5 ms·

Facebook hated as much as airlines, cable companies

72 points by edw519 16y ago

lkozma 16y ago
If the data is indeed valid, it might have less to do with the privacy concerns and the ads, I don't think mainstream users care about either that much. The site is designed such as to exploit some of the weaknesses of people, such as the fear of missing out or the compulsive hoarding (of friends).. As such, many users might feel addicted to it, but at the same time feel miserable for wasting time on it. That might show up on the survey as a vague negative feeling. Kindly argue why I am wrong before downvoting, please.
- gigafemtonano 16y ago
  Adding to your comment, it's my understanding that many people feel the site is poorly designed. I've often heard "I wish there were an easier way to..." in relation to facebook.
  - Unseelie 16y ago
    And its so very buggy...
    - deleted 16y ago
      [deleted]
  - indigoviolet 16y ago
    What are some other sites that lay people use and that do as many things as Facebook does?
    - glhaynes 16y ago
      Yeah, I hear people (usually on Twitter, often right after proudly mentioning how rarely they use Facebook) commenting negatively about Facebook's UI, but it's pretty rare that I see somebody point to a site that does the same things and does it better.
  - c1sc0 16y ago
    Funny. I remember one of the main reasons for the adoption of Facebook vs. Myspace was "Cleaner looks, better usability". Last thing I heard Myspace is still around, and I guess so will be Facebook, once someone else takes over their lead.
- Unseelie 16y ago
  While the site is inherently predatory, and while a lot of the problem of facebook comes from those problems, outside of the teen bracket, persons are very much concerned with privacy issues, especially where their employment is concerned. That said, the most visible activity of facebook is the adds, and it does have a history of changing the site format. Consumer opinion isn't often about root causes, but the most visible issues.
- joe_the_user 16y ago
  I disagree with the idea that the average person is unconcerned with privacy. Only celebrities and up-and-coming rock stars want to share everything. The average person might not know much about how privacy leaks happen and they might be willing to assume this or that thing they do is private, even without any evidence. But the average person is mortified at the prospect of their private business going out to the world at large. "The Internet" is a bugaboo to many, many people with privacy violation being a part of that bugaboo. This same dark, nameless fear is starting to rub-off on Facebook. That said, I would agree that the other compulsive aspects of Facebook you mention probably also are factors. And the two factors work together rather than being dichotomies. A person may feel a need to have "friends" but simultaneous fear of sharing their information given the possibilities that it could go "anywhere". Twenty years or more, I saw a Sci-Fi which described a future in which people had to pay not to be connected to the net. I'd agree that the ads probably aren't a big factor though.
- potatolicious 16y ago
  I think users have real concerns about privacy - but not in the way that geeks tend to believe. The problem with Facebook in its current state is that it has no consistency, and is often a non-deterministic system. To be more specific: what the hell makes it onto my news feed, and how? If I click this button, will it be broadcast to the world? I (and a few friends) were concerned when their use of the "Find a Friend" feature was openly touted on Facebook on my feed (e.g. "Mike found Bob through Friend Finder!") - where no notice was given. People realize that whatever they post on their status, Walls, etc, are essentially public knowledge. But they do not expect simple clicks to be broadcast to the world (potential e.g., "Mike viewed Jane's profile 20 times this week!")... and while we'd like to think Facebook is smart enough to tiptoe around these use cases, evidence suggests they are not.
  - GBKS 16y ago
    Agree with this point. It is the most visible among my friends that are teachers. They are incredibly scared that a student might somehow see something about them that the student's parents might not be too happy about. It's enough that a friend uploads and tags an old college picture where the teacher does a keg stand and somehow that picture ends up in a students feed. Where Twitter is public by nature, Facebook is really inconsistent and doesn't give a clear message.
