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Whenever I read such posts (moving everything off Google/FaceBook/...), whatever the rationale, I feel like I am living in a parallel universe. All my friends

Whenever I read such posts (moving everything off Google/FaceBook/...), whatever the rationale, I feel like I am living in a parallel universe. All my friends are on Facebook and as much as I dislike Facebook's piracy invasion, it's an excellent tool to keep in touch with people. I could drop Google Talk, but as much as federation is a good thing, ironically I wouldn't have many people to talk to, since they use Google Talk/Hangouts. Perhaps a decentralised file sharing tool is better. But everyone is using Dropbox and Bittorrent Sync will be too outworldish for colleagues/family/friends.

antocv 13y ago
Come on now, "everyone is using" may have something to it, but its also a marketing/mind-trick of keeping people locked in to these services. I remember in 2004, 2005 when Gmail began, why would anyone use gmail, everyone is using hotmail (shared experience). Why would anyone begin using skype, everyone is using msn? Why would anyone begin using Facebook everyone is on MySpace? Someone has to be the first, take the step. Its us geeks that have to take the lead, do it. Just imagine if 5% of hn people would all begin using alternative software, improving it in the process. Free software at its best. Just a dream? Time to jump of the trainwreck of these "cloudy" "services".
- adrianN 13y ago
  People could start using gmail because emails work independently from the provider. If gmail provides the nicer user experience you lose nothing from switching. People started using Facebook because it was exclusive for a group of students. They were friends in reallife already and Facebook made it easier to coordinate. People started using Skype because it allowed calling real phones cheaply, msn doesn't. A large fraction of HN readers probably use Linux and free software. A fraction of them probably even improves the software they use. That doesn't mean that the average person wants to switch too.
  - antocv 13y ago
    5 years from now, "People started to use seamless encryption and pseudo/anonymizing services and protocols because it was exclusive, cheap and safe." You are right in pointing out that all the services we switched too, had some USP, I believe I2P, ownCloud, Citadel, Tor, gnunet, OTR/XMPP all have their USP too, and that is safety and freedom to express and say what ever the fuck comes to mind without self-censorship or fear for what consequences/blackmail it might have in the future. I have a thing to not talk about the "average person" because it means too many things and more often than not is a patronizing way of saying idiots. But lets go with it this time, the average person has no incentive to use productive equipment like a PC at all and they are perfectly fine with a consume-only, digitally-rights-managed, locked-down, surveillance device. We hackers should just give up on them, let them eat cake. /rant.
  - tripzilch 13y ago
    > People started using Facebook because it was exclusive for a group of students. Citation needed, from a different source than the FB founders. It's a very juicy marketing lie to spread but I've seen social and IM networks of all types come and go and the only reason ever has always been "because my friends are there". All the rest is just feature candy, stuff to attract the pioneer trend-setters. The great mass of people just herded there, couldn't care less about exclusivity or particular features (cause learning to use features is hard and exclusivity is scary), not until it was shoved in their faces. The trend-setters don't care nearly as much about "my friends are already there", because if they did, they wouldn't be trend-setters. So right now what I'm seeing that among those people who care about features, what is in demand but not currently available: decentralized and private (and on some level, not-Facebook, not-Google), and another important thing I keep hearing echoed but not quite emphasized are group chats (quite available already but it also seems to be a deal-breaker for new platforms if it's not there, just saying, in case anyone wants to build the next encrypted social messaging whatnot).
