Hacker News Reader

Comment by kinkdr | Hacker News Reader

The sad part is that people were warning about FB years before that only to be mocked.

Pretty much the same way people are warning about Google today but get ignored.

Pleas stop using FB and restrict the amount of Google services you use.

There are strong network externalities both to Facebook and to Google services. The more people use them, the better they are, and so much more higher are the opportunity costs of switching to other websites. Pleas won't change the incentives involved.

That being said, I think tech journalism overstates the amount of control which either Google and Facebook can actually exert over their users.

> That being said, I think tech journalism overstates the amount of control which either Google and Facebook can actually exert over their users.

That's how they win, by being underestimated. Better to overestimate IMHO.

Call me a Cassandra, but I won't be surprised in the next POTUS is Zuck.

If Zuck shaves his head and becomes POTUS, then strap yourself in because we'll be getting WW3 and Superman won't be there to stop him!

Subtle mass persuasion through algorithm tweaking is easy to underestimate

Google is to me what Facebook was a few years ago. I do have a Facebook account but don't want to use anything Google. Yet they have a sneaky way of trying to force you (and others) into it. I think it's scary just how well Google has done at shoehorning themselves into the education market. I frequently encounter kids that think google is the internet. They think all email is Gmail. They don't know other search engines exist. They only know YouTube, mostly because of Google's placement. They don't know there are other forms of Maps. (again, Google's placement of their own products.) It's scary. Facebook hasn't gotten to that point. They've tried with mobile devices, and they were a flop. We don't see Facebook Maps yet or a lot of Facebook Videos or whatever being shared around.

Seriously worried lately about my reliance on my gmail account. So many accounts linked to it

Yeah, the recent news are really worrying. You should switch to your own domain and a different provider for any email that you care about.

I have been slowly migrating away from my gmail account and I intend to delete it very soon. I highly recommend Protonmail as an alternative web-based email provider.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com