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For the life of me I can't remember where I originally read this quote, but it forever changed my perspective of FB. Paraphrased: "Facebook is 3 things: the wal

For the life of me I can't remember where I originally read this quote, but it forever changed my perspective of FB. Paraphrased: "Facebook is 3 things: the wall, the messaging, and an automatically updating rolodex." Many apps fill 1 and/or 2, but nothing satisfies #3. There is no alternative. For better or for worse: I want to stay in touch with people I've met in the oddest places. In the middle of bumsquash Uruguay, people who had barely ever heard of Europe, but they had Facebook. All of them. The only place on earth where this wasn't true was China, in my experience. So, no, I won't #deletefacebook. I've stopped using it meaningfully a long time ago, but until something becomes a reliable, multi-decade spanning auto-updating rolodex, I'll have to stay here. Mastodon will never, ever, not in a billion years fill that gap. And I don't need more alternatives for #1 and #2, so there dies that dream for me.

vanderZwan 9y ago
Honestly, I think this is more a problem of perception than anything else. For one thing, loss aversion makes us think we'll miss things way more than we'll do (see also: FOMO). Losing contact with people mostly involves not thinking about them. If you don't think about them, you don't miss them either. Friends come and go in life, it's natural. And if you did miss them, you'd put in work to keep in touch through other means. I know because I have a circle of close friends that I only see once or twice a year, but stay in touch with through email. Guess what: it works. And if you migrate, you just email your friends about it. Similarly, although I don't know if this is generally possible in every country, but I have diligently carried over my first mobile phone number from carrier to carrier. When I moved abroad to Sweden for a few years, I switched to the absolute cheapest minimal carrier to essentially "invest" in keeping that phone identity. This means that people who met me as far back as the late nineties can still reach me on it. Friends that I have made later even know they can rely on this, that this is my "policy". I'm about to leave Sweden for Germany. Still keeping that Dutch phone number. In fact, I'm leaving it with all of my friends here, and use it for all the messaging apps that rely on phone numbers. And finally, just claim your own bit of internet and get a website. Your friends can search for you.
- nothrabannosir 9y ago
  > Losing contact with people mostly involves not thinking about them. If you don't think about them, you don't miss them either. This is so far removed from how I interact with the world around me that I have a hard time empathising. I’ll keep it scientific and factual: more than once, I’ve gone back to a place I visited over a decade ago. I went on Facebook, found the person that used to live there, got in touch, and had varying types of “fun”, as humans call it. The crucial point here is that I can’t tell in advance which places, until I decide to go. I… your suggestion for the future is to “not think about them”? Ehh.. no thank you?
  - buvanshak 9y ago
    >The crucial point here is that I can’t tell in advance which places, until I decide to go. You should have the foresight to write down their contact details. You meet a person, exchange contact details. Save it in your phone or cloud or what ever. Is that too hard? Will you run out of storage space if you save contact info for every person you meet? But hey, that requires a moments thought. Am I going to have to contact this person? No, we can't spent working a couple of neurons for that thought. I think people should use their heads more. To exercise fore sight. To actually remember birth dates etc, to plan things with out constantly "updating" on a mobile phone/social media...
    - y4mi 9y ago
      But the other person probably changed emails, didnt keep his phone number and moved to a new City. What now? I personally dont use Facebook, but youre not actually painting a realistic picture
      - buvanshak 9y ago
        > But the other person probably changed emails, didnt keep his phone number and moved to a new City. What now? What if the other person did all these and didn't update facebook? Tough luck. Move on. Right? Same thing. If they changed email, and didn't keep phone number etc, then they probably don't want you to contact them anyway...
rublev 9y ago
Delete facebook and 5 seconds later you won't remember most of the people you keep in contact with as those connections don't matter.
petercooper 9y ago
For me there's a #4: shared interest groups. There is nowhere else online that people in my town are all discussing local matters together, or.. things like the New York Times podcast listeners club, various car groups, etc.
walterstucco 9y ago
Ask them for their email address and/or phone number, while telling them you're leaving Facebook Whoever writes you back is worth keeping as a contact When I moved to another city my flatmate threw a secret party at my favourite bar 400 people showed up After 5 years I still keep in touch with at most 20 of them With most of them I've been friend since long before that night
z_open 9y ago
It being an automatically updating rolodex is the issue. Live without this luxury so that people can maintain their freedom to privacy. Keep in mind that even if you don't care about your own freedom to privacy, you using these services removes everyone else's freedom to privacy, even when they have not consented.
Mc_Big_G 9y ago
For some of us, the convenience isn't worth selling your soul and selling out your country.
lucideer 9y ago