    - antocv 13y ago
      There also dont seem to be any safe/encrypted way to have a group chat with deniability, and not even a safe way to have audio and/or video communications that dont drop or lag randomly, are slow or require a programmer to setup. (Looking at you Jitsi). Its a big problem, to get all this right, but whoever does it is doing humanity a great one. I propose to fund it by donations, not ads or subscriptions.
    - artmageddon 13y ago
      >People started using Facebook because it was exclusive for a group of students. >Citation needed, from a different source than the FB founders. Facebook was only limited to a number of higher education institutions for the first few years of its life. You needed to be a student at a college / university to get access as it wasn't open to the general public, and it took a couple years before it was widespread across all schools before going public. I was among that set of people who were able to use it.
  - joesb 13y ago
    I remember people started using gmail because it's the first free email that offer virtually unlimited space, so I don't have to keep deleting old emails like I did in Hotmail.
- dschiptsov 13y ago
  gmail won because it filtered spam out and didn't show you flashy ads.
ekianjo 13y ago
So you didn't have friends before Facebook and Google? :) I feel that people who put so much emphasis on Facebook live in a parallel universe, too. Let's not forget these are just tools. Most of the relationship people have on Facebook are as shallow as they get because it's easy to shoot a message on such systems. But do you really care about EVERYONE you have in your networks ? Would you really miss something crucial in your life if you didn't have it ? Before people used to bond because they had things in common (Usenet, IRC with specific topics of interest), the "new" social networks are just about gathering numbers and bonding with people you have just met once or twice in your life and with you have little in common. At least, that's how I see most people around me using Facebook.
- Semaphor 13y ago
  I use FB to organize stuff in my local circle of friends, I use it to keep in contact with people who I met who went back to their home country, I use it for people I meet once a year when going to a festival so we can meet up again, I use it for people I might want to contact again (ordered into acquaintances so they don't show up on my newsfeed) and I think I have 3-6 people I've never met before, those are the ones that should have pages but use accounts ;) Doing all that w/o facebook would be a giant PITA.
- jancborchardt 13y ago
  »Facebook and Twitter are not social networks, they are just platforms. _We_ are the social network.« – Amr Gharbeia (https://twitter.com/gharbeia https://twitter.com/gharbeia ), a few years ago at a conference, commenting on their activism in Egypt and coping with overload and unavailability of Twitter, Facebook, etc. Also fully agree with your other points. I don’t use Facebook (Twitter though) and just email people whom I care about. Works fine, and those who really care have no problem with you not being on Facebook.
Mordor 13y ago
I've stopped using Facebook and behold - all my best friends are still here. If a friendship can't exist without Facebook, then they probably aren't your friend at all...
- mathrawka 13y ago
  It's a bit different when friends are spread out all over the globe. If I want to message someone 13 hours away it is either Facebook or email, and facebook has been replacing those short messages that email or IM used to be used for.
  - TsiCClawOfLight 13y ago
    But why? Why can't people use email anymore? This is a genuine question! I rarely feel like I would need something other than email for anything, so I don't understand how facebook replaced that?
    - Volpe 13y ago
      Depending on your friends, facebook offers various advantages. You can see what they've been doing", see if they are online, send a simple 'hey' that wouldn't really be written if you were to use email. People do use email still... But pretending facebook doesn't offer any value is an exercise in reality distortion.
