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Comment by thejerz | Hacker News Reader

> but there isn't really a way for me to leave.

You speak as if you have no agency in the situation. But, you do have agency. Using, or not using, facebook is 100%, entirely your choice. There was a happy (happier?) world before 2005, where families shared photos and stayed in touch, without Mark Zuckerberg.

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Yes, I have the agency to lose touch with people I care about, because it's not practical for me to convince them all to use a different medium. It is the FB moat. It's real.

I decided to do this a long time ago. I use the phone the normal way and other real social settings to keep up with my friends. I'm at my stress limit already since long so this wasn't such a hard decision. My well beeing and my familys goes before anything else. Avoid a burnout, it's very damaging to your world when it hits you.

So people who don't use facebook aren't in touch with people they care about? There is no moat, only an FB blindfold. It's just a product. If it's not serving you well, drop it. Better ones will arrive faster than we blink.

That's just so black and white. I could muster an effort and get some of what I get from FB via other angles, sure. And yes, there are some relatives that aren't on FB, but for me, that's the exception, not the rule.

But it is just so naive to assume I wouldn't miss out on notable pictures and news of people I love by opting out. Facebook does have some value. We're not just purely idiots. We get the trade-off. Hard opting out would have real downsides for me.

If you care about these people as much as you think, not having Facebook is not going to prevent you from continuing to do that.

That's not fair. Forcing them to update me, and only me, via a second channel isn't "care".

It hasn't been a choice for a long time. 10 years ago I started getting emails from facebook showing me others that I knew that had shared their address books with facebook, giving them my name and other contact details. Mapping all my friends together if they use facebook or not. Tagging friends on images uploaded to facebook. Visiting pages that have the facebook pixel on them.

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