  - glhaynes 16y ago
    I agree with you — that's dangerous ground for them. One nitpicky thing, though: all the ads I saw for Friend Finder only mentioned that the person had used it, not that they found a particular other person through it. That's a little more palatable.
- MC27 16y ago
  Indeed, Facebook's survival relies on user addiction and it's the reason I'm wary of using social networks.
dvvarf 16y ago
There is absolutely nothing about methodology on the ASCI site. Here is their official commentary on the results: http://www.theacsi.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=220&Itemid=236 http://www.theacsi.org/index.php?option=com_content&task... The MSNBC pretty much lifts sentences from there. This is a bigger picture summary of how other industries fare to give some perspective: http://www.theacsi.org/images/stories/ACSI_TREE_07_10.pdf http://www.theacsi.org/images/stories/ACSI_TREE_07_10.pdf It's hard to tell if these findings really mean anything, since this is social media's first year on the survey. And without more information, it's hard to say if a direct comparison across industries even makes sense.
orangecat 16y ago
Sounds about right, in all three cases there's essentially no competition. Airlines are uniformly awful (with the partial exception of Southwest), cable companies have a combination of natural and government-granted monopolies, and Facebook is the poster child of dominance via network effects. Satisfying customers doesn't have to be a high priority for any of them.
- Unseelie 16y ago
  Well, that and the facebook customers are not the users, they're the corporation buying adds and information..
- tokenadult 16y ago
  I actually don't hate on airlines, even though I used to be a frequent flyer in what is still one of the most one-company airline markets in the United States. The only dealing I have with cable companies is letting my Internet signal come into my house on a TV cable that has never been used for TV. I'm not sure the comparison in the article fits me.
Groxx 16y ago
>“Facebook is a phenomenal success, so we were not expecting to see it score so poorly with consumers” What, do they not talk to people? 9/10ths of the people I encounter / talk to / overhear (friends or not) on campus & otherwise house quite a bit of dislike for Facebook, "but all [their] friends are on there", so they feel obligated to stay. About 9/10ths of the remaining people have no strong feelings either way, and the left-over 1/10th actually like it. edit: And yes, I do actually mean those ratios. In the past year or two, I have heard only a couple people say they like FB, and quite literally hundreds of dislikes. Nearly everyone on campus has an account, and that means you can sometimes catch a dozen or two (or more) remarks daily out of several thousand students if you listen for it.
- fuzzmeister 16y ago
  I think most people will say they dislike Facebook, mainly due to the time commitment involved, but they would feel quite disconnected if they were suddenly unable to use it to keep up with their friends. It's not that people are using Facebook "because everybody else uses it" (that is, because of peer pressure), but because people have come to need a service that "everybody else uses."
  - Groxx 16y ago
    Isn't that kind of the definition of peer pressure? You need to do something to stay in group A. Do it or be removed. Or maybe an addiction? One can dislike what they're addicted to, and still be strongly pressured to use it. Except this group A is the biggest & most connected group the world has ever seen => potentially the biggest & most powerful peer pressure the world has ever seen (depends on what value you assign to those connections, and what value they assign, and the availability of other options (i.e.: none, for most people, however incorrect that belief is)). What people want is something like Facebook. Clearly. But that doesn't mean they have to like Facebook to keep using it; it's just the only real option.
    - fuzzmeister 16y ago
