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Comment by tucif | Hacker News Reader

"I’m likely not going to delete Facebook entirely since I do genuinely enjoy staying in touch with the people in my life, and for better or worse Facebook is where those people hang out"

Is it likely that most people are willing to move and the only problem is there are no compelling options?

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No option is compelling until everybody you know is on it. And there is no such option besides FB.

This is all from my a sample size of 1, myself, but this is how entrenched Facebook is: - I know multiple people who do not use email or text socially, because they only use Facebook messenger for either. I can't think of anything else that replaces either one where I know people who use it exclusively. - The only people I can think of who aren't on Facebook but with whom I'd like to communicate with more, are not on any social media platform at all.

So nothing is even close.

If there was an easy way to automatically process email address changes in your address book and have links to people photoblogs (like RSS) it seems like all the key features would be there. A decentralized email based event manager would be nice. Does Lightning do that, I wonder?

Not email-based, but I'm keeping my eye on ActivityPub from W3C: https://activitypub.rocks . Seems to be a step in the right direction

I facepalmed when I read that "not going to delete FB because" sentence. How about that thing called e-mail? If keeping someone's e-mail address and firing a message every now and then is too much hassle, then that person was not worth keeping in touch with in the first place.

FB has turned people into needy Rolodex hoarders.

I know a lot of people who only check their email when they have signed up for a service. Beyond that "email is for spam". Admittedly these people aren't on Facebook either (they have an account because "you have to").

If/when I move a bit farther from my immediate family, I'll consider setting up a WP blog for catchups and family chat. That way you get to share stati and pics, comment on them, discuss, on top of all, you get RSS and other niceties.

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