you wouldn't be sad, mad, angry, etc. Why would I tell you that? Money isn't a copyable asset, and I keep mine spread among multiple federally-insured banks that operate under different business models. It's the same idea: Don't put all your eggs in one basket, no matter how attractive that basket is. > The point is, many people don't like Facebook, Microsoft, etc. and they press that opinion on others in a manner I don't always appreciate. There are a lot of things that people do that I think are stupid...but they don't need to know that. I don't express most of my opinions (including these) without some form of invitation to do so. Facebook's currently a somewhat-necessary evil. It's a company that offers a service that I used to like, until around 2008. I thought it was at its height of charm when it was still a college-only service, and has become steadily less likable since that changed. It would be inconvenient if it disappeared, but I think it would ultimately be a good thing.
throwanem 9y ago
From your prior comment: > If Facebook were suddenly gone tomorrow, I would feel devastated (so many memories of my kids, deceased father, mom, all would be gone). What did I take out of context? And it's worth considering: "Facebook [being] suddenly gone" doesn't have to mean the service shuts down. It could just mean your account's been suspended for what some algorithm, opaque even inside the company and utterly occult from without, calculates is sufficiently probable cause. At best, it's going to take a while to resolve the problem via Facebook's famously helpful and proactive customer service. At worst, your account is gone forever. Maybe you can make a new one and start all over! From your perspective, there's no distinction to be drawn between "Facebook is gone" and "Facebook is gone from me". Except that, in the former case, you're probably much better off, because in the latter case everyone else is still there - and it feels as much to them like the only way to keep in touch as it feels to you right now, and keeping in touch with anyone who isn't there feels like just enough of an imposition that, over time, they stop bothering. (And if this seems like something that could never happen - that people would never just forget there are ways other than Facebook to stay tied into one another's lives - well, it can. Ask me how I know.) As for the rest of your comment - I don't know to whose claims you're responding, but I'm pretty sure they're not ones I've ever actually made...
- bargl 9y ago
  > If Facebook were suddenly gone tomorrow, I would feel devastated (so many memories of my kids, deceased father, mom, all would be gone). I may not have articulated how I feel very well in that post. I should edit it to miss out on the things in other peoples lives I got to see and things I got to share with them because of Facebook. So you didn't take it completely out of context but you only commented on 1/2 of my post ignoring the fact that a lot of the value I get is from the feed aspect. >From your perspective, there's no distinction to be drawn between "Facebook is gone" and "Facebook is gone from me" Not true, If I lost account access to Facebook, I'd create a new account and build my network again. Not a huge deal. >Except that, in the former case, you're probably much better off, because in the latter case everyone else is still there - and it feels as much to them like the only way to keep in touch as it feels to you right now, and keeping in touch with anyone who isn't there feels like just enough of an imposition that, over time, they stop bothering. This is something I have experienced because I only recently started using facebook again. I use it to reach some friends but not all of them. I know that. What you are describing ticks me off too but it's the same with people who don't have phones/email/etc. Except in this case it's not a generic protocol but a specific service. That's probably more the issue with facebook/twitter than anything else. They created a closed ecosystem that people rely on not a protocol that can be implemented by anyone. >As for the rest of your comment - I don't know to whose claims you're responding, but I'm pretty sure they're not ones I've ever actually made... I was using a fake example to make a point. We all rely on services that are hosted by private parties and the fact that you're horrified by my choice seems a little extreme. I'm not trying to put words in your mouth, if you felt that way then my bad.
bzbarsky 9y ago
I know you're just trying to make a point, but... > Can you recommend me a way to do that for a non-technical person? 1) Use IMAP with copy-to-local-drive for email; Thunderbird or Apple Mail or a variety of other applications will do this reasonably for a non-technical person. 2) Store your files and photos on your hard drive, or a hard drive plugged into your wireless router which can then expose it as a network drive (e.g. Apple's Airport Extreme can do this, as can other wireless router). 3) Use Crashplan for backups. This is fairly easy to set up, even if you're non-technical, if you back up to their server. This does rely on Crashplan, but they're the backup, not the only copy of the data. > I mean what would you do if apple/google wrote an update to their os that wiped all of your contacts for good? Restore from the contacts backup I store on my hard drive every so often (and which hence gets backed up via Crashplan). This part is fairly rocket-science for non-technical people, unfortunately. > just like your example of loosing access to my memories because Facebook decides to destroy it's own brand. The real question is what happens if/when Facebook goes out of business...