      Almost all of the complaints I've heard about Facebook from college students stem from the amount of time "wasted" on it. However, all of this time is spent interacting with other people on the service, actively or not. So, it is hard to see how one could make a Facebook-esque service where the problem of time being "wasted" is solved without destroying the very point of the service.
deleted 16y ago
[deleted]
sophacles 16y ago
I would bet this has nothing to do with Facebook itself. Look at the other things people hate: Airlines, insurance, the cable and fone companies. Like it or not these companies are infrastructure, basically things people are forced to use to function well in society. This breeds resentment, people hate the things they have to do whether that hatred is fair or not. I don't like phones, and I hate that I have to pay to have a phone to maintain a large chunk of social interaction (there are alternatives, but they suck). This means I am far more demanding of what I want from the phone company, and far less tolerant when they do things I dislike. Yet I keep giving them money. Facebook reaching this point means that facebook will be harder to unseat, due to it having "but whatcha gonna do about it" status, not easier because people hate them.
- TheSOB88 16y ago
  The reason people hate what I'll call "utilities" - insurance, cable, phone - is because they're crap services. They're all either monopolies or oligopolies (small number of competitors that collude to a degree), so they can stay crappy without fear of economic resistance. So in a way it's due to societal expectations, but not directly. I don't think people would hate an insurance company that they thought treated them fairly.
  - orangecat 16y ago
    I don't think people would hate an insurance company that they thought treated them fairly. Exactly. USAA is awesome.
  - sophacles 16y ago
    I like my insurance company, as far as insurance goes, my agent is pretty cool and whatnot. In the end tho, I would still rather not pay for most of the insurance I have.
- gsk 16y ago
  >function well in society You are giving undeserved credit to Facebook by equating it to infrastructure. If facebook disappears tomorrow, people may miss it but they are not going to stop functioning well in society.
arnorhs 16y ago
I would love to know exactly what group was surveyed and how the score is put together. Was it an opt-in kind of thing, so only passionate/angry people would chime in. What were the questions phrased as? etc... Traditional questions like "How much value would you say Facebook brings you?", "How valuable is FB to you?", "If Facebook were to stop existing, how bad would that be for you?" etc.. Those are the kind of questions even your average airliner or insurance company would have at least somewhat positive responses from, but since people feel like they're possibly wasting their time, the score might seem low. btw. more info and stats: http://www.theacsi.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=212&Itemid=220 http://www.theacsi.org/index.php?option=com_content&task...
deleted 16y ago
[deleted]
GavinB 16y ago
This isn't really a fair comparison. More people use Facebook than they do any individual cable company. I don't have an opinion on airlines that I've never flown or cable companies that only exist on the west coast. It would be more interesting to take a sample who use both Facebook and, say, Comcast, and see which was more hated.
kierank 16y ago
Ryanair is the classic example of a company that is supposedly "hated" yet people use en masse nonetheless because it provides a service that people want.
rblion 16y ago
told you so. you fags negged me for calling it before it happened.
thinkinghard 16y ago
If you look at the survey closely, you'll see that FoxNews has the highest satisfaction among all of the other brands that were analyzed. I would take this data with a grain of salt.
- Agathos 16y ago
  Their methodology is a great mystery, but I think they poll people who hit the websites in question. In which case Fox News' score is no surprise. It's the most polarizing news source out there, and the other pole isn't part of the poll.
marknutter 16y ago
I really just think hating Facebook is in vogue and the fad will pass. It's the best way to keep in touch with people you don't see that often, bar none, and people will continue to use it because that's where everyone is.
balding_n_tired 16y ago
Right, but people aren't switching to Greyhound or going back to broadcast only.

