9 ms·

The “Facebook Nevers”

102 points by imartin2k 8y ago

zitterbewegung 8y ago
And this is why Facebook bought Instagram. And in the future whatever they can acquire later. That is one strategy that can work in these situations. So younger people would not signup for Facebook and Instagram.
travisr 8y ago
"The fall of Facebook was never going to be people quitting the service en masse — it’s too interwoven into the fabric of the way many of us use the web these days — it was always going to be the people who never really use the service in the first place. Kids." I've noticed this amongst my family. The cousins, etc I have under 16 either don't have a facebook account or abandoned shortly after creating it. It's "uncool" because their parents see everything they do on there -- I know you can customize your sharing, but I doubt they know or care to be that careful on Facebook. "This is why the smartest thing Facebook ever did was buy Instagram. Instagram is likely past a billion active users on its own now." Unfortunately, this is why I don't use IG. I want to, but it seems impossible for me to keep it out of my Facebook like I want to. FB always pops up with "look what your friends are doing on IG" and I don't want my photography to be plastered in front of my grandparents.
- lucasmullens 8y ago
  I don't think it's that hard to not share Instagram posts to Facebook. Can't you just unlink your account?
  - travisr 8y ago
    Not that I could find. I remember trying to use an alternative email even, but it was my back up email on Facebook and it linked them automatically.
    - stephenhuey 8y ago
      If this is the case for you, maybe it only applies to newer Instagram accounts since I had mine long before the acquisition and my posts go to FB only by choice (and I almost never choose that anymore).
  - ClassyJacket 8y ago
    Officially you can, but it doesn't respect it. It won't share the posts directly, but it'll still suggest you to your friends based on it.
- MisterTea 8y ago
  I noticed this among friends and co-workers who are mostly under 30. They all have Facebook but switched to Instagram or Snapchat. Their Facebook accounts are stagnant save for the few likes and staying connected with older family who joined FB to keep in touch. The big reason seems to be the fact hat FB was too public. People were all in each other business and it gets ugly. Snap and IG are more direct, more one-on-one so to speak (at least my perception, I don't use social) giving people more privacy to post and like things they may not want mom/dad/grandma to see.
brian-armstrong 8y ago
The article claims that life without Facebook is impossible. I haven't had an account for years and although I don't know what I'm missing, that statement seems exaggerated. Is this article more a reflection of the author's poor self control than of reality?
- ianferrel 8y ago
  Yeah, I also haven't had a facebook account for years, and I seem to be muddling along fine. It turns out that all those people I had shallow social connections to from some time in our past? I don't miss 'em.
- tivert 8y ago
  > The article claims that life without Facebook is impossible. I haven't had an account for years and although I don't know what I'm missing, that statement seems exaggerated. Is this article more a reflection of the author's poor self control than of reality? Not necessarily. Lots of social circles use Facebook Events to organize get togethers, and not having an active Facebook account leads to you being left out. The people leaving you out may only be acquaintances, but that doesn't mean it's ok. This is the reason why I still have a Facebook account. It's obviously and explicitly inactive, and I only log in when I get an event invite.
  - wildmindwriting 8y ago
    This is the one problem I have with not having a Facebook account. There are one or two groups that I would like to be a member of but their online forum is only available through their Facebook group. Not ever having an account with Fb prevents me from signing up. I have many reasons to dislike Fb but at the top of that is how gated it makes communities.
    - Mirioron 8y ago
      On the other hand, do you want to get involved with people who are okay with such gated communities? It sounds to me like there would be a difference in values.
paulie_a 8y ago
While I still have a Facebook account I simply find myself using it less frequently. There is zero chance my engagement will ever increase. They have lost me and my views of their shitty advertising. And their advertising is complete crap. For a company focused on targeted ads they are absolutely terrible at it.
- blhack 8y ago
  They have the data, so obviously they know more about the effects of their tweaks than I do, but: It seems like I don't really get fresh content anymore. It seems like a few, mostly stale stories from people I barely talk to. That makes it harder to be engaged in the service, and it makes me use the service less. What I wish I could have (by default) is just a chronological list of things that people have posted. Maybe there is a team of facebook who needs to justify their jobs or something? I don't want my feed optimized at all. I do the optimizing by selecting who I follow.
  - tivert 8y ago
    > They have the data, so obviously they know more about the effects of their tweaks than I do, but: > It seems like I don't really get fresh content anymore. It seems like a few, mostly stale stories from people I barely talk to. That makes it harder to be engaged in the service, and it makes me use the service less. It's entirely possible that their algorithms fail for your personality/usage patterns, but are successful enough on other accounts to make up for your loss of "engagement" from Facebook's perspective. > What I wish I could have (by default) is just a chronological list of things that people have posted. > Maybe there is a team of facebook who needs to justify their jobs or something? I don't want my feed optimized at all. I do the optimizing by selecting who I follow. They don't want you to do the optimizing for yourself because that means they can't nudge you into doing what serves them the most.