by bargl 9y ago

gervase 9y ago

I know it may have been rhetorical, but I just don't think managing your own data is possible (yet) for the truly non-technical person, at least at a level that competes with FB in both price and simplicity; it's still a choose-2 situation. You can get a pretty good system set up with rsync, ZFS, RAID, etc. distributed between multiple machines and multiple sites, and have good security at a low price at the cost of a high knowledge bar. Alternatively, you can have a pretty simple cloud backup system through Backblaze, Carbonite, Crashplan, etc., which should provide good security to people with relatively basic technical knowledge, but at a non-negligible cost (compared to free). Finally, you've got the current cloud "ecosystem" players like Apple, Google, FB, etc., who can offer good technical security (ignoring the "we have locked your account" arguments) to absolutely all skill levels, with zero perceived cost. That being said, I think the kinds of people who (A) actually even think about the privacy of online services, and (B) care enough to do something about it, probably have sufficient technical skill to choose other options. They can decide how important that privacy is to them, in terms of investing time, money, or both to solve these problems.

bargl 9y ago
> I know it may have been rhetorical, but I just don't think managing your own data is possible (yet) for the truly non-technical person, at least at a level that competes with FB in both price and simplicity; it's still a choose-2 situation. That's what I was trying to show. It's hard to not rely on some sort of third party service in life. I think a lot of people here just don't like Facebook. I should probably create a Flex server at home to do this for my friends and family who aren't technical, but again if I host that on Amazon then I'm again relying on someone else.
- icebraining 9y ago
  There are differences between relying on the existence of a commodity service/product or of a unique one. If my VPS provider boots me off or shuts down, I just move to another. I won't lose a single email, and just a few IRC messages during the transition. Meanwhile, if FB boots you off, you lose everything, and must hope they at least allow you to create a new profile.

khedoros1 9y ago

> It's interesting to find someone on here who maintains all of their files/email/photos/etc locally in a redundantly backed-up manner at home on their own personal server. How did you do that? Can you recommend me a way to do that for a non-technical person? ...You don't do that? If you don't have local "gold master" copies of your files, then you don't own your files. And if you don't copy them onto multiple devices, then you have a single point of failure. > I mean what would you do if apple/google wrote an update to their os that wiped all of your contacts for good? I'd be very impressed that they could also reach my copies of that data that aren't stored on Apple/Google services...

bargl 9y ago
> It's interesting to find someone on here who maintains all of their files/email/photos/etc locally in a redundantly backed-up manner at home on their own personal server. How did you do that? Can you recommend me a way to do that for a non-technical person? You missed a very important point I'm trying to make with my question. Can you recommend me a way to do that for a non-technical person? Many people on HN forget that there are many non-technical people in the world and that they don't have a data server with raid drives in their house running OwnCloud/Flex for all of their backup needs. Hence why they use the cloud and that shouldn't be appalling. I mean this analogy can be taken to some extreme places if you start looking at the fact that you trust a bank, the stock exchange, a government, etc. You could minimize how much you trust each of them because your personal happiness is based on them. And PLEASE don't tell me if your bank was all of a sudden taken to a negative balance you wouldn't be sad, mad, angry, etc. The point is, many people don't like Facebook, Microsoft, etc. and they press that opinion on others in a manner I don't always appreciate. It's a company that offers a service I like. If it goes away I'll be sad, but life will go on.
- khedoros1 9y ago
  > Many people on HN forget that there are many non-technical people in the world and that they don't have a data server with raid drives in their house running OwnCloud/Flex for all of their backup needs. Hence why they use the cloud and that shouldn't be appalling. Right...but they've probably got a laptop and a USB flash drive. That's all you need to keep your own copy around. I don't maintain an always-on server, OwnCloud, etc...but I certainly have multiple copies of everything, such that if Google, Facebook, and other services disappeared, I wouldn't lose any very-important data. Doing it with less automation takes a little more manual work, but that's the way I'm doing it right now myself, and I don't think it's unreasonable. Even taking the option of cloud-only storage, set your phone to strip EXIF and upload to multiple unrelated accounts, preferably not connected to a social network. > And PLEASE don't tell me if your bank was all of a sudden taken to a negative balance you wouldn't be sad, mad, angry, etc. Why would I tell you that? Money isn't a copyable asset, and I keep mine spread among multiple federally-insured banks that operate under different business models. It's the same idea: Don't put all your eggs in one basket, no matter how attractive that basket is. > The point is, many people don't like Facebook, Microsoft, etc. and they press that opinion on others in a manner I don't always appreciate. There are a lot of things that people do that I think are stupid...but they don't need to know that. I don't express most of my opinions (including these) without some form of invitation to do so. Facebook's currently a somewhat-necessary evil. It's a company that offers a service that I used to like, until around 2008. I thought it was at its height of charm when it was still a college-only service, and has become steadily less likable since that changed. It would be inconvenient if it disappeared, but I think it would ultimately be a good thing.

