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Comment by lefstathiou | Hacker News Reader

I am fascinated by Facebook. It is one of the most valuable companies in the world but if you took it away from me (and I would argue most people) tomorrow morning it would have almost no impact on our day to day lives. I actively use it and my girlfriend is obsessed with Instagram but if she didnt have it she would just go back to reading blogs on Tumblr or wherever. I would hate to live in a world without Google or its ecosystem of applications (like Maps) or a world without Microsoft Excel/PowerPoint but I believe a world without Facebook would look almost identical to the world we have today.

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I personally couldn’t disagree more.

If you cut me off tomorrow of Facebook and Messeneger I would instantly loose contact to the majority of people I care about (except my wife and parents).

I would end up spending life on my couch watching Netflix instead of engaging in a rich social life I have now thanks to FB events, groups, Messeneger, etc.

And I guarantee you that’s true for a large amount of the user base! Otherwise they wouldn’t retain.

(Fake) news and cat videos are a very hyped topic...but it’s really only a small part of why people actually use FB

That sounds really sad, to be honest. Where are you living that you can't have face to face interactions on a regular basis.

Adding passing acquaintances on Facebook has actually made them developing into real friends more likely by my anecdotal reckoning, as they're at the top of mind my when I see their updates and I remember to check in.

And my partner being friends with my mum on there has actually helped both out with subsequent interactions as they know more about their common ground.

Facebook, ultimately, is what you make it. There's loads of "racist uncles", "fake news", "Tasty videos" etc, but if you engage with the people, it's as powerful as ever.

Making new real friends as an adult in an entirely new place is really hard for many people in many places (including me), and hanging out with vague acquaintances doesn't hold much interest.

Totally agree that it's challenging to make new friends as an adult. I feel lucky if I make one new real friend every two years. But just cause it's hard doesn't make it impossible, and it's far more rewarding than internet-only friends... you can actually do things together, not just talk.

It's not sad, it's just different.

Culture has always changed with time.

> Where are you living that you can't have face to face interactions on a regular basis.

Far from many of my friends and family? Many of them live in other states or countries, and Facebook is cheaper and usefully async when dealing with international calling rates and timezone differences, respectively. I'm not sure I understand your question.

Many of them are abroad.

People had social lives before Facebook. (source: I'm old enough to remember.)

Oh, I am old enough (40) to remember too...I am in fact old enough to know that I am much better of with FB in my life...minor annoyances asides (but no product is perfect in the end)

Really? It'd have a HUGE impact on my life.

Nearly every aspect of my social life is planned on Facebook. It's the one place where nearly everyone I know are. Facebook, for me, is really just the best event planning tool in existence.

I'd also instantly lose contact with a bunch of acquaintances and friends. I've moved around quite a bit in my life and Facebook connects me with those people. When I travel it's the platform I use to reach out to the people I want to catch-up with. It'd be a real bummer to lose that.

It's true that the news feed aspect of Facebook is something I wouldn't miss. It's something I never use anymore, politics has taken care of that. But all of the features around it ARE things I deeply care about.

I use a browser extension to display:none; the news feed section. I still get notifications (if I want to click the badge) and can browse/search, but don't get random content shoved in my face. It works well for me.

I actually don't have phone numbers or email addresses for most of my friends. Without Messenger I wouldn't be able to communicate with them so that would be a huge disruption to me.

I could agree with you even more than what I already do.

My social life is on WhatsApp groups. No one in my social circle uses Facebook Messenger for anything relevant. The number of friends' photos has steadily gone down over the years. I've switched off FB but come back when am bored and want to spend time looking at cat photos and BuzzFeed. Facebook not existing in the world would impact me minimally.

Google, and even Microsoft, on the other hand, damn if they stopped existing... I'd be fairly distressed I suppose.

I mean. Facebook owns Whatsapp. And if you're not in a WhatsApp country, the US, Korea, Japan or China, you're in a Facebook Messenger country. They handle messaging for the vast majority of the western world.

The Facebook website itself is no longer particularly useful to me, other than that it is very good at events (both private and for public event discovery). The groups feature is also handy.

Other than with Facebook's messenger, your WhatsApp social graph is in your phones addressbook. If Facebook's WhatsApp service were to be gone tomorrow you could just install the next biggest messenger and beyond minor initial fragmentation all your friends would still be there.

This wouldn't work with the Facebook Messenger, since this social graph is not stored by the user.

WhatsApp is basically how me, my family and friends text, call or video chat.

Messenger is huge. It is like utility that I won't even assume it is going away.

You don't run a business, I can tell.

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