  - LeoPanthera 8y ago
    > What I wish I could have (by default) is just a chronological list of things that people have posted. Bookmark this URL, which shows your feed chronologically: https://www.facebook.com/?sk=h_chr https://www.facebook.com/?sk=h_chr
waterphone 8y ago
I'm a "Social Media Never", and an increasing number of people I know are the same. We might sometimes use some forums or news/comment aggregators like HN or Reddit at some level, but none of the big social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, etc.
- majewsky 8y ago
  This categorization doesn't pass the sniff test. Reddit is as much a "big social media platform" as Twitter is a "forum or news/comment aggregator". The main difference IMO is the average quality of discussion.
  - tlynchpin 8y ago
    reddit works great without an account.
ianamartin 8y ago
That's pretty much how I've always seen it. Facebook as a singular product will eventually wilt and go the way of friendster and myspace. The smart thing Zuckerberg has done is to keep acquiring the next big things. Facebook as a company is extremely well-situated and won't be going anywhere any time soon, even though Facebook will eventually die out or become utterly worthless.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- tivert 8y ago
  > The smart thing Zuckerberg has done is to keep acquiring the next big things. Though that strategy requires the cooperation of both the government and the leaders of those "next big things." The founder of the next big social network may prefer to be the next Mark Zuckerberg rather than the next Kevin Systrom.
  - majewsky 8y ago
    > The founder of the next big social network may prefer to be the next Mark Zuckerberg rather than the next Kevin Systrom. /me looks at Wikipedia page of Kevin Systrom > Net worth: 1.6 billion $ I think I'd be okay with being Kevin Systrom. (Especially considering that Systrom is mostly unknown in the general public, whereas Zuck has a large amount of people who personally hate him.)
    - tivert 8y ago
      > /me looks at Wikipedia page of Kevin Systrom >> Net worth: 1.6 billion $ Net worth of Mark Zuckerberg: 75.6 billion USD > I think I'd be okay with being Kevin Systrom. (Especially considering that Systrom is mostly unknown in the general public, whereas Zuck has a large amount of people who personally hate him.) I would probably make the same decision as Systrom, given the opportunity, but I don't think everyone would. Some people would rather be the new tech titan rather than the guy who sold himself out to keep the old tech titan in power for another decade. There are also other motivations a found may have to not sell out to Zuckerberg. In my original comment considered including the WhatsApp founders. They both made out handsomely, but their creation will be corrupted to fit Zuckerberg's privacy-free vision rather than their privacy-preserving one.
product50 8y ago
I think the main question is what happens to the "Facebook nevers" generation once they graduate from college. Do they continue not using Facebook or do they accept that given the lifestyles in 20s, 30s and 40s, Facebook is the right product to be in. The fact that Snapchat, which is a very popular product for teens/college users, usage continues to stagnate tells me that the "Facebook nevers" is not really a proven theory but just another hypothesis. Instagram, otoh, is popular across all age groups.
amelius 8y ago
The only thing in Facebook that keeps me on the platform is Events. I wish somebody would create an open, federated Events implementation, and copy all event data (including rsvps) from FB continuously.
- bootsz 8y ago
  Yeah, this. I've noticed some people in my family / social circle have starting using Evite for event invitations in the past year or so, presumably because they know a lot of people don't check facebook regularly anymore. Functionally though it's neither the same nor as good of a product as FB events. A protocol-based and/or federated solution would be great... but then again people are trying to do this for all the other functions of social media with little success so far. The incentives of capitalism are hard to overcome.
- nunodonato 8y ago
  I have been using Meetup for the past month and I'm pleasantly surprised. Besides the even thing, your group also gets a discussion board, mailing list, photo sharing and a few other tools. The cost might be a barrier to the adoption but I'm hoping it will grow more
code_duck 8y ago
Hardly a novel analysis, or any new information. It has been written about for years how Facebook is weak in the under 13 demographic. That's why they not only bought Instagram, but also thoroughly copied Snapchat and crammed it into the Instagram app. Similarly, jokes have been out there for a while about how nobody is on Facebook anymore but your grandma. Personally, I did quit Facebook, after years of less rewarding interactions, and an increasing amount of friction with the site. Often the newsfeed's choices of content felt personally insulting. It's a habit to visit, even though it really doesn't offer much, like smoking. What I did is I change my password to something that I don't remember to break the habit. Then, in the time it would take to recover the password and sign in, I have already remembered that I don't want to. I haven't been there in a couple of weeks, and the last times I did, my notifications were quite dull. One thing that reinforces quitting is that not using the site for a while seems to greatly reduce the reach of posts when you return. When I post content and get no responses it feels humiliating, like I appear to have no friends who are interested in my content. In reality, Facebook is showing my content to very few people. I get about 10 times the response on Instagram, from basically the same group of people, and it was even more so before they partially ruined Instagram by making the feed more like Facebook.