> nothing satisfies #3. There is no alternative. For me at least, there is one app that's starting to mitigate #3 (if not specifically "fill" the gap): WhatsApp. Granted, it's also owned by Facebook, so we're almost back at square one, but it's still an interesting case simply because it doesn't fill the gap, but rather works around it. Which gives me a bit more hope that other tools could too. WhatsApp does two things: 1. Creates a network from your (possibly completely offline) "rolodex" (phone contact list). And augments these contacts with info specific to their ecosystem. 2. Adds discovery. Through groups, I can connect with new contacts. Similar to Facebook's "suggest friend" feature. My general point here is the an autoupdating rolodex is only required in a closed ecosystem. WhatsApp does do it's level best to close off its ecosystem, but it's a different paradigm to Facebook, and one currently dependent on existing phone numbers, so it ends up a little more open, and for me seems like a nice demo of how hooking into existing networks (people's saved contact lists) can get you pretty far.
avoidit 9y ago
>> For better or for worse Its definitely the latter. Not because there is something inherently bad about staying in touch. It is because you do so despite the knowledge that you are not doing it at zero cost to others who care about their privacy. Analogy: I wish I could just throw all my garbage over into my neighbors premises rather than walk all the way down to the recycle bin. But I don't. I am actually violating their personal space. By using Facebook, you are also violating the privacy of folks who disagree with your view, and this is now open knowledge. And things don't even out if my neighbors are also doing the same to their neighbors over on the other side (but, but, everyone is on Facebook!). Ultimately, all of us will end up living amidst a pile of stinking garbage, which is an excellent analogy to what is happening with social networks today.
- mhb 9y ago
  For better or worse, I consider myself a fairly principled person. That is, I’ve chosen to live my life in a way that reflects my convictions. ... I’ve known that Facebook, the company, doesn’t line up with my politics for a while and have written about (almost 2 years ago) how uncomfortable the site makes me feel. On Leaving Facebook: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16640855 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16640855
- notahacker 9y ago
  I've seen some pretty stupid analogies in my time, but the idea that logging onto a web service other people use to broadcast stuff they want to broadcast to the world is "violating their personal space" in a manner akin to covering their lawn in trash is going to take some beating.
  - avoidit 9y ago
    I have seen some pretty stupid replies in my time, but a reply espousing the idea that someone who doesn't get the actual analogy will have a pet list of "pretty stupid analogies" is going to take some beating.
  - loup-vaillant 9y ago
    Revealing something about you reveals something about everyone around you too. Facebook happens to have the means to correlate all this information, and use it to its advantage. It's not just looking at what others broadcast. Facebook keeps track of your likes, your navigation patterns, and let others access that. So not only do they know what your friend broadcast, they know who is watching, when, how frequently. Finally, there's the social pressure. I have been a victim 2 years back: forced to subscribed to Facebook because my orchestra were using it to communicate loads of important information (I have since deleted that account). By watching your friend's broadcast on Facebook, you contribute to, or at least fail to counter, that social pressure. That said, I reckon you're probably a victim that social pressure as well. I won't throw the first stone.
SkyMarshal 9y ago
For #3 why not just email? There may be some marginal convenience features to FB, but email has served that purpose reliably since it was invented.
- WorldMaker 9y ago
  I've known several people that have changed email addresses several times in the last decade, but their FB profile has been stable and always shown the most current email address. Some of them are less technically proficient that rely on whomever their current ISP or employer is for email. Some of them are more technically proficient and use changing email addresses as an Inbox Zero technique or as a nuclear option in spam fighting.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
curuinor 9y ago
I have actually done fine with a cronjob and emails for the last 7 years or so. Releasing the cronjob whenever I'm finished making it a chrome extension. I suppose this business is a pretty good inducement towards getting done a bit faster.
Zelphyr 9y ago
I'm sorry but I just don't buy that as anything more than an excuse because Facebook is so good inducing an addictive response. People have been staying in touch without the likes of Facebook for far longer than Facebook has existed. My wife's grandmother, for example, has reconnected with people she hasn't seen in 70 years. All without Facebook. Sometimes they call. Sometimes they write. If one is going to be in town where the other lives, they plan ahead to meet up. It is clearly possible to do without Facebook and the fact that people use the "but how will I stay connected to my friends/how will I know about events" lines so much proves just how good Facebook has gotten at keeping people addicted. I would encourage you to disable your account and stay off of it for six weeks. I think you'll be surprised at the results.
krapp 9y ago
The problem is, the "automatically updating" part of that rolodex is what requires a vast, privacy breaching, centralized surveillance infrastructure.
gehwartzen 9y ago
Wouldn't this (Auto updating rolodex) be something trivial to add to any other platform? On almost every forum one can always click on the username and see post history and a bio. As long as the the fields of interest are included (phone/email/etc) it would serve the same purpose. As usual its the critical mass problem but facebook has done nothing particularly technologically inovative.
flukus 9y ago
> For the life of me I can't remember where I originally read this quote, but it forever changed my perspective of FB. Paraphrased: "Facebook is 3 things: the wall, the messaging, and an automatically updating rolodex." Many apps fill 1 and/or 2, but nothing satisfies #3. There is no alternative. Have you considered that maybe there cannot be a facebook replacement that won't suffer the same problems? Deleting facebook isn't a painless thing to do, it requires some sacrifice on your part.