    - amirmc 13y ago
      FB gives you a great way to stay peripherally involved in people's lives. It allows you to have numerous but low-cost touch points such that when you next have a chance to properly catch-up you already know what the major events have been. It's the complete opposite of email where I think "I'll wait until I have something proper to say" and then never send anything. On FB, it's totally normal to leave one-line comments. Having said this, I barely use FB anymore (due to privacy concerns). Edit: I should also add that I've never used email in the social way that people seem to refer to. I really don't understand how that would be possible. FB allowed new types of social exchanges that didn't exist before (for me, at least).
Ziomislaw 13y ago
all flies eat shit, do you eat shit too?
coldtea 13y ago
>All my friends are on Facebook and as much as I dislike Facebook's piracy invasion, it's an excellent tool to keep in touch with people. Ever tried mail and the ocassional phone call or meeting? Do you really have to keep in touch with people seeing what they did on their vacations, bs inspirational quotes and baby photos?
- Nursie 13y ago
  >> Do you really have to keep in touch with people seeing what they did on their vacations, bs inspirational quotes and baby photos? You may mock, but keeping involved in the minutiae of each others' lives does enable the maintenance of friendships over longer distance and time spans. Minutiae that we wouldn't necessarily make the effort to email or chat about. As I get older my friends (and myself) have dispersed all over the globe, and even the ones not so far off have less time to give (and possibly less inclination) to spend time just hanging out. That said, it doesn't have to be FB, or a centralised service at all.
  - thwest 13y ago
    Out of sight out of mind I guess. It doesn't really bother me that I fall out of daily touch with friends far away. A couple times a year I'll sit down and write them a letter (..email).
hosay123 13y ago
It's worth remembering how so many came to use these services in the first place – as a tech 'front liner' I too was once guilty of unconditionally mocking others and saying "you should be on Gmail!". Now the tech front is reversing its position, and hopefully the rest of society will eventually follow. Unfortunately the scene isn't set just now, because there simply aren't good alternatives to Gmail – nothing free or self hosted comes remotely close to its clean UI. When such a thing exists, selling regular users on moving away from Google will be a much easier proposition [If you're reading this and thinking of cloning Gmail – for fuck's sake don't waste your time "innovating" on the UI and getting it horribly wrong! (This was really the biggest tragedy of the Reader transition). Do a pixel perfect conversion. Except for artwork, cloning a UI is perfectly legal as demonstrated by case law going back 20+ years in the EU and USA.]
mjn 13y ago
I agree that everyone uses Facebook, but for Google products other than search uses seems much more scattered. I personally know only techies on Google Talk/Hangouts, no "regular people", and many of those techies are thinking of moving away from it. The "regular people" I know all use Skype, with a minority using AIM for text-chat. Skype would be harder for me to drop (unfortunately, because the client is incredibly annoying), but Google Talk is easy.
- SamWhited 13y ago
  mjn: That's actually suprising to me; among my friends most of the non-techi people use Google Talk (a few on AIM and Skype as well, but not many). Most of my techi friends used Google Talk as well but started moving away after federation was killed off. Now many of them use a mix of other XMPP providers (DuckDuckGo, Jabber.org both being popular) and direct messaging on IRC.
RexRollman 13y ago
I am not on Facebook because I feel that they are an untrustworthy company. That said, if I felt I needed it, I would have to set up a web browser dedicated to it, or always be in Incognito mode while using it.