throwanem 9y ago

From your prior comment: > If Facebook were suddenly gone tomorrow, I would feel devastated (so many memories of my kids, deceased father, mom, all would be gone). What did I take out of context? And it's worth considering: "Facebook [being] suddenly gone" doesn't have to mean the service shuts down. It could just mean your account's been suspended for what some algorithm, opaque even inside the company and utterly occult from without, calculates is sufficiently probable cause. At best, it's going to take a while to resolve the problem via Facebook's famously helpful and proactive customer service. At worst, your account is gone forever. Maybe you can make a new one and start all over! From your perspective, there's no distinction to be drawn between "Facebook is gone" and "Facebook is gone from me". Except that, in the former case, you're probably much better off, because in the latter case everyone else is still there - and it feels as much to them like the only way to keep in touch as it feels to you right now, and keeping in touch with anyone who isn't there feels like just enough of an imposition that, over time, they stop bothering. (And if this seems like something that could never happen - that people would never just forget there are ways other than Facebook to stay tied into one another's lives - well, it can. Ask me how I know.) As for the rest of your comment - I don't know to whose claims you're responding, but I'm pretty sure they're not ones I've ever actually made...

bargl 9y ago
> If Facebook were suddenly gone tomorrow, I would feel devastated (so many memories of my kids, deceased father, mom, all would be gone). I may not have articulated how I feel very well in that post. I should edit it to miss out on the things in other peoples lives I got to see and things I got to share with them because of Facebook. So you didn't take it completely out of context but you only commented on 1/2 of my post ignoring the fact that a lot of the value I get is from the feed aspect. >From your perspective, there's no distinction to be drawn between "Facebook is gone" and "Facebook is gone from me" Not true, If I lost account access to Facebook, I'd create a new account and build my network again. Not a huge deal. >Except that, in the former case, you're probably much better off, because in the latter case everyone else is still there - and it feels as much to them like the only way to keep in touch as it feels to you right now, and keeping in touch with anyone who isn't there feels like just enough of an imposition that, over time, they stop bothering. This is something I have experienced because I only recently started using facebook again. I use it to reach some friends but not all of them. I know that. What you are describing ticks me off too but it's the same with people who don't have phones/email/etc. Except in this case it's not a generic protocol but a specific service. That's probably more the issue with facebook/twitter than anything else. They created a closed ecosystem that people rely on not a protocol that can be implemented by anyone. >As for the rest of your comment - I don't know to whose claims you're responding, but I'm pretty sure they're not ones I've ever actually made... I was using a fake example to make a point. We all rely on services that are hosted by private parties and the fact that you're horrified by my choice seems a little extreme. I'm not trying to put words in your mouth, if you felt that way then my bad.

bzbarsky 9y ago

I know you're just trying to make a point, but... > Can you recommend me a way to do that for a non-technical person? 1) Use IMAP with copy-to-local-drive for email; Thunderbird or Apple Mail or a variety of other applications will do this reasonably for a non-technical person. 2) Store your files and photos on your hard drive, or a hard drive plugged into your wireless router which can then expose it as a network drive (e.g. Apple's Airport Extreme can do this, as can other wireless router). 3) Use Crashplan for backups. This is fairly easy to set up, even if you're non-technical, if you back up to their server. This does rely on Crashplan, but they're the backup, not the only copy of the data. > I mean what would you do if apple/google wrote an update to their os that wiped all of your contacts for good? Restore from the contacts backup I store on my hard drive every so often (and which hence gets backed up via Crashplan). This part is fairly rocket-science for non-technical people, unfortunately. > just like your example of loosing access to my memories because Facebook decides to destroy it's own brand. The real question is what happens if/when Facebook goes out of business...