72 points by edw519 16y ago

If the data is indeed valid, it might have less to do with the privacy concerns and the ads, I don't think mainstream users care about either that much. The site is designed such as to exploit some of the weaknesses of people, such as the fear of missing out or the compulsive hoarding (of friends).. As such, many users might feel addicted to it, but at the same time feel miserable for wasting time on it. That might show up on the survey as a vague negative feeling. Kindly argue why I am wrong before downvoting, please.

gigafemtonano 16y ago
Adding to your comment, it's my understanding that many people feel the site is poorly designed. I've often heard "I wish there were an easier way to..." in relation to facebook.
- Unseelie 16y ago
  And its so very buggy...
  - deleted 16y ago
    [deleted]
- indigoviolet 16y ago
  What are some other sites that lay people use and that do as many things as Facebook does?
  - glhaynes 16y ago
    Yeah, I hear people (usually on Twitter, often right after proudly mentioning how rarely they use Facebook) commenting negatively about Facebook's UI, but it's pretty rare that I see somebody point to a site that does the same things and does it better.
- c1sc0 16y ago
  Funny. I remember one of the main reasons for the adoption of Facebook vs. Myspace was "Cleaner looks, better usability". Last thing I heard Myspace is still around, and I guess so will be Facebook, once someone else takes over their lead.
Unseelie 16y ago
While the site is inherently predatory, and while a lot of the problem of facebook comes from those problems, outside of the teen bracket, persons are very much concerned with privacy issues, especially where their employment is concerned. That said, the most visible activity of facebook is the adds, and it does have a history of changing the site format. Consumer opinion isn't often about root causes, but the most visible issues.
joe_the_user 16y ago
I disagree with the idea that the average person is unconcerned with privacy. Only celebrities and up-and-coming rock stars want to share everything. The average person might not know much about how privacy leaks happen and they might be willing to assume this or that thing they do is private, even without any evidence. But the average person is mortified at the prospect of their private business going out to the world at large. "The Internet" is a bugaboo to many, many people with privacy violation being a part of that bugaboo. This same dark, nameless fear is starting to rub-off on Facebook. That said, I would agree that the other compulsive aspects of Facebook you mention probably also are factors. And the two factors work together rather than being dichotomies. A person may feel a need to have "friends" but simultaneous fear of sharing their information given the possibilities that it could go "anywhere". Twenty years or more, I saw a Sci-Fi which described a future in which people had to pay not to be connected to the net. I'd agree that the ads probably aren't a big factor though.
potatolicious 16y ago
I think users have real concerns about privacy - but not in the way that geeks tend to believe. The problem with Facebook in its current state is that it has no consistency, and is often a non-deterministic system. To be more specific: what the hell makes it onto my news feed, and how? If I click this button, will it be broadcast to the world? I (and a few friends) were concerned when their use of the "Find a Friend" feature was openly touted on Facebook on my feed (e.g. "Mike found Bob through Friend Finder!") - where no notice was given. People realize that whatever they post on their status, Walls, etc, are essentially public knowledge. But they do not expect simple clicks to be broadcast to the world (potential e.g., "Mike viewed Jane's profile 20 times this week!")... and while we'd like to think Facebook is smart enough to tiptoe around these use cases, evidence suggests they are not.
- GBKS 16y ago
  Agree with this point. It is the most visible among my friends that are teachers. They are incredibly scared that a student might somehow see something about them that the student's parents might not be too happy about. It's enough that a friend uploads and tags an old college picture where the teacher does a keg stand and somehow that picture ends up in a students feed. Where Twitter is public by nature, Facebook is really inconsistent and doesn't give a clear message.
- glhaynes 16y ago
  I agree with you — that's dangerous ground for them. One nitpicky thing, though: all the ads I saw for Friend Finder only mentioned that the person had used it, not that they found a particular other person through it. That's a little more palatable.
MC27 16y ago
Indeed, Facebook's survival relies on user addiction and it's the reason I'm wary of using social networks.

dvvarf 16y ago

There is absolutely nothing about methodology on the ASCI site. Here is their official commentary on the results: http://www.theacsi.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=220&Itemid=236 http://www.theacsi.org/index.php?option=com_content&task... The MSNBC pretty much lifts sentences from there. This is a bigger picture summary of how other industries fare to give some perspective: http://www.theacsi.org/images/stories/ACSI_TREE_07_10.pdf http://www.theacsi.org/images/stories/ACSI_TREE_07_10.pdf It's hard to tell if these findings really mean anything, since this is social media's first year on the survey. And without more information, it's hard to say if a direct comparison across industries even makes sense.

orangecat 16y ago

Sounds about right, in all three cases there's essentially no competition. Airlines are uniformly awful (with the partial exception of Southwest), cable companies have a combination of natural and government-granted monopolies, and Facebook is the poster child of dominance via network effects. Satisfying customers doesn't have to be a high priority for any of them.

Unseelie 16y ago
Well, that and the facebook customers are not the users, they're the corporation buying adds and information..
tokenadult 16y ago
I actually don't hate on airlines, even though I used to be a frequent flyer in what is still one of the most one-company airline markets in the United States. The only dealing I have with cable companies is letting my Internet signal come into my house on a TV cable that has never been used for TV. I'm not sure the comparison in the article fits me.

Groxx 16y ago

>“Facebook is a phenomenal success, so we were not expecting to see it score so poorly with consumers” What, do they not talk to people? 9/10ths of the people I encounter / talk to / overhear (friends or not) on campus & otherwise house quite a bit of dislike for Facebook, "but all [their] friends are on there", so they feel obligated to stay. About 9/10ths of the remaining people have no strong feelings either way, and the left-over 1/10th actually like it. edit: And yes, I do actually mean those ratios. In the past year or two, I have heard only a couple people say they like FB, and quite literally hundreds of dislikes. Nearly everyone on campus has an account, and that means you can sometimes catch a dozen or two (or more) remarks daily out of several thousand students if you listen for it.