antocv 13y ago

Come on now, "everyone is using" may have something to it, but its also a marketing/mind-trick of keeping people locked in to these services. I remember in 2004, 2005 when Gmail began, why would anyone use gmail, everyone is using hotmail (shared experience). Why would anyone begin using skype, everyone is using msn? Why would anyone begin using Facebook everyone is on MySpace? Someone has to be the first, take the step. Its us geeks that have to take the lead, do it. Just imagine if 5% of hn people would all begin using alternative software, improving it in the process. Free software at its best. Just a dream? Time to jump of the trainwreck of these "cloudy" "services".

adrianN 13y ago
People could start using gmail because emails work independently from the provider. If gmail provides the nicer user experience you lose nothing from switching. People started using Facebook because it was exclusive for a group of students. They were friends in reallife already and Facebook made it easier to coordinate. People started using Skype because it allowed calling real phones cheaply, msn doesn't. A large fraction of HN readers probably use Linux and free software. A fraction of them probably even improves the software they use. That doesn't mean that the average person wants to switch too.
- antocv 13y ago
  5 years from now, "People started to use seamless encryption and pseudo/anonymizing services and protocols because it was exclusive, cheap and safe." You are right in pointing out that all the services we switched too, had some USP, I believe I2P, ownCloud, Citadel, Tor, gnunet, OTR/XMPP all have their USP too, and that is safety and freedom to express and say what ever the fuck comes to mind without self-censorship or fear for what consequences/blackmail it might have in the future. I have a thing to not talk about the "average person" because it means too many things and more often than not is a patronizing way of saying idiots. But lets go with it this time, the average person has no incentive to use productive equipment like a PC at all and they are perfectly fine with a consume-only, digitally-rights-managed, locked-down, surveillance device. We hackers should just give up on them, let them eat cake. /rant.
- tripzilch 13y ago
  > People started using Facebook because it was exclusive for a group of students. Citation needed, from a different source than the FB founders. It's a very juicy marketing lie to spread but I've seen social and IM networks of all types come and go and the only reason ever has always been "because my friends are there". All the rest is just feature candy, stuff to attract the pioneer trend-setters. The great mass of people just herded there, couldn't care less about exclusivity or particular features (cause learning to use features is hard and exclusivity is scary), not until it was shoved in their faces. The trend-setters don't care nearly as much about "my friends are already there", because if they did, they wouldn't be trend-setters. So right now what I'm seeing that among those people who care about features, what is in demand but not currently available: decentralized and private (and on some level, not-Facebook, not-Google), and another important thing I keep hearing echoed but not quite emphasized are group chats (quite available already but it also seems to be a deal-breaker for new platforms if it's not there, just saying, in case anyone wants to build the next encrypted social messaging whatnot).
  - antocv 13y ago
    There also dont seem to be any safe/encrypted way to have a group chat with deniability, and not even a safe way to have audio and/or video communications that dont drop or lag randomly, are slow or require a programmer to setup. (Looking at you Jitsi). Its a big problem, to get all this right, but whoever does it is doing humanity a great one. I propose to fund it by donations, not ads or subscriptions.
  - artmageddon 13y ago
    >People started using Facebook because it was exclusive for a group of students. >Citation needed, from a different source than the FB founders. Facebook was only limited to a number of higher education institutions for the first few years of its life. You needed to be a student at a college / university to get access as it wasn't open to the general public, and it took a couple years before it was widespread across all schools before going public. I was among that set of people who were able to use it.
- joesb 13y ago
  I remember people started using gmail because it's the first free email that offer virtually unlimited space, so I don't have to keep deleting old emails like I did in Hotmail.
dschiptsov 13y ago
gmail won because it filtered spam out and didn't show you flashy ads.

ekianjo 13y ago

So you didn't have friends before Facebook and Google? :) I feel that people who put so much emphasis on Facebook live in a parallel universe, too. Let's not forget these are just tools. Most of the relationship people have on Facebook are as shallow as they get because it's easy to shoot a message on such systems. But do you really care about EVERYONE you have in your networks ? Would you really miss something crucial in your life if you didn't have it ? Before people used to bond because they had things in common (Usenet, IRC with specific topics of interest), the "new" social networks are just about gathering numbers and bonding with people you have just met once or twice in your life and with you have little in common. At least, that's how I see most people around me using Facebook.

Semaphor 13y ago
I use FB to organize stuff in my local circle of friends, I use it to keep in contact with people who I met who went back to their home country, I use it for people I meet once a year when going to a festival so we can meet up again, I use it for people I might want to contact again (ordered into acquaintances so they don't show up on my newsfeed) and I think I have 3-6 people I've never met before, those are the ones that should have pages but use accounts ;) Doing all that w/o facebook would be a giant PITA.
jancborchardt 13y ago
»Facebook and Twitter are not social networks, they are just platforms. _We_ are the social network.« – Amr Gharbeia (https://twitter.com/gharbeia https://twitter.com/gharbeia ), a few years ago at a conference, commenting on their activism in Egypt and coping with overload and unavailability of Twitter, Facebook, etc. Also fully agree with your other points. I don’t use Facebook (Twitter though) and just email people whom I care about. Works fine, and those who really care have no problem with you not being on Facebook.

