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The thing that amuses me is the more Facebook attempts to become the monolithic center of identity online, the more people I know have multiple accounts or simp

by msy 15y ago

The thing that amuses me is the more Facebook attempts to become the monolithic center of identity online, the more people I know have multiple accounts or simply stop using it altogether. Of late I keep hearing of people setting up 'throw away' Facebook accounts for services that require it. A single identity is fundamentally at odds with the way people work, the more this is pushed, the more people will shy away or hack around it and in the process the more damage Facebook will do to it's much-vaunted social graph.

gabaix 15y ago
I am not sure. It might be true for developers, but most people don't care that much. They just want to sign in, fast.
- henrikschroder 15y ago
  That depends on the service. There are plenty of such where you just want to sign in, fast, and don't care that you appear as your Facebook personality on that service. But there are services where I think people care, where having their activites on that service tied to their Facebook personality is something they don't want. The obiovus example is dating sites, but also simple things like blog comments are affected. Techcrunch had an article on how their comments "got better" after switching to Facebook Connect, but they also noted that there were much more positive comments, and far fewer negative ones, much less constructive criticism, because people don't want to appear negative in front of their Facebook friends. I think a lot of people care enough about anonymity or at least pseudonymity, so the more services that require you to have a Facebook account, the more fake accounts will be created. The more they tighten their grip, the more users will slip through their fingers...
- Meai 15y ago
  In real life you act different depending on the type of person you are talking to. You are basically someone else to the parent / teacher / friend / shopowner. Facebook wants you to always be the same person, and people realize how uncomfortable that actually is.
maigret 15y ago
Is the "account" unity so relevant for Facebook? If you use the same IP and same password, and have regular login patterns, it's probably easy to identify same people having multiple accounts. I think Google already can do that BTW.

by msy 15y ago

gabaix 15y ago

I am not sure. It might be true for developers, but most people don't care that much. They just want to sign in, fast.

henrikschroder 15y ago
That depends on the service. There are plenty of such where you just want to sign in, fast, and don't care that you appear as your Facebook personality on that service. But there are services where I think people care, where having their activites on that service tied to their Facebook personality is something they don't want. The obiovus example is dating sites, but also simple things like blog comments are affected. Techcrunch had an article on how their comments "got better" after switching to Facebook Connect, but they also noted that there were much more positive comments, and far fewer negative ones, much less constructive criticism, because people don't want to appear negative in front of their Facebook friends. I think a lot of people care enough about anonymity or at least pseudonymity, so the more services that require you to have a Facebook account, the more fake accounts will be created. The more they tighten their grip, the more users will slip through their fingers...
Meai 15y ago
In real life you act different depending on the type of person you are talking to. You are basically someone else to the parent / teacher / friend / shopowner. Facebook wants you to always be the same person, and people realize how uncomfortable that actually is.

maigret 15y ago

Is the "account" unity so relevant for Facebook? If you use the same IP and same password, and have regular login patterns, it's probably easy to identify same people having multiple accounts. I think Google already can do that BTW.