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This is all very AOL 1990's sounding. The failure in the logic is that FB is the gateway drug. As people clicks links in FB and discover other resources that ar

This is all very AOL 1990's sounding. The failure in the logic is that FB is the gateway drug. As people clicks links in FB and discover other resources that are valuable they become users of those services and spread beyond FB only usage.

gerbal 11y ago
for users that have internet access beyond facebook. Internet.org and many mobile phone providers provide free access to facebook but not the rest of the internet.
onion2k 11y ago
Except in the case of Facebook, they don't go further afield. People stay within Facebook's walled garden, posting updates in Facebook, liking brands in Facebook, talking to their friends in Facebook, playing games in Facebook ... they don't leave. To me this raises an interesting philosophical question - is Facebook actually separate to the internet? It uses the underlying transport mechanisms of the net, sure, but that's not really what we mean when we say the internet. When my mother says she's using the internet she doesn't mean she's generating HTTP GET requests to query servers and render the resulting HTML. She means she's using a browser to read a page and then clicking on a link to get another page. Facebook certainly isn't the world wide web or email, which is what most people mean when they say "internet". If what you're doing is in an largely separate, walled-off area, that you mostly access with an app rather than a browser, is that really what we mean when we say the internet? I'd need to think about it more, but I imagine there's quite a compelling argument that using Facebook is not using the internet for any non-technical definition of 'the internet'.
- mikegioia 11y ago
  I don't think Facebook is separate from the Internet. I think people's purview changes and is different from one another. For some people, "the Internet" is Facebook and maybe Netflix. That's it. They may not even understand that there's more out there, or what a web page even is. Facebook and Netflix are certainly closer to applications than they are websites. I imagine the Internet to them is an extension of the apps they use on their phone. I would even go so far as to say for some people, Google is the only way they know of to find things. Which to me is more scary, since Google in a sense can control what X% of the population sees as the users aren't even aware of another means of accessing blocked content.
  - dhimes 11y ago
    I would even go so far as to say for some people, Google is the only way they know of to find things Totally agree. I watched a family member Google "budget rental cars" to get to budget.com. Seriously. She wasn't searching, she needed customer service in order to keep a car a few extra days. To her, Google is the "internet" (web, actually, but you know what I mean in this context).
- darkhorn 11y ago
  Also there are two data plans; Facebook and/or Internet. This was discussed before. We should blame the ISPs too.
- engi_nerd 11y ago
  Many people in the AOL heyday of the 1990s didn't go outside of AOL's garden, either. You could chat, talk to friends, play games, do some online shopping, book flights, all from within the AOL client and without firing up their built-in browser. And many people didn't use that.
  - jusben1369 11y ago
    Right. I suspect the response to my answer depends partly on whether you're old enough to remember how all pervasive AOL was.
    - engi_nerd 11y ago
      My parents were AOL subscribers for about a decade. Actually, they started out as GNN subscribers, and just stayed when AOL purchased GNN. So much of my early internet experiences were done within AOL (although I didn't hesitate to fire up Netscape).

gerbal 11y ago

for users that have internet access beyond facebook. Internet.org and many mobile phone providers provide free access to facebook but not the rest of the internet.

onion2k 11y ago

Except in the case of Facebook, they don't go further afield. People stay within Facebook's walled garden, posting updates in Facebook, liking brands in Facebook, talking to their friends in Facebook, playing games in Facebook ... they don't leave. To me this raises an interesting philosophical question - is Facebook actually separate to the internet? It uses the underlying transport mechanisms of the net, sure, but that's not really what we mean when we say the internet. When my mother says she's using the internet she doesn't mean she's generating HTTP GET requests to query servers and render the resulting HTML. She means she's using a browser to read a page and then clicking on a link to get another page. Facebook certainly isn't the world wide web or email, which is what most people mean when they say "internet". If what you're doing is in an largely separate, walled-off area, that you mostly access with an app rather than a browser, is that really what we mean when we say the internet? I'd need to think about it more, but I imagine there's quite a compelling argument that using Facebook is not using the internet for any non-technical definition of 'the internet'.

mikegioia 11y ago
I don't think Facebook is separate from the Internet. I think people's purview changes and is different from one another. For some people, "the Internet" is Facebook and maybe Netflix. That's it. They may not even understand that there's more out there, or what a web page even is. Facebook and Netflix are certainly closer to applications than they are websites. I imagine the Internet to them is an extension of the apps they use on their phone. I would even go so far as to say for some people, Google is the only way they know of to find things. Which to me is more scary, since Google in a sense can control what X% of the population sees as the users aren't even aware of another means of accessing blocked content.
- dhimes 11y ago
  I would even go so far as to say for some people, Google is the only way they know of to find things Totally agree. I watched a family member Google "budget rental cars" to get to budget.com. Seriously. She wasn't searching, she needed customer service in order to keep a car a few extra days. To her, Google is the "internet" (web, actually, but you know what I mean in this context).
darkhorn 11y ago
Also there are two data plans; Facebook and/or Internet. This was discussed before. We should blame the ISPs too.
engi_nerd 11y ago
Many people in the AOL heyday of the 1990s didn't go outside of AOL's garden, either. You could chat, talk to friends, play games, do some online shopping, book flights, all from within the AOL client and without firing up their built-in browser. And many people didn't use that.
- jusben1369 11y ago
  Right. I suspect the response to my answer depends partly on whether you're old enough to remember how all pervasive AOL was.
  - engi_nerd 11y ago
    My parents were AOL subscribers for about a decade. Actually, they started out as GNN subscribers, and just stayed when AOL purchased GNN. So much of my early internet experiences were done within AOL (although I didn't hesitate to fire up Netscape).