- mrspeaker 8y ago
  I use your "choose a random password" trick for every site now. If I want to "like" or reply to anything then it's a real effort - so I have to be very motivated to do it, or have something actually useful to contribute. It's refreshing to get rid of that "must give my 2 cents on everything" urge. Except, you know, in this case. The "Me too!" urge was too strong so I reset my HN password ;)
- aryehof 8y ago
  > "Often the newsfeed's choices of content felt personally insulting" That sentence particularly resonated with me. I recently quit Quora, and it perfectly describes my recent experience there.
  - handsomechad 8y ago
    Quora has become an absolute cess-pool of thinly veiled content marketing / spam and pseudo-intellectual self-help Ted-talky BS, in my experience at least. When it was first out there were a lot of smart writers posting thought-provoking content, a lot of (SV) insiders giving interesting anecdata, etc. It seems that it has devolved into a more yahoo answers meets TED / stevepavlina.com type community now, but maybe that's just my feed. I admit that I've hardly used it in the past few years so it could just be my shitty and uncurated list of topics and people i follow
hotwire 8y ago
oh gee, i just LOVE websites that have about 300 pixels of readable space. get rid of the huge fixed headers and fixed footers garbage. PLEASE. fuck this stupid trend.
- omeid2 8y ago
  There is a fix for Medium[0] but the general trend of massive boilerplates and little content really needs to die. 0. https://github.com/thebaer/MMRA https://github.com/thebaer/MMRA
rblion 8y ago
People are full of shit. Talk a big game when they benefit from it socially but when it comes to actually making a change, taking a stand, voting with dollars, etc. They come up with 'But I'm busy' 'But I'm tired' 'But I'm lonely' 'But everyone else is doing it' and the catch-all 'I'm only human'. I'm guilty as charged too. I don't have a Facebook but I still eat fish, drive a car, etc, etc. This trait right here is why I am not optimistic about the future no matter how much technology progresses.
- eevilspock 8y ago
  Convictions aren't convictions if you don't live them. Principled developers quitting Microsoft GitHub? Apparently as rare as a black female employee at Google. @rblion email me if you want to help nudge the needle. https://github.com/upend/IF_MS_BUYS_GITHUB_IMMA_OUT https://github.com/upend/IF_MS_BUYS_GITHUB_IMMA_OUT
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- jdeca568 8y ago
  Everybody is guilty in some way of not making a change, or not taking a stand, whatever the 'good' or 'bad' subject that is. Still, no single indvidual is to blame in most cases. The education and the media in practice are means to shape the values, believes and perception of people. At the mass scale, people flows into an unstoppable current, growing, fed by itself. Taking a stand against these currents from the outside would be suicide. (Fortunately there is not only one current to go into, yet). FB will likely reach a dead end someday, but that sort of current will continue to flow. IMHO, the best effort for an individual is trying to get other individuals realize and have some understanding in what kind of current they are flowing.
- bad_user 8y ago
  If you think people are full of shit, you've been listening to the wrong ones. Personally I never claimed that I will quit Facebook, because I know I ain't going to do it, as all my family is on it. That said, I only visit Facebook about once per week or even less, because frankly it's not that interesting. I was also checking out my ads profile. Turns out, I never clicked on any ads. And when posting content, I'm always careful to post for my friends only, which isn't a big list of people. Meaning that in the large scheme of things, Facebook isn't getting much from me. My social network of choice has been Twitter. I also own two cars. But I ride my bike to and from work every day, in all seasons but winter. I ate a lot of meat, but I'm trying to cut down on it due to health benefits. Considering that I gave up smoking, sodas and alcoholic beverages completely, it's a little hard for me to further restrict what I put in my mouth. And yes, I am only human. FYI the actions of any one particular individual to cut down on usage based on moral or social factors are zilch. If you want meaningful change, there are only 3 ways to do it: 1. invent technology that makes the status quo irrelevant, but this isn't actually something that most of us can do 2. keep the competition alive by voting with your wallet, because every dollar counts 3. get involved in politics, or at least talk more often with your representatives, go vote and convince the people around you to do the same Because cutting down on meat due to environmental reasons, quitting Facebook and so on, that's the bullshit we do to feel good, but doesn't actually matter.
JonasJSchreiber 8y ago
Not sure I agree with this argument. If Facebook's appeal dips for prospective users, they'll just buy whatever services those users are using instead. Their revenue comes from ads anyway.
DiabloD3 8y ago
Okay so, I'm reasonably well connected to the world. What can Facebook offer me? I don't use it, I have never had an account, and I always thought it was a fad. It seems that it has taken awhile, but the world has agreed it was a fad and it is now over it. So, what did I actually miss out on?
arkh 8y ago
> I’m talking looooonnnnggg time horizons here. Maybe a decade or more. The life of a social moth. Always going for shining lights. Getting burnt. And having so low a life expectancy that 10 years is long-term.
ericnyamu12345 8y ago
wow.check out this cool forum http://mawazo.byethost7.com/index.php http://mawazo.byethost7.com/index.php

