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It's baffling to me that people still use the main Facebook app. It has gotten too big for its original purpose. I suppose if you curate your friends carefully

by phgn 5y ago

It's baffling to me that people still use the main Facebook app. It has gotten too big for its original purpose. I suppose if you curate your friends carefully and only share personal things it can be useful - but that's not the type of content that gets popular. Instagram as a way to share moments I can understand, and WhatsApp is a utility not a social network.

stjohnswarts 5y ago
This is exactly what they had. Curated friend lists. You could see what select groups of your friends are up to. They were somewhat limited but good enough to keep facebook useful. They killed that in 2018, and lost me as a "customer" at that point. I still have messenger to talk to friends but they lost all the ad revenue from me. Whatever that amounted to :)
SonicScrub 5y ago
There is a browser extension that automatically unfollows everything on Facebook for you. I used this extension and then re-followed the handful of people I actually care about. It brought Facebook back to the early ~2010s era. Gone are all the useless memes, embedded ads, "news" articles, and daily ramblings by people I don't care about. Instead it's a tool I can use to keep up to date with my friends and loved ones. My feed even has an end again. Only this time the "end" says: "Something went wrong. This may be because of a technical error that we're working to get fixed. Try reloading this page." Here's a link. I highly recommend it. https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/unfollow-everyone-on-face/pijkodjelolnmbehifeokihlodnajela?hl=en https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/unfollow-everyone-...
- Supermancho 5y ago
  I unfollowed everything on Facebook the old fashioned way. I deleted my Facebook profiles. There is enough news out there to eat up each day without it.
  - SonicScrub 5y ago
    Congrats. Pat your self on the back. So brave... This does nothing to help the people that enjoyed the functionality of the early Facebook and would like to configure their page to return to that, rather than dropping it entirely.
    - Supermancho 5y ago
      > This does nothing to help the people that enjoyed the functionality of the early Facebook and would like to configure their page to return to that, rather than dropping it entirely. That's progressive to try to enact change from within via the market. Keep complaining on HN until they become what you want them to be...which is what they used to be. I honestly think you're angry and things wont get better for you.
- phgn 5y ago
  What happens when the people you manually re-followed share content you dislike? What I'd use Facebook for is keeping up with friends - for that it doesn't have to be the largest social network around. It would probably be better at that purpose if it was smaller.
  - SonicScrub 5y ago
    Click the 3-dot menu button on the right side of the post, click "Hide all from <shared source>". Now if the person is sharing from <fake news site>, or <annoying meme page> you won't see it. If someone is continuously sharing nonsense from a wide-variety of sources, they get unfollowed (and they probably were not someone I selected to follow in the first place). This is impossible to manage if you are following everyone in your network (as is the default), but becomes doable if the default option is "unfollow" as enabled by this extension.
cube00 5y ago
It's still not enough, even if you don't join any groups you'll still have the news feed flooded with "suggested for you" posts which you can only hide on a page by page basis while you still miss out on posts from your friends.
xtracto 5y ago
I wrote this in a previous HN post that talked about Facebook. I sit on the opposite side of the scale: My Facebook account is quite nice; I've got friends from all over the world (I've lived in 7 different cities throughout Europe and the Americas in my 40 years of life) and my Facebook feed/network makes it possible for me to see where are they now, what are they up to, and when one of them has a kid in Serbia, or another has some milestone in Chicago I get to cheer them. The last post was about a cousin that just had his first solo airplane flight! I haven't seen him in like 5 years, but still it is nice to tell him "wow, that's great!". When people say that their Facebook stream is "very angry", it seems to me that it is mainly a reflection of the network that they happen to be part of.
- phgn 5y ago
  That's what I meant by "it has gotten too big for its original purpose" - keeping up with friends is what Facebook was built for, and it's great at that. It's awesome if your network is still like that. For me, it becomes hard to filter out the widely shared & "angry" content some people share - it just propagates so easily.
- TigeriusKirk 5y ago
  I think the biggest problem with FB right now is the way they force groups content into your feed. It's way, way overdone. Back when people joined those groups they were smaller and more focused and people were hoping to get occasional updates on some topic they're interested in. Now it's at least half your feed if you don't trim the groups and your actual friends get lost in the noise. I'm sure FB has some data about engagement or some such, but they should remember why people use their service and refocus.
  - AaronNewcomer 5y ago
    I pretty much only use Facebook for the groups and pages I follow. So it seems they did tailor it for the reasons I use it.
jensensbutton 5y ago
I'd say "your network" has likely gotten too big for your original intent. I'm not exposed to the 3 billion people on the platform. I only have family and close friends.
- phgn 5y ago
  True, with more personal discipline you can probably make Facebook work for personal connections - as a few people commented about here. I just dislike that it's so easy to get into all the other crap. It's the same for me on Twitter - spending time muting words & blocking some people made it a lot more valuable.
cwkoss 5y ago
I pretty much only use facebook to talk to my grandparents these days.