vanderZwan 9y ago

Honestly, I think this is more a problem of perception than anything else. For one thing, loss aversion makes us think we'll miss things way more than we'll do (see also: FOMO). Losing contact with people mostly involves not thinking about them. If you don't think about them, you don't miss them either. Friends come and go in life, it's natural. And if you did miss them, you'd put in work to keep in touch through other means. I know because I have a circle of close friends that I only see once or twice a year, but stay in touch with through email. Guess what: it works. And if you migrate, you just email your friends about it. Similarly, although I don't know if this is generally possible in every country, but I have diligently carried over my first mobile phone number from carrier to carrier. When I moved abroad to Sweden for a few years, I switched to the absolute cheapest minimal carrier to essentially "invest" in keeping that phone identity. This means that people who met me as far back as the late nineties can still reach me on it. Friends that I have made later even know they can rely on this, that this is my "policy". I'm about to leave Sweden for Germany. Still keeping that Dutch phone number. In fact, I'm leaving it with all of my friends here, and use it for all the messaging apps that rely on phone numbers. And finally, just claim your own bit of internet and get a website. Your friends can search for you.

nothrabannosir 9y ago
> Losing contact with people mostly involves not thinking about them. If you don't think about them, you don't miss them either. This is so far removed from how I interact with the world around me that I have a hard time empathising. I’ll keep it scientific and factual: more than once, I’ve gone back to a place I visited over a decade ago. I went on Facebook, found the person that used to live there, got in touch, and had varying types of “fun”, as humans call it. The crucial point here is that I can’t tell in advance which places, until I decide to go. I… your suggestion for the future is to “not think about them”? Ehh.. no thank you?
- buvanshak 9y ago
  >The crucial point here is that I can’t tell in advance which places, until I decide to go. You should have the foresight to write down their contact details. You meet a person, exchange contact details. Save it in your phone or cloud or what ever. Is that too hard? Will you run out of storage space if you save contact info for every person you meet? But hey, that requires a moments thought. Am I going to have to contact this person? No, we can't spent working a couple of neurons for that thought. I think people should use their heads more. To exercise fore sight. To actually remember birth dates etc, to plan things with out constantly "updating" on a mobile phone/social media...
  - y4mi 9y ago
    But the other person probably changed emails, didnt keep his phone number and moved to a new City. What now? I personally dont use Facebook, but youre not actually painting a realistic picture
    - buvanshak 9y ago
      > But the other person probably changed emails, didnt keep his phone number and moved to a new City. What now? What if the other person did all these and didn't update facebook? Tough luck. Move on. Right? Same thing. If they changed email, and didn't keep phone number etc, then they probably don't want you to contact them anyway...

rublev 9y ago

Delete facebook and 5 seconds later you won't remember most of the people you keep in contact with as those connections don't matter.

petercooper 9y ago

For me there's a #4: shared interest groups. There is nowhere else online that people in my town are all discussing local matters together, or.. things like the New York Times podcast listeners club, various car groups, etc.

walterstucco 9y ago

Ask them for their email address and/or phone number, while telling them you're leaving Facebook Whoever writes you back is worth keeping as a contact When I moved to another city my flatmate threw a secret party at my favourite bar 400 people showed up After 5 years I still keep in touch with at most 20 of them With most of them I've been friend since long before that night

z_open 9y ago

It being an automatically updating rolodex is the issue. Live without this luxury so that people can maintain their freedom to privacy. Keep in mind that even if you don't care about your own freedom to privacy, you using these services removes everyone else's freedom to privacy, even when they have not consented.

Mc_Big_G 9y ago

For some of us, the convenience isn't worth selling your soul and selling out your country.

lucideer 9y ago

> nothing satisfies #3. There is no alternative. For me at least, there is one app that's starting to mitigate #3 (if not specifically "fill" the gap): WhatsApp. Granted, it's also owned by Facebook, so we're almost back at square one, but it's still an interesting case simply because it doesn't fill the gap, but rather works around it. Which gives me a bit more hope that other tools could too. WhatsApp does two things: 1. Creates a network from your (possibly completely offline) "rolodex" (phone contact list). And augments these contacts with info specific to their ecosystem. 2. Adds discovery. Through groups, I can connect with new contacts. Similar to Facebook's "suggest friend" feature. My general point here is the an autoupdating rolodex is only required in a closed ecosystem. WhatsApp does do it's level best to close off its ecosystem, but it's a different paradigm to Facebook, and one currently dependent on existing phone numbers, so it ends up a little more open, and for me seems like a nice demo of how hooking into existing networks (people's saved contact lists) can get you pretty far.