102 points by imartin2k 8y ago

And this is why Facebook bought Instagram. And in the future whatever they can acquire later. That is one strategy that can work in these situations. So younger people would not signup for Facebook and Instagram.

travisr 8y ago

"The fall of Facebook was never going to be people quitting the service en masse — it’s too interwoven into the fabric of the way many of us use the web these days — it was always going to be the people who never really use the service in the first place. Kids." I've noticed this amongst my family. The cousins, etc I have under 16 either don't have a facebook account or abandoned shortly after creating it. It's "uncool" because their parents see everything they do on there -- I know you can customize your sharing, but I doubt they know or care to be that careful on Facebook. "This is why the smartest thing Facebook ever did was buy Instagram. Instagram is likely past a billion active users on its own now." Unfortunately, this is why I don't use IG. I want to, but it seems impossible for me to keep it out of my Facebook like I want to. FB always pops up with "look what your friends are doing on IG" and I don't want my photography to be plastered in front of my grandparents.

lucasmullens 8y ago
I don't think it's that hard to not share Instagram posts to Facebook. Can't you just unlink your account?
- travisr 8y ago
  Not that I could find. I remember trying to use an alternative email even, but it was my back up email on Facebook and it linked them automatically.
  - stephenhuey 8y ago
    If this is the case for you, maybe it only applies to newer Instagram accounts since I had mine long before the acquisition and my posts go to FB only by choice (and I almost never choose that anymore).
- ClassyJacket 8y ago
  Officially you can, but it doesn't respect it. It won't share the posts directly, but it'll still suggest you to your friends based on it.
MisterTea 8y ago
I noticed this among friends and co-workers who are mostly under 30. They all have Facebook but switched to Instagram or Snapchat. Their Facebook accounts are stagnant save for the few likes and staying connected with older family who joined FB to keep in touch. The big reason seems to be the fact hat FB was too public. People were all in each other business and it gets ugly. Snap and IG are more direct, more one-on-one so to speak (at least my perception, I don't use social) giving people more privacy to post and like things they may not want mom/dad/grandma to see.

