> is anyone else sort of fatigued with social media trying it's hardest to do it all for you
Yes, because they're not doing it for us, but for themselves, investors and customers (advertisers) fueled by our data.
Yes, because they're not doing it for us, but for themselves, investors and customers (advertisers) fueled by our data.
That includes the people you mentioned yes, but also users who get to use a valuable tool for free.
The whole "if it's free, you are the product" party line may resonate in HN circles, but you have to realize the public as a whole doesn't think it's a bad deal at all.
Try asking someone "hey, you know Facebook use a lot of state-of-the-art technology to algorithmically understand the meaning of everything you post and write, feeding this massive data set into their huge artificial intelligence program?" I don't think it's likely that many people will say "cool, that sounds like a great deal, because I love it when I get very specifically targetted ads."
Still there is nothing which could totally replace Facebook so old users are staying and baiting new users. It still has unique offer for large user base and very useful features so even if it's getting worse it can stand. People might be clicking their feed more but that's because they are so bored with content that they try if they can find something more interesting behind the links. Or they are scrolling down since trying to find something interesting, something different which is hard since algorithms just push same boring content all over again. But statistics look good.
What's the magic of Facebook? If you could answer that and build the service people will flock out from Facebook.
But neither do you really, right ?
Sure, you may have a better idea than them of what's technically feasible, but the general HN consensus on the motives, values and internal decision-making process at these companies ("always assume the worst from them, they're optimizing for money!") is in my experience (of working at FB a few years ago) a simplistic view that's way, way off the mark.
>"hey, you know Facebook use a lot of state-of-the-art technology to algorithmically understand the meaning of everything you post and write, feeding this massive data set into their huge artificial intelligence program?" I don't think it's likely that many people will say "cool, that sounds like a great deal, because I love it when I get very specifically targetted ads."
I think this is again where nerd-bias is misleading you : 1) Many people would answer your question with "yeah ? is this the thing that enables translations, picture captions for the blind and suggests me events I might like ? Please, bring it on!" 2) people actually do prefer very specifically targeted ads, rather than annoying+irrelevant pop-up banners of the past. This is why FB is making a killing.
I don't think it's nerd-bias... it's more that many of my friends and acquaintances who aren't nerds are still instinctively skeptical of large corporations and the power structures they create with respect to privacy.
As for what people in general think, we really should ask around. I heard about a consumer trust survey where Facebook's trust was very low, and based on how I see people relate to Facebook, I'm not surprised at all.
I think we ought to be suspicious and critical of corporations that collect large amounts of private and personal data, just as we ought to be so of government surveillance (of course they're inseparable).