fuzzmeister 16y ago
I think most people will say they dislike Facebook, mainly due to the time commitment involved, but they would feel quite disconnected if they were suddenly unable to use it to keep up with their friends. It's not that people are using Facebook "because everybody else uses it" (that is, because of peer pressure), but because people have come to need a service that "everybody else uses."
- Groxx 16y ago
  Isn't that kind of the definition of peer pressure? You need to do something to stay in group A. Do it or be removed. Or maybe an addiction? One can dislike what they're addicted to, and still be strongly pressured to use it. Except this group A is the biggest & most connected group the world has ever seen => potentially the biggest & most powerful peer pressure the world has ever seen (depends on what value you assign to those connections, and what value they assign, and the availability of other options (i.e.: none, for most people, however incorrect that belief is)). What people want is something like Facebook. Clearly. But that doesn't mean they have to like Facebook to keep using it; it's just the only real option.
  - fuzzmeister 16y ago
    Almost all of the complaints I've heard about Facebook from college students stem from the amount of time "wasted" on it. However, all of this time is spent interacting with other people on the service, actively or not. So, it is hard to see how one could make a Facebook-esque service where the problem of time being "wasted" is solved without destroying the very point of the service.

deleted 16y ago

[deleted]

sophacles 16y ago

I would bet this has nothing to do with Facebook itself. Look at the other things people hate: Airlines, insurance, the cable and fone companies. Like it or not these companies are infrastructure, basically things people are forced to use to function well in society. This breeds resentment, people hate the things they have to do whether that hatred is fair or not. I don't like phones, and I hate that I have to pay to have a phone to maintain a large chunk of social interaction (there are alternatives, but they suck). This means I am far more demanding of what I want from the phone company, and far less tolerant when they do things I dislike. Yet I keep giving them money. Facebook reaching this point means that facebook will be harder to unseat, due to it having "but whatcha gonna do about it" status, not easier because people hate them.

TheSOB88 16y ago
The reason people hate what I'll call "utilities" - insurance, cable, phone - is because they're crap services. They're all either monopolies or oligopolies (small number of competitors that collude to a degree), so they can stay crappy without fear of economic resistance. So in a way it's due to societal expectations, but not directly. I don't think people would hate an insurance company that they thought treated them fairly.
- orangecat 16y ago
  I don't think people would hate an insurance company that they thought treated them fairly. Exactly. USAA is awesome.
- sophacles 16y ago
  I like my insurance company, as far as insurance goes, my agent is pretty cool and whatnot. In the end tho, I would still rather not pay for most of the insurance I have.
gsk 16y ago
>function well in society You are giving undeserved credit to Facebook by equating it to infrastructure. If facebook disappears tomorrow, people may miss it but they are not going to stop functioning well in society.

arnorhs 16y ago

I would love to know exactly what group was surveyed and how the score is put together. Was it an opt-in kind of thing, so only passionate/angry people would chime in. What were the questions phrased as? etc... Traditional questions like "How much value would you say Facebook brings you?", "How valuable is FB to you?", "If Facebook were to stop existing, how bad would that be for you?" etc.. Those are the kind of questions even your average airliner or insurance company would have at least somewhat positive responses from, but since people feel like they're possibly wasting their time, the score might seem low. btw. more info and stats: http://www.theacsi.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=212&Itemid=220 http://www.theacsi.org/index.php?option=com_content&task...

deleted 16y ago

[deleted]

GavinB 16y ago

This isn't really a fair comparison. More people use Facebook than they do any individual cable company. I don't have an opinion on airlines that I've never flown or cable companies that only exist on the west coast. It would be more interesting to take a sample who use both Facebook and, say, Comcast, and see which was more hated.

kierank 16y ago

Ryanair is the classic example of a company that is supposedly "hated" yet people use en masse nonetheless because it provides a service that people want.

rblion 16y ago

told you so. you fags negged me for calling it before it happened.

thinkinghard 16y ago

If you look at the survey closely, you'll see that FoxNews has the highest satisfaction among all of the other brands that were analyzed. I would take this data with a grain of salt.

Agathos 16y ago
Their methodology is a great mystery, but I think they poll people who hit the websites in question. In which case Fox News' score is no surprise. It's the most polarizing news source out there, and the other pole isn't part of the poll.

marknutter 16y ago

I really just think hating Facebook is in vogue and the fad will pass. It's the best way to keep in touch with people you don't see that often, bar none, and people will continue to use it because that's where everyone is.

balding_n_tired 16y ago

Right, but people aren't switching to Greyhound or going back to broadcast only.