Why I’m Not Leaving Facebook

The real question is: Is Mark Zuckenberg smarter than 10,000 angry nerds?

He needs to be. The nerds are only screaming about privacy and more privacy. Facebook's main problem is many people use it to post trite, uninteresting crap. They use it to rage against the boss, gossip, do stupid things no one wants to know about. It's because the site is based on real life friendships, not because they heard it's private somewhere.

The etiquette on Facebook is to talk to people you know through real life friends, but on other sites you can follow and talk with people who you find interesting. Sites like Twitter, Flickr, Github where connections are based on activities, interests, not personalities are in a better position. That type of content doesn't need to be private. That's where Facebook wants to be, but they have to fight the current perception of what Facebook is for to get there.

I think a few UI changes could alleviate a lot of the problems. They need to have fully private messenging like Inbox and chat but which connects to more than one person at a time. Google Wave has a good UI for that part.

Lame argument. If a video rental store suddenly published a list of all the naughty videos you've ever watched, would that be OK because you opted in to their service, gave them your name etc.? It's their business, they can do whatever they want right? What if we had a private conversation and I emailed it to all your friends a month later, would you be fine with that? It's your fault for talking to me in the first place right?

Isn't it common courtesy to respect a person's privacy or at least be clear about it?

It's about expectations. Facebook started out with expectations that it is a place where you can share things among your friends but not the Internet at large. Now the game is changing.

"You have opted into their service and you are paying with your information." -- The typical user probably doesn't see it this way. It's borderline unethical for the payment to be something the paying party is unaware of.

I think this guy misses the point. Transparency is what people are pissed about because facebook has none of it.

> From the way I look at it, they’ve done you a favor — They’ve connected you with all of your long lost friends and didn’t make you open your wallet. Isn’t that what you always wanted?

No.