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Digg and IE "died" because there was a real practical incentive to move towards alternatives. This Facebook thing is mostly ideological at the core, in terms of

by simias 9y ago

Digg and IE "died" because there was a real practical incentive to move towards alternatives. This Facebook thing is mostly ideological at the core, in terms of day-to-day user experience it's no better or worse than it was a month ago. Digg also never was more than a small speck of dust compared to Facebook, even at the apex of its popularity. Facebook's huge network effect is hard to overcome. If you want Facebook to die you have to come up with an alternative with improved usability to convince people to switch over. Now you have do that with the added handicap of "do no evil" (so less money from targeted advertising etc...) while fighting to gain market share against some of the biggest companies in the world. My guess is that if you manage to do all of that you'll just end up bought by Facebook anyway.

joering2 9y ago
> My guess is that if you manage to do all of that you'll just end up bought by Facebook anyway. Of course.. unfortunately you can't say no when some behemoth wants to buy you. /s
- wmeredith 9y ago
  It's indeed a rare breed that can, especially when the checks come with nine zeros.
- DesiLurker 9y ago
  unless the privacy protections are codified in the company charter from day one with some poison pill type mechanism. last I heard a social network called ello was trying to do that. lately they have rebranded themselves into a 'artist social net'. IMO still worth the switch if moving with close friends. Honestly if fb were to just take the money from me and leave me alone i'd be happy to pay that ransom for my friends.
soylentcola 9y ago
Additionally (at least for the IE example) there's another huge difference: those who wished to use an IE alternative could do so and continue to engage the same activities and access all the same content--with a few ActiveX exceptions--as they could before. Most importantly, those who wished to make the switch from IE to Firefox or Chrome or Safari or Opera, etc. could do so without requiring any additional action by others. Again, outside of a few compatibility issues on a few sites, I could change the software I used without convincing webmasters or other users to do anything. Same went for webmail. I could switch to Yahoo or Gmail or Hotmail or whatever I wanted without requiring me to convince every other relative, friend, and business contact to do the same. With something like Facebook, you can't just use a different platform to interact with those same people in the same way unless you convince them all to migrate with you. If everyone you know only wants to use Facebook, then that's your option. You can't set up your profile on Diaspora or Google+ or whatever and expect to enjoy all the things you prefer about them because there's no shared protocol like there is with web browsing or email.

by simias 9y ago

joering2 9y ago

> My guess is that if you manage to do all of that you'll just end up bought by Facebook anyway. Of course.. unfortunately you can't say no when some behemoth wants to buy you. /s

wmeredith 9y ago
It's indeed a rare breed that can, especially when the checks come with nine zeros.
DesiLurker 9y ago
unless the privacy protections are codified in the company charter from day one with some poison pill type mechanism. last I heard a social network called ello was trying to do that. lately they have rebranded themselves into a 'artist social net'. IMO still worth the switch if moving with close friends. Honestly if fb were to just take the money from me and leave me alone i'd be happy to pay that ransom for my friends.

soylentcola 9y ago

Additionally (at least for the IE example) there's another huge difference: those who wished to use an IE alternative could do so and continue to engage the same activities and access all the same content--with a few ActiveX exceptions--as they could before. Most importantly, those who wished to make the switch from IE to Firefox or Chrome or Safari or Opera, etc. could do so without requiring any additional action by others. Again, outside of a few compatibility issues on a few sites, I could change the software I used without convincing webmasters or other users to do anything. Same went for webmail. I could switch to Yahoo or Gmail or Hotmail or whatever I wanted without requiring me to convince every other relative, friend, and business contact to do the same. With something like Facebook, you can't just use a different platform to interact with those same people in the same way unless you convince them all to migrate with you. If everyone you know only wants to use Facebook, then that's your option. You can't set up your profile on Diaspora or Google+ or whatever and expect to enjoy all the things you prefer about them because there's no shared protocol like there is with web browsing or email.