Facebook isn't necessary

I logged out of facebook a few weeks ago with the intention of never going back. I got to say it's a deeply liberating feeling. Once you realize that people just go there to go there, breaking that loop is incredibly gratifying.

On the other hand, I still use FB messenger as the main means of communication for almost all of my friends abroad.

Facebook solves one stupidly important problem: it's an easy digital index of everyone I'll ever meet. I treat it more like the yellowpages than a social network and as a result never really have a reason to think about it.

Facebook UI and UX is comically bad, it's just that currently FB holds the "network effect" for a generic social platform on the web. And yet the site still functions like some relic of an AOL landing page.

I can only assume most people must be uninspired, or unaware of how to seek out alternative forums on the web.

[Meta] I clicked the link. Saw just a white screen. May have had some light grey markings but my eyes couldn't tell what those markings could have meant.

Interesting point about the difficulty of removing fake news:

>> On Wikipedia, you have the freedom to set up an account, log in, and edit any entry you like. You can change the name of George Washington to Billy-Bob Washypants if you like. You can say he’s still alive and sells insurance in New Jersey. You can say he has sixteen cats and has gone vegan. Whatever. Will your edits stick? No. That’s the point. The openness of Wikipedia is the outworking of a philosophy that truth, when crowdsourced, is just as strong — if not stronger — than when managed by a select few. Now, one too many bogus edits and you’ll be banned from Wikipedia, which is, again, in line with their philosophy. If your intent toward information is chaotic-evil, fine, but you’re not entitled to go about your trickster ways anywhere you like, and Wikipedia is entitled to kick you out. So how about Facebook? On Facebook, only the original creator of a post on Facebook can edit it. The crowd has no recourse but to complain to Facebook, and Facebook, of course, has already said that the content isn’t their problem.

This is extremely meta and only tangently on topic.

I don't use Facebook and live in SV (Redwood City). I have lived in many places but have never had so much trouble maintaining meaningful connections as here.

If someone local would like to meet up for coffee only on the basis that we both read HN and neither use Facebook, I would be interested to meet you and share stories. I've temporarily put my email in my profile.

I removed myself from FB around 2 months ago. It wasn't anything special, didn't notice anything lacking from my day-to-day life whatsoever. Also didn't notice any "liberated" feeling or anything like that as well.

I found that Facebook lost all relevance and provided really... nothing to me, my life, my friends or my family around about 3 years ago. I'm not one of those elitist 'I quite facebook' people but, I did and my life did improve, and guess what? It wasn't social media or the distraction that was the problem - it was the medium. Since then my twitter usage has grown like crazy and I absolutely love it, I learn things, I laugh, I ignore some things but over all - I really love the platform.

Facebook is a great tool for many uses.

The most empowering thing I can personally think of, it lets small organizations/businesses reach a lot of people without spenind any money. Anyone who can't afford a website can still put content out there and reach their audience.

It's great for advertisers. While with AdWords from my experience clicks rarely convert, Facebook works generally well.

Like Whatsapp, Messenger is an awesome free chat that most people will have already installed and that makes communicating with new people extremely easy.

People who complain about Facebook seem to be those who use it improperly, such as not being able to ignore notifications for more than 30 seconds, or sharing private things irresponsibly.

Obviously the quality of the internet as well as interpersonal communications was declining already before Facebook came along.

Facebook isn't necessary for this decline to occur, but it does accelerate the process.

disclaimer: didn't read the article

I have seen a couple of news on communal violence (resulted in death) originating from a facebook post, is there any statistics on that?