brian-armstrong 8y ago

The article claims that life without Facebook is impossible. I haven't had an account for years and although I don't know what I'm missing, that statement seems exaggerated. Is this article more a reflection of the author's poor self control than of reality?

ianferrel 8y ago
Yeah, I also haven't had a facebook account for years, and I seem to be muddling along fine. It turns out that all those people I had shallow social connections to from some time in our past? I don't miss 'em.
tivert 8y ago
> The article claims that life without Facebook is impossible. I haven't had an account for years and although I don't know what I'm missing, that statement seems exaggerated. Is this article more a reflection of the author's poor self control than of reality? Not necessarily. Lots of social circles use Facebook Events to organize get togethers, and not having an active Facebook account leads to you being left out. The people leaving you out may only be acquaintances, but that doesn't mean it's ok. This is the reason why I still have a Facebook account. It's obviously and explicitly inactive, and I only log in when I get an event invite.
- wildmindwriting 8y ago
  This is the one problem I have with not having a Facebook account. There are one or two groups that I would like to be a member of but their online forum is only available through their Facebook group. Not ever having an account with Fb prevents me from signing up. I have many reasons to dislike Fb but at the top of that is how gated it makes communities.
  - Mirioron 8y ago
    On the other hand, do you want to get involved with people who are okay with such gated communities? It sounds to me like there would be a difference in values.

paulie_a 8y ago

While I still have a Facebook account I simply find myself using it less frequently. There is zero chance my engagement will ever increase. They have lost me and my views of their shitty advertising. And their advertising is complete crap. For a company focused on targeted ads they are absolutely terrible at it.

blhack 8y ago
They have the data, so obviously they know more about the effects of their tweaks than I do, but: It seems like I don't really get fresh content anymore. It seems like a few, mostly stale stories from people I barely talk to. That makes it harder to be engaged in the service, and it makes me use the service less. What I wish I could have (by default) is just a chronological list of things that people have posted. Maybe there is a team of facebook who needs to justify their jobs or something? I don't want my feed optimized at all. I do the optimizing by selecting who I follow.
- tivert 8y ago
  > They have the data, so obviously they know more about the effects of their tweaks than I do, but: > It seems like I don't really get fresh content anymore. It seems like a few, mostly stale stories from people I barely talk to. That makes it harder to be engaged in the service, and it makes me use the service less. It's entirely possible that their algorithms fail for your personality/usage patterns, but are successful enough on other accounts to make up for your loss of "engagement" from Facebook's perspective. > What I wish I could have (by default) is just a chronological list of things that people have posted. > Maybe there is a team of facebook who needs to justify their jobs or something? I don't want my feed optimized at all. I do the optimizing by selecting who I follow. They don't want you to do the optimizing for yourself because that means they can't nudge you into doing what serves them the most.
- LeoPanthera 8y ago
  > What I wish I could have (by default) is just a chronological list of things that people have posted. Bookmark this URL, which shows your feed chronologically: https://www.facebook.com/?sk=h_chr https://www.facebook.com/?sk=h_chr

waterphone 8y ago

I'm a "Social Media Never", and an increasing number of people I know are the same. We might sometimes use some forums or news/comment aggregators like HN or Reddit at some level, but none of the big social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, etc.

majewsky 8y ago
This categorization doesn't pass the sniff test. Reddit is as much a "big social media platform" as Twitter is a "forum or news/comment aggregator". The main difference IMO is the average quality of discussion.
- tlynchpin 8y ago
  reddit works great without an account.

ianamartin 8y ago

That's pretty much how I've always seen it. Facebook as a singular product will eventually wilt and go the way of friendster and myspace. The smart thing Zuckerberg has done is to keep acquiring the next big things. Facebook as a company is extremely well-situated and won't be going anywhere any time soon, even though Facebook will eventually die out or become utterly worthless.

