usecases = ["group events", "messaging", "staying in touch with people", "networking", "checking in once a month", &c()];
singleUsecase = pickWhatevs(usecases);
otherStuff = pickNotWhatevs(singleUsecase, usecases);
responseStr = "Well, I only use it for " + singleCase + ". I rarely use it for " + otherStuff + "."
As a former employee you might have more insight than I do, but how exactly has a glorified message board which doesn't charge its users become one of the richest companies in the world?
Sure they're a bit interested in the fruit growing hobby and that network, but they're also very interested in the ways you "hardly use the site" and they're even more interested in the things your doing when you don't even know they're still watching you. Even more interesting, you're actions on and off their platform can be correlated with heavy users of the site to infer traits they'll assign to you and sell on, true or not.
At the end of the day, the way the species is evolving with the internet, giving someone permission to follow you around the web and collect that data on you is the same as giving them insights into your inner psyche, the majority of what composes your reality, and the things you value most in your life, among other things.
These are things we should have a right to offer explicitly, not implicitly surrender.
[edits to elaborate on a couple points and add helpers to the why I use FB excuse]
Because, as you just demonstrated with your programming example: For HIM it's a glorified message board. Other people may use it in completely different ways and appreciate it for them.
I'm not the greatest facebook-fan either, but I think you're really overstating the control they have over people's lives here and at the same time understating the value it can provide to people. Unless of course all people using facebook are just damn idiots and don't know what they're getting themselves into!
EDIT: 'control over people's lives' might be better phrased as 'knowledge about their activities/preferences'
I invite you to read (or preferably watch) your Ibsen: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/An_Enemy_of_the_People
And people will accept it because we're pragmatic. And those who don't just need to grow up and start pleasing the AI.
A whole new industry will pop up from the ones training nets in the first place. Hey do this and that and our calculations will read you better, you'll get the results you want. We just suggest you don't talk about these things at all, don't shop at these stores, don't have this name or be associated with that demographic ...
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-06-23/google-wi...
Though I'm guessing that they are only now okay giving up on email data because they have so many other sources of tracking your behavior.
That's the annoying thing. We already had message boards! Except they were decentralized, you could register anonymously and the administrators often had more autonomy (e.g. not put up ads and tracking scripts). Now Facebook has eaten a bunch of that market, and so we're forced to choose between giving up those communities or submitting to the Borg. It's annoying as hell.
For what I see on Facebook or social network is : - look at me - post without arguing or even answer, discussion. - look at me - stalking - quote about life - game - cat meme
0% construction, information is not well organize, scrolling..