Mordor 13y ago

I've stopped using Facebook and behold - all my best friends are still here. If a friendship can't exist without Facebook, then they probably aren't your friend at all...

mathrawka 13y ago
It's a bit different when friends are spread out all over the globe. If I want to message someone 13 hours away it is either Facebook or email, and facebook has been replacing those short messages that email or IM used to be used for.
- TsiCClawOfLight 13y ago
  But why? Why can't people use email anymore? This is a genuine question! I rarely feel like I would need something other than email for anything, so I don't understand how facebook replaced that?
  - Volpe 13y ago
    Depending on your friends, facebook offers various advantages. You can see what they've been doing", see if they are online, send a simple 'hey' that wouldn't really be written if you were to use email. People do use email still... But pretending facebook doesn't offer any value is an exercise in reality distortion.
  - amirmc 13y ago
    FB gives you a great way to stay peripherally involved in people's lives. It allows you to have numerous but low-cost touch points such that when you next have a chance to properly catch-up you already know what the major events have been. It's the complete opposite of email where I think "I'll wait until I have something proper to say" and then never send anything. On FB, it's totally normal to leave one-line comments. Having said this, I barely use FB anymore (due to privacy concerns). Edit: I should also add that I've never used email in the social way that people seem to refer to. I really don't understand how that would be possible. FB allowed new types of social exchanges that didn't exist before (for me, at least).

Ziomislaw 13y ago

all flies eat shit, do you eat shit too?

coldtea 13y ago

>All my friends are on Facebook and as much as I dislike Facebook's piracy invasion, it's an excellent tool to keep in touch with people. Ever tried mail and the ocassional phone call or meeting? Do you really have to keep in touch with people seeing what they did on their vacations, bs inspirational quotes and baby photos?

Nursie 13y ago
>> Do you really have to keep in touch with people seeing what they did on their vacations, bs inspirational quotes and baby photos? You may mock, but keeping involved in the minutiae of each others' lives does enable the maintenance of friendships over longer distance and time spans. Minutiae that we wouldn't necessarily make the effort to email or chat about. As I get older my friends (and myself) have dispersed all over the globe, and even the ones not so far off have less time to give (and possibly less inclination) to spend time just hanging out. That said, it doesn't have to be FB, or a centralised service at all.
- thwest 13y ago
  Out of sight out of mind I guess. It doesn't really bother me that I fall out of daily touch with friends far away. A couple times a year I'll sit down and write them a letter (..email).

hosay123 13y ago

It's worth remembering how so many came to use these services in the first place – as a tech 'front liner' I too was once guilty of unconditionally mocking others and saying "you should be on Gmail!". Now the tech front is reversing its position, and hopefully the rest of society will eventually follow. Unfortunately the scene isn't set just now, because there simply aren't good alternatives to Gmail – nothing free or self hosted comes remotely close to its clean UI. When such a thing exists, selling regular users on moving away from Google will be a much easier proposition [If you're reading this and thinking of cloning Gmail – for fuck's sake don't waste your time "innovating" on the UI and getting it horribly wrong! (This was really the biggest tragedy of the Reader transition). Do a pixel perfect conversion. Except for artwork, cloning a UI is perfectly legal as demonstrated by case law going back 20+ years in the EU and USA.]

mjn 13y ago

I agree that everyone uses Facebook, but for Google products other than search uses seems much more scattered. I personally know only techies on Google Talk/Hangouts, no "regular people", and many of those techies are thinking of moving away from it. The "regular people" I know all use Skype, with a minority using AIM for text-chat. Skype would be harder for me to drop (unfortunately, because the client is incredibly annoying), but Google Talk is easy.

SamWhited 13y ago
mjn: That's actually suprising to me; among my friends most of the non-techi people use Google Talk (a few on AIM and Skype as well, but not many). Most of my techi friends used Google Talk as well but started moving away after federation was killed off. Now many of them use a mix of other XMPP providers (DuckDuckGo, Jabber.org both being popular) and direct messaging on IRC.

RexRollman 13y ago

I am not on Facebook because I feel that they are an untrustworthy company. That said, if I felt I needed it, I would have to set up a web browser dedicated to it, or always be in Incognito mode while using it.