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
tivert 8y ago
> The smart thing Zuckerberg has done is to keep acquiring the next big things. Though that strategy requires the cooperation of both the government and the leaders of those "next big things." The founder of the next big social network may prefer to be the next Mark Zuckerberg rather than the next Kevin Systrom.
- majewsky 8y ago
  > The founder of the next big social network may prefer to be the next Mark Zuckerberg rather than the next Kevin Systrom. /me looks at Wikipedia page of Kevin Systrom > Net worth: 1.6 billion $ I think I'd be okay with being Kevin Systrom. (Especially considering that Systrom is mostly unknown in the general public, whereas Zuck has a large amount of people who personally hate him.)
  - tivert 8y ago
    > /me looks at Wikipedia page of Kevin Systrom >> Net worth: 1.6 billion $ Net worth of Mark Zuckerberg: 75.6 billion USD > I think I'd be okay with being Kevin Systrom. (Especially considering that Systrom is mostly unknown in the general public, whereas Zuck has a large amount of people who personally hate him.) I would probably make the same decision as Systrom, given the opportunity, but I don't think everyone would. Some people would rather be the new tech titan rather than the guy who sold himself out to keep the old tech titan in power for another decade. There are also other motivations a found may have to not sell out to Zuckerberg. In my original comment considered including the WhatsApp founders. They both made out handsomely, but their creation will be corrupted to fit Zuckerberg's privacy-free vision rather than their privacy-preserving one.

product50 8y ago

I think the main question is what happens to the "Facebook nevers" generation once they graduate from college. Do they continue not using Facebook or do they accept that given the lifestyles in 20s, 30s and 40s, Facebook is the right product to be in. The fact that Snapchat, which is a very popular product for teens/college users, usage continues to stagnate tells me that the "Facebook nevers" is not really a proven theory but just another hypothesis. Instagram, otoh, is popular across all age groups.

amelius 8y ago

The only thing in Facebook that keeps me on the platform is Events. I wish somebody would create an open, federated Events implementation, and copy all event data (including rsvps) from FB continuously.

bootsz 8y ago
Yeah, this. I've noticed some people in my family / social circle have starting using Evite for event invitations in the past year or so, presumably because they know a lot of people don't check facebook regularly anymore. Functionally though it's neither the same nor as good of a product as FB events. A protocol-based and/or federated solution would be great... but then again people are trying to do this for all the other functions of social media with little success so far. The incentives of capitalism are hard to overcome.
nunodonato 8y ago
I have been using Meetup for the past month and I'm pleasantly surprised. Besides the even thing, your group also gets a discussion board, mailing list, photo sharing and a few other tools. The cost might be a barrier to the adoption but I'm hoping it will grow more

code_duck 8y ago

Hardly a novel analysis, or any new information. It has been written about for years how Facebook is weak in the under 13 demographic. That's why they not only bought Instagram, but also thoroughly copied Snapchat and crammed it into the Instagram app. Similarly, jokes have been out there for a while about how nobody is on Facebook anymore but your grandma. Personally, I did quit Facebook, after years of less rewarding interactions, and an increasing amount of friction with the site. Often the newsfeed's choices of content felt personally insulting. It's a habit to visit, even though it really doesn't offer much, like smoking. What I did is I change my password to something that I don't remember to break the habit. Then, in the time it would take to recover the password and sign in, I have already remembered that I don't want to. I haven't been there in a couple of weeks, and the last times I did, my notifications were quite dull. One thing that reinforces quitting is that not using the site for a while seems to greatly reduce the reach of posts when you return. When I post content and get no responses it feels humiliating, like I appear to have no friends who are interested in my content. In reality, Facebook is showing my content to very few people. I get about 10 times the response on Instagram, from basically the same group of people, and it was even more so before they partially ruined Instagram by making the feed more like Facebook.

mrspeaker 8y ago
I use your "choose a random password" trick for every site now. If I want to "like" or reply to anything then it's a real effort - so I have to be very motivated to do it, or have something actually useful to contribute. It's refreshing to get rid of that "must give my 2 cents on everything" urge. Except, you know, in this case. The "Me too!" urge was too strong so I reset my HN password ;)
aryehof 8y ago
> "Often the newsfeed's choices of content felt personally insulting" That sentence particularly resonated with me. I recently quit Quora, and it perfectly describes my recent experience there.
- handsomechad 8y ago
  Quora has become an absolute cess-pool of thinly veiled content marketing / spam and pseudo-intellectual self-help Ted-talky BS, in my experience at least. When it was first out there were a lot of smart writers posting thought-provoking content, a lot of (SV) insiders giving interesting anecdata, etc. It seems that it has devolved into a more yahoo answers meets TED / stevepavlina.com type community now, but maybe that's just my feed. I admit that I've hardly used it in the past few years so it could just be my shitty and uncurated list of topics and people i follow

hotwire 8y ago

oh gee, i just LOVE websites that have about 300 pixels of readable space. get rid of the huge fixed headers and fixed footers garbage. PLEASE. fuck this stupid trend.

