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I fail to see how anyone "needs" an alternative to Facebook, or Facebook itself. This is not a judgement on those that use it, if it's giving people value then

I fail to see how anyone "needs" an alternative to Facebook, or Facebook itself. This is not a judgement on those that use it, if it's giving people value then they should continue using it, and judging from their user's numbers it is valuable to at least a portion of the population. That being said, it wasn't around 15 years ago and who knows how long it'll stay around. I'm sure people will handle a world without Facebook just fine once it's out.

frgtpsswrdlame 9y ago
The point is that marketplace will never provide the kind of solution society wants. What people want is an easy-to-use way to stay in touch, keep up with and communicate with their friends via the web. What people don't want is to be targeted by advertisers/political campaigns or have their data saved and sold. The market can only take us to the local max of 'you can keep in touch but your data is saved/sold/used', to move to the global max of 'you can keep in touch and your data is safe' we need a solution which isn't tied to profit motive.
- mathgeek 9y ago
  > What people want is an easy-to-use way to stay in touch, keep up with and communicate with their friends via the web. Some would say that email and text messaging already cover this. It feels like your description is missing a clause such as "without having to actually take the time to otherwise nourish those relationships individually."
  - protonimitate 9y ago
    It always surprises me when people claim they have no way of keeping in contacts with others outside of facebook. Phone numbers and emails have worked perfectly fine so far. What facebook provides is the feeling of staying connected without any of the actual connection.
    - sgt101 9y ago
      >Phone numbers and emails have worked perfectly fine so far. I'm glad that works for you, some other people have other experiences.
  - sgt101 9y ago
    Some would say that, others would say that they enjoy seeing and making posts. I don't think that your clause is generous or thoughtful, some people have challenges in their lives that make traditional methods of "nourishing relationships" difficult, why should they be denied a mechanism for developing and continuing friendship?
- jerf 9y ago
  Why can't this need be met by a corporation that gets paid for what they are doing? The size of the problem here is bounded by the amount of money the companies are making invading your privacy. Simple math [1] places it at about $20/year/user for Facebook, who are probably on the upper end of what they can make by doing this. So to incentivize a company not to stay in business via selling your data, that's the bar you have to leap. That hardly seems a big enough problem that the only solution is to turn over your social network to be run by Donald Trump, who, I feel I must remind many of you, whenever you say "The $GOVERNMENT should...", you really ought to remember that "Donald Trump" is a valid expansion of the term $GOVERNMENT. Or whoever else it is you don't like, it doesn't matter to my argument, I'm just reading the room here. As a sidebar, if you want to get a sense of the scope of the damage that Facebook is doing to our civilization, consider all the ways in which they manipulate you, the things your friends posted that you wanted to see but didn't, the torrent of ads they have PhDs working overtime to figure out how to hit you with, enrolling you in psychological studies without your consent, embroiling you in family or friend drama that you'd rather not be embroiled in and potentially cutting off contact with people over it, and who knows what fingers on what scales when it comes to what you do and do not see in the news... for TWENTY DOLLARS. Of revenue, not even profit! Talk about your new twist on the banality of evil. [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16688400 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16688400
  - frgtpsswrdlame 9y ago
    >Why can't this need be met by a corporation that gets paid for what they are doing? Because you can't serve two masters. For-profit corporations are going to side with profit over privacy when they conflict. >The size of the problem here is bounded by the amount of money the companies are making invading your privacy. Simple math [1] places it at about $20/year/user for Facebook, who are probably on the upper end of what they can make by doing this. So to incentivize a company not to stay in business via selling your data, that's the bar you have to leap. That $20 isn't just for costs it's also for profit. How cheaply could Facebook run if it didn't have to return any money to it's shareholders? That's a major case for either a non-profit or a nationalized service. >whenever you say "The $GOVERNMENT should...", you really ought to remember that "Donald Trump" is a valid expansion of the term $GOVERNMENT. Well here let's put it like this. When you leave something up to the $MARKET you should remember that 'literally anybody' (including Donald Trump) is a valid expansion of the term $MARKET. With government at least there is some (admittedly meager) level of democratic accountability. How much accountability is there in the market? I think we've seen how these privacy violations play out with Equifax already. Richard Smith, Mark Begor, Mark Zuckerberg these people are just interchangeable names/faces and no matter who you swap in and out of these roles the desires of a corporation in the market place to maintain and increase profitability will weigh on them the same. I prefer a system where these people are directly accountable to the people ie nationalized services, not a system where their accountability is obfuscated and mediated by the market.
hux_ 9y ago
Well ever since social media converted the US into the United States of Meme Generators & Consumers, it is not really possible to go back without mass lobotomies.
bouncing 9y ago
Of course no one "needs" Facebook. Or a cell phone. Or computers. Or coffee. But they're still of value. The values of Facebook are varied. I'm a full-time traveler and it's easy to find an English-speaking Facebook group for any country I visit, which is of real value and note something I would otherwise find. Facebook is also useful for sharing photos with friends and family without necessarily sharing them with the world like you used to with Flickr or Smugmug. Granted, there are other ways of having forums, or photo sharing, or anything else. But that misses the point. For whatever reason, Facebook became the de facto way to do certain things. And if you want to delete facebook, it's nice to have an alternative with some feasibility in reaching a critical mass.
curun1r 9y ago
Ahh, but the article didn't say that people need Facebook. They said that we need an alternative to Facebook. That's two different things. If people are going to use Facebook (and it's been shown that people will) and Facebook use is going to cause systematic problems (as it's apparent that it does), we may need an alternative to Facebook that is less problematic. That's a very different statement than the one you're responding to.