avoidit 9y ago

>> For better or for worse Its definitely the latter. Not because there is something inherently bad about staying in touch. It is because you do so despite the knowledge that you are not doing it at zero cost to others who care about their privacy. Analogy: I wish I could just throw all my garbage over into my neighbors premises rather than walk all the way down to the recycle bin. But I don't. I am actually violating their personal space. By using Facebook, you are also violating the privacy of folks who disagree with your view, and this is now open knowledge. And things don't even out if my neighbors are also doing the same to their neighbors over on the other side (but, but, everyone is on Facebook!). Ultimately, all of us will end up living amidst a pile of stinking garbage, which is an excellent analogy to what is happening with social networks today.

mhb 9y ago
For better or worse, I consider myself a fairly principled person. That is, I’ve chosen to live my life in a way that reflects my convictions. ... I’ve known that Facebook, the company, doesn’t line up with my politics for a while and have written about (almost 2 years ago) how uncomfortable the site makes me feel. On Leaving Facebook: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16640855 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16640855
notahacker 9y ago
I've seen some pretty stupid analogies in my time, but the idea that logging onto a web service other people use to broadcast stuff they want to broadcast to the world is "violating their personal space" in a manner akin to covering their lawn in trash is going to take some beating.
- avoidit 9y ago
  I have seen some pretty stupid replies in my time, but a reply espousing the idea that someone who doesn't get the actual analogy will have a pet list of "pretty stupid analogies" is going to take some beating.
- loup-vaillant 9y ago
  Revealing something about you reveals something about everyone around you too. Facebook happens to have the means to correlate all this information, and use it to its advantage. It's not just looking at what others broadcast. Facebook keeps track of your likes, your navigation patterns, and let others access that. So not only do they know what your friend broadcast, they know who is watching, when, how frequently. Finally, there's the social pressure. I have been a victim 2 years back: forced to subscribed to Facebook because my orchestra were using it to communicate loads of important information (I have since deleted that account). By watching your friend's broadcast on Facebook, you contribute to, or at least fail to counter, that social pressure. That said, I reckon you're probably a victim that social pressure as well. I won't throw the first stone.

SkyMarshal 9y ago

For #3 why not just email? There may be some marginal convenience features to FB, but email has served that purpose reliably since it was invented.

WorldMaker 9y ago
I've known several people that have changed email addresses several times in the last decade, but their FB profile has been stable and always shown the most current email address. Some of them are less technically proficient that rely on whomever their current ISP or employer is for email. Some of them are more technically proficient and use changing email addresses as an Inbox Zero technique or as a nuclear option in spam fighting.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]

curuinor 9y ago

I have actually done fine with a cronjob and emails for the last 7 years or so. Releasing the cronjob whenever I'm finished making it a chrome extension. I suppose this business is a pretty good inducement towards getting done a bit faster.

Zelphyr 9y ago

I'm sorry but I just don't buy that as anything more than an excuse because Facebook is so good inducing an addictive response. People have been staying in touch without the likes of Facebook for far longer than Facebook has existed. My wife's grandmother, for example, has reconnected with people she hasn't seen in 70 years. All without Facebook. Sometimes they call. Sometimes they write. If one is going to be in town where the other lives, they plan ahead to meet up. It is clearly possible to do without Facebook and the fact that people use the "but how will I stay connected to my friends/how will I know about events" lines so much proves just how good Facebook has gotten at keeping people addicted. I would encourage you to disable your account and stay off of it for six weeks. I think you'll be surprised at the results.

krapp 9y ago

The problem is, the "automatically updating" part of that rolodex is what requires a vast, privacy breaching, centralized surveillance infrastructure.

gehwartzen 9y ago

Wouldn't this (Auto updating rolodex) be something trivial to add to any other platform? On almost every forum one can always click on the username and see post history and a bio. As long as the the fields of interest are included (phone/email/etc) it would serve the same purpose. As usual its the critical mass problem but facebook has done nothing particularly technologically inovative.

flukus 9y ago

> For the life of me I can't remember where I originally read this quote, but it forever changed my perspective of FB. Paraphrased: "Facebook is 3 things: the wall, the messaging, and an automatically updating rolodex." Many apps fill 1 and/or 2, but nothing satisfies #3. There is no alternative. Have you considered that maybe there cannot be a facebook replacement that won't suffer the same problems? Deleting facebook isn't a painless thing to do, it requires some sacrifice on your part.