omeid2 8y ago
There is a fix for Medium[0] but the general trend of massive boilerplates and little content really needs to die. 0. https://github.com/thebaer/MMRA https://github.com/thebaer/MMRA

rblion 8y ago

People are full of shit. Talk a big game when they benefit from it socially but when it comes to actually making a change, taking a stand, voting with dollars, etc. They come up with 'But I'm busy' 'But I'm tired' 'But I'm lonely' 'But everyone else is doing it' and the catch-all 'I'm only human'. I'm guilty as charged too. I don't have a Facebook but I still eat fish, drive a car, etc, etc. This trait right here is why I am not optimistic about the future no matter how much technology progresses.

eevilspock 8y ago
Convictions aren't convictions if you don't live them. Principled developers quitting Microsoft GitHub? Apparently as rare as a black female employee at Google. @rblion email me if you want to help nudge the needle. https://github.com/upend/IF_MS_BUYS_GITHUB_IMMA_OUT https://github.com/upend/IF_MS_BUYS_GITHUB_IMMA_OUT
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
jdeca568 8y ago
Everybody is guilty in some way of not making a change, or not taking a stand, whatever the 'good' or 'bad' subject that is. Still, no single indvidual is to blame in most cases. The education and the media in practice are means to shape the values, believes and perception of people. At the mass scale, people flows into an unstoppable current, growing, fed by itself. Taking a stand against these currents from the outside would be suicide. (Fortunately there is not only one current to go into, yet). FB will likely reach a dead end someday, but that sort of current will continue to flow. IMHO, the best effort for an individual is trying to get other individuals realize and have some understanding in what kind of current they are flowing.
bad_user 8y ago
If you think people are full of shit, you've been listening to the wrong ones. Personally I never claimed that I will quit Facebook, because I know I ain't going to do it, as all my family is on it. That said, I only visit Facebook about once per week or even less, because frankly it's not that interesting. I was also checking out my ads profile. Turns out, I never clicked on any ads. And when posting content, I'm always careful to post for my friends only, which isn't a big list of people. Meaning that in the large scheme of things, Facebook isn't getting much from me. My social network of choice has been Twitter. I also own two cars. But I ride my bike to and from work every day, in all seasons but winter. I ate a lot of meat, but I'm trying to cut down on it due to health benefits. Considering that I gave up smoking, sodas and alcoholic beverages completely, it's a little hard for me to further restrict what I put in my mouth. And yes, I am only human. FYI the actions of any one particular individual to cut down on usage based on moral or social factors are zilch. If you want meaningful change, there are only 3 ways to do it: 1. invent technology that makes the status quo irrelevant, but this isn't actually something that most of us can do 2. keep the competition alive by voting with your wallet, because every dollar counts 3. get involved in politics, or at least talk more often with your representatives, go vote and convince the people around you to do the same Because cutting down on meat due to environmental reasons, quitting Facebook and so on, that's the bullshit we do to feel good, but doesn't actually matter.

JonasJSchreiber 8y ago

Not sure I agree with this argument. If Facebook's appeal dips for prospective users, they'll just buy whatever services those users are using instead. Their revenue comes from ads anyway.

DiabloD3 8y ago

Okay so, I'm reasonably well connected to the world. What can Facebook offer me? I don't use it, I have never had an account, and I always thought it was a fad. It seems that it has taken awhile, but the world has agreed it was a fad and it is now over it. So, what did I actually miss out on?

arkh 8y ago

> I’m talking looooonnnnggg time horizons here. Maybe a decade or more. The life of a social moth. Always going for shining lights. Getting burnt. And having so low a life expectancy that 10 years is long-term.

ericnyamu12345 8y ago

wow.check out this cool forum http://mawazo.byethost7.com/index.php http://mawazo.byethost7.com/index.php