4 ms·

It depends. Some people use Facebook "likes" as a crappy replacement for RSS, so it's probably not great for them.

adrianratnapala 9y ago
I can't be smug though. HN has become my replacement for RSS. Surely even Facebook is a better approximation.
eckza 9y ago
I was one of those people. It's... shocking, how much of that noise that you can get by without. To be fair, I'm missing out on a ton of news with regards to the community and culture that I used Facebook to participate in - but my life is measurably better in every other metric for having left the platform. Getting BMX racing news second-hand is a small price to pay for having my mind back. (Disclaimer: I spent 20+ hours per week on Facebook. It's mostly nice to have those 20+ hours back, and not having to be constantly bombarded by all the evil of this world is a huge plus, too.)
freehunter 9y ago
As someone who runs a business partly driven by people who use Facebook as a crappy replacement for RSS, I can confirm. Facebook made a change a while back where people who explicitly followed my page to keep up to date on local events and businesses suddenly were not seeing anything I posted. I had to start paying Facebook to keep them showing things to people, but even that is far slower than it had been. Out of about 2000 people following my page, I used to have around 1500 seeing my posts per week, now it's down to under 500. My readers are pretty upset, complaining to me that I don't post enough anymore and they're missing events they wanted to know about, but I can't make Facebook show them what Facebook doesn't want to show them. I tell the people to go directly to my website, but for a lot of them Facebook is the only website that exists. It's a small town without a newspaper or any other media outlets, so I'm still trying to figure out how to keep on going because I think it's a worthwhile service. Facebook doesn't make it easy anymore though.
- dboreham 9y ago
  This, essentially, is Facebook's business model.
  - freehunter 9y ago
    Which isn't necessarily a bad thing... I pay to get access to my audience. I wish I only paid to get access to a new expanded audience, but I understand the reality of business. My main complaint is, people explicitly chose to follow my content and got used to seeing it... and now it's all gone. They still follow, but they don't see. Even if I pay, it's not guaranteed to hit the same audience I had before.
    - DashRattlesnake 9y ago
      > My main complaint is, people explicitly chose to follow my content and got used to seeing it... and now it's all gone. They still follow, but they don't see. They're the product, so it doesn't matter if they get what they want or not, so long as they come back. > Even if I pay, it's not guaranteed to hit the same audience I had before. If it was guaranteed, what incentive would you have to pay Facebook more?
      - freehunter 9y ago
        >If it was guaranteed, what incentive would you have to pay Facebook more? Well the way products usually work is the company says "pay me this amount and here is what you'll get". The way Facebook works is "Pay me... no, a bit more. Maybe a bit more. No, there's no guarantee of what you'll get in return. Don't like it? Pay a bit more then." The relationship between content creators and Facebook is a partnership. Facebook wouldn't be worth anything without users, and users would have a smaller audience without Facebook. The last thing you want is for that to tip too far in one direction. Have you ever used Facebook ads? They're not exactly straightforward, and there's no "pay this amount to reach everyone who says they want to read your content". You can excuse their exploitative business model all you want, but it only works until there's a viable alternative.

I can't be smug though. HN has become my replacement for RSS. Surely even Facebook is a better approximation.

I was one of those people. It's... shocking, how much of that noise that you can get by without. To be fair, I'm missing out on a ton of news with regards to the community and culture that I used Facebook to participate in - but my life is measurably better in every other metric for having left the platform. Getting BMX racing news second-hand is a small price to pay for having my mind back. (Disclaimer: I spent 20+ hours per week on Facebook. It's mostly nice to have those 20+ hours back, and not having to be constantly bombarded by all the evil of this world is a huge plus, too.)

freehunter 9y ago

As someone who runs a business partly driven by people who use Facebook as a crappy replacement for RSS, I can confirm. Facebook made a change a while back where people who explicitly followed my page to keep up to date on local events and businesses suddenly were not seeing anything I posted. I had to start paying Facebook to keep them showing things to people, but even that is far slower than it had been. Out of about 2000 people following my page, I used to have around 1500 seeing my posts per week, now it's down to under 500. My readers are pretty upset, complaining to me that I don't post enough anymore and they're missing events they wanted to know about, but I can't make Facebook show them what Facebook doesn't want to show them. I tell the people to go directly to my website, but for a lot of them Facebook is the only website that exists. It's a small town without a newspaper or any other media outlets, so I'm still trying to figure out how to keep on going because I think it's a worthwhile service. Facebook doesn't make it easy anymore though.

dboreham 9y ago
This, essentially, is Facebook's business model.
- freehunter 9y ago
  Which isn't necessarily a bad thing... I pay to get access to my audience. I wish I only paid to get access to a new expanded audience, but I understand the reality of business. My main complaint is, people explicitly chose to follow my content and got used to seeing it... and now it's all gone. They still follow, but they don't see. Even if I pay, it's not guaranteed to hit the same audience I had before.
  - DashRattlesnake 9y ago
    > My main complaint is, people explicitly chose to follow my content and got used to seeing it... and now it's all gone. They still follow, but they don't see. They're the product, so it doesn't matter if they get what they want or not, so long as they come back. > Even if I pay, it's not guaranteed to hit the same audience I had before. If it was guaranteed, what incentive would you have to pay Facebook more?
    - freehunter 9y ago
      >If it was guaranteed, what incentive would you have to pay Facebook more? Well the way products usually work is the company says "pay me this amount and here is what you'll get". The way Facebook works is "Pay me... no, a bit more. Maybe a bit more. No, there's no guarantee of what you'll get in return. Don't like it? Pay a bit more then." The relationship between content creators and Facebook is a partnership. Facebook wouldn't be worth anything without users, and users would have a smaller audience without Facebook. The last thing you want is for that to tip too far in one direction. Have you ever used Facebook ads? They're not exactly straightforward, and there's no "pay this amount to reach everyone who says they want to read your content". You can excuse their exploitative business model all you want, but it only works until there's a viable alternative.