frgtpsswrdlame 9y ago

The point is that marketplace will never provide the kind of solution society wants. What people want is an easy-to-use way to stay in touch, keep up with and communicate with their friends via the web. What people don't want is to be targeted by advertisers/political campaigns or have their data saved and sold. The market can only take us to the local max of 'you can keep in touch but your data is saved/sold/used', to move to the global max of 'you can keep in touch and your data is safe' we need a solution which isn't tied to profit motive.

mathgeek 9y ago
> What people want is an easy-to-use way to stay in touch, keep up with and communicate with their friends via the web. Some would say that email and text messaging already cover this. It feels like your description is missing a clause such as "without having to actually take the time to otherwise nourish those relationships individually."
- protonimitate 9y ago
  It always surprises me when people claim they have no way of keeping in contacts with others outside of facebook. Phone numbers and emails have worked perfectly fine so far. What facebook provides is the feeling of staying connected without any of the actual connection.
  - sgt101 9y ago
    >Phone numbers and emails have worked perfectly fine so far. I'm glad that works for you, some other people have other experiences.
- sgt101 9y ago
  Some would say that, others would say that they enjoy seeing and making posts. I don't think that your clause is generous or thoughtful, some people have challenges in their lives that make traditional methods of "nourishing relationships" difficult, why should they be denied a mechanism for developing and continuing friendship?
jerf 9y ago
Why can't this need be met by a corporation that gets paid for what they are doing? The size of the problem here is bounded by the amount of money the companies are making invading your privacy. Simple math [1] places it at about $20/year/user for Facebook, who are probably on the upper end of what they can make by doing this. So to incentivize a company not to stay in business via selling your data, that's the bar you have to leap. That hardly seems a big enough problem that the only solution is to turn over your social network to be run by Donald Trump, who, I feel I must remind many of you, whenever you say "The $GOVERNMENT should...", you really ought to remember that "Donald Trump" is a valid expansion of the term $GOVERNMENT. Or whoever else it is you don't like, it doesn't matter to my argument, I'm just reading the room here. As a sidebar, if you want to get a sense of the scope of the damage that Facebook is doing to our civilization, consider all the ways in which they manipulate you, the things your friends posted that you wanted to see but didn't, the torrent of ads they have PhDs working overtime to figure out how to hit you with, enrolling you in psychological studies without your consent, embroiling you in family or friend drama that you'd rather not be embroiled in and potentially cutting off contact with people over it, and who knows what fingers on what scales when it comes to what you do and do not see in the news... for TWENTY DOLLARS. Of revenue, not even profit! Talk about your new twist on the banality of evil. [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16688400 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16688400
- frgtpsswrdlame 9y ago
  >Why can't this need be met by a corporation that gets paid for what they are doing? Because you can't serve two masters. For-profit corporations are going to side with profit over privacy when they conflict. >The size of the problem here is bounded by the amount of money the companies are making invading your privacy. Simple math [1] places it at about $20/year/user for Facebook, who are probably on the upper end of what they can make by doing this. So to incentivize a company not to stay in business via selling your data, that's the bar you have to leap. That $20 isn't just for costs it's also for profit. How cheaply could Facebook run if it didn't have to return any money to it's shareholders? That's a major case for either a non-profit or a nationalized service. >whenever you say "The $GOVERNMENT should...", you really ought to remember that "Donald Trump" is a valid expansion of the term $GOVERNMENT. Well here let's put it like this. When you leave something up to the $MARKET you should remember that 'literally anybody' (including Donald Trump) is a valid expansion of the term $MARKET. With government at least there is some (admittedly meager) level of democratic accountability. How much accountability is there in the market? I think we've seen how these privacy violations play out with Equifax already. Richard Smith, Mark Begor, Mark Zuckerberg these people are just interchangeable names/faces and no matter who you swap in and out of these roles the desires of a corporation in the market place to maintain and increase profitability will weigh on them the same. I prefer a system where these people are directly accountable to the people ie nationalized services, not a system where their accountability is obfuscated and mediated by the market.

hux_ 9y ago

Well ever since social media converted the US into the United States of Meme Generators & Consumers, it is not really possible to go back without mass lobotomies.

bouncing 9y ago

Of course no one "needs" Facebook. Or a cell phone. Or computers. Or coffee. But they're still of value. The values of Facebook are varied. I'm a full-time traveler and it's easy to find an English-speaking Facebook group for any country I visit, which is of real value and note something I would otherwise find. Facebook is also useful for sharing photos with friends and family without necessarily sharing them with the world like you used to with Flickr or Smugmug. Granted, there are other ways of having forums, or photo sharing, or anything else. But that misses the point. For whatever reason, Facebook became the de facto way to do certain things. And if you want to delete facebook, it's nice to have an alternative with some feasibility in reaching a critical mass.

curun1r 9y ago

Ahh, but the article didn't say that people need Facebook. They said that we need an alternative to Facebook. That's two different things. If people are going to use Facebook (and it's been shown that people will) and Facebook use is going to cause systematic problems (as it's apparent that it does), we may need an alternative to Facebook that is less problematic. That's a very different statement than the one you're responding to.