by phgn 5y ago

stjohnswarts 5y ago

This is exactly what they had. Curated friend lists. You could see what select groups of your friends are up to. They were somewhat limited but good enough to keep facebook useful. They killed that in 2018, and lost me as a "customer" at that point. I still have messenger to talk to friends but they lost all the ad revenue from me. Whatever that amounted to :)

SonicScrub 5y ago

There is a browser extension that automatically unfollows everything on Facebook for you. I used this extension and then re-followed the handful of people I actually care about. It brought Facebook back to the early ~2010s era. Gone are all the useless memes, embedded ads, "news" articles, and daily ramblings by people I don't care about. Instead it's a tool I can use to keep up to date with my friends and loved ones. My feed even has an end again. Only this time the "end" says: "Something went wrong. This may be because of a technical error that we're working to get fixed. Try reloading this page." Here's a link. I highly recommend it. https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/unfollow-everyone-on-face/pijkodjelolnmbehifeokihlodnajela?hl=en https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/unfollow-everyone-...

Supermancho 5y ago
I unfollowed everything on Facebook the old fashioned way. I deleted my Facebook profiles. There is enough news out there to eat up each day without it.
- SonicScrub 5y ago
  Congrats. Pat your self on the back. So brave... This does nothing to help the people that enjoyed the functionality of the early Facebook and would like to configure their page to return to that, rather than dropping it entirely.
  - Supermancho 5y ago
    > This does nothing to help the people that enjoyed the functionality of the early Facebook and would like to configure their page to return to that, rather than dropping it entirely. That's progressive to try to enact change from within via the market. Keep complaining on HN until they become what you want them to be...which is what they used to be. I honestly think you're angry and things wont get better for you.
phgn 5y ago
What happens when the people you manually re-followed share content you dislike? What I'd use Facebook for is keeping up with friends - for that it doesn't have to be the largest social network around. It would probably be better at that purpose if it was smaller.
- SonicScrub 5y ago
  Click the 3-dot menu button on the right side of the post, click "Hide all from <shared source>". Now if the person is sharing from <fake news site>, or <annoying meme page> you won't see it. If someone is continuously sharing nonsense from a wide-variety of sources, they get unfollowed (and they probably were not someone I selected to follow in the first place). This is impossible to manage if you are following everyone in your network (as is the default), but becomes doable if the default option is "unfollow" as enabled by this extension.

cube00 5y ago

It's still not enough, even if you don't join any groups you'll still have the news feed flooded with "suggested for you" posts which you can only hide on a page by page basis while you still miss out on posts from your friends.

xtracto 5y ago

I wrote this in a previous HN post that talked about Facebook. I sit on the opposite side of the scale: My Facebook account is quite nice; I've got friends from all over the world (I've lived in 7 different cities throughout Europe and the Americas in my 40 years of life) and my Facebook feed/network makes it possible for me to see where are they now, what are they up to, and when one of them has a kid in Serbia, or another has some milestone in Chicago I get to cheer them. The last post was about a cousin that just had his first solo airplane flight! I haven't seen him in like 5 years, but still it is nice to tell him "wow, that's great!". When people say that their Facebook stream is "very angry", it seems to me that it is mainly a reflection of the network that they happen to be part of.

phgn 5y ago
That's what I meant by "it has gotten too big for its original purpose" - keeping up with friends is what Facebook was built for, and it's great at that. It's awesome if your network is still like that. For me, it becomes hard to filter out the widely shared & "angry" content some people share - it just propagates so easily.
TigeriusKirk 5y ago
I think the biggest problem with FB right now is the way they force groups content into your feed. It's way, way overdone. Back when people joined those groups they were smaller and more focused and people were hoping to get occasional updates on some topic they're interested in. Now it's at least half your feed if you don't trim the groups and your actual friends get lost in the noise. I'm sure FB has some data about engagement or some such, but they should remember why people use their service and refocus.
- AaronNewcomer 5y ago
  I pretty much only use Facebook for the groups and pages I follow. So it seems they did tailor it for the reasons I use it.

jensensbutton 5y ago

I'd say "your network" has likely gotten too big for your original intent. I'm not exposed to the 3 billion people on the platform. I only have family and close friends.

phgn 5y ago
True, with more personal discipline you can probably make Facebook work for personal connections - as a few people commented about here. I just dislike that it's so easy to get into all the other crap. It's the same for me on Twitter - spending time muting words & blocking some people made it a lot more valuable.

cwkoss 5y ago

I pretty much only use facebook to talk to my grandparents these days.