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Comment by eksemplar | Hacker News Reader

The annoying thing about Facebook from a Danish perspective is that everyone uses it to plan social events. There are a lot of articles on how you’ll get a richer social life and still get invited, but the truth is that you become a bit of a hassle for everyone else.

They have to text you the details outside of Facebook, or alternatively, have to adopt a new platform because of you.

Of course I still think you should delete Facebook. With all this recent controversy they had a chance to right the wrong, instead they chose to double down on exploiting their user base - not only in the legal department but also by quickly running their facial recognition stuff before the GDPR goes into effect.

On the plus side, the more people leave, the less Facebook will lose its justification because right now, the sole reason to be on Facebook is that it’s where everyone is.

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I totally agree. I deleted my facebook about 5 years ago and I now find myself extremely isolated socially. Friends made the effort for a little while, but eventually I'm sure I was just forgotten by the more distant friends and my social circle has dwindled to almost nothing. This doesn't really bother me though, it's sort of a natural filter whereby "low value" relationships are weeded out.

Probably more significant is the impact of not being able to make new friends in the same way. The communities that surround my hobbies seem to be concentrated on facebook. When I make new friends at the face-to-face events the friendship doesn't transition to anything more significant because there's no followup connection on social media. This seems to be one of the modern ways that friendships are built - meet IRL, connect via social network and then always have a connection of some sort which allows the relationship to grow if nurtured. In my case I don't see or talk to these people until the next physical meetup and so I'm "out of sight, out of mind". It seems to me that other newcomers join the group IRL and on social media and are quickly integrated, but I'm just some guy that occasionally shows up.

I feel like most Facebook events are 'invite everyone.' Whether or not your friendship level is greater than mere acquaintance or working at the same place or studying at the same school.

I don't have Facebook and I have no issues making friends-because I get up and go out and talk to people. Sure they may not invite me to X events-but when I see them we talk, we have a good time, and we go on with our lives.

> meet IRL, connect via social network and then always have a connection of some sort which allows the relationship to grow if nurtured.

I think part of this is "they're just not that into you." Not in a relationship sense-they think you are a fine person. But people have family, work, other, older friends. The vast majority of "social network connections" went just as far for me as some of my in person encounters-that is, went nowhere. But a few did. People don't have the time to be friends with everyone so they simply outsource it to facebook. Sometimes they do things that are interesting and a friendship grows from it-most times, not, in my experience.

> This seems to be one of the modern ways that friendships are built - meet IRL, connect via social network and then always have a connection of some sort which allows the relationship to grow if nurtured. In my case I don't see or talk to these people until the next physical meetup and so I'm "out of sight, out of mind".

I don’t think that this phenomenon is attributable to Facebook. I.e., Facebook doesn’t necessarily steer you toward meaningful interactions, and even without Facebook you can nurture a friendship using SMS, email, and so on. Developing friendships takes more effort than a typical Facebook interaction allows (“liking” a pic of someone’s food or whatnot).

I also deleted my account several years ago, and I've since made the conscious decision to let relationships fade if the only thing that would keep them alive were passive 'keeping up' via Facebook. But that suits my needs - I'm really not interested in what hundreds of people I've met are doing on vacation or thinking about politics or eating over the holidays.

My wife, on the other hand, lives for this stuff. She is much, much closer emotionally to people she went through earlier stages of life with and she routinely moans and shrieks about the things I mentioned above. And this suits here needs, because she cares about that sort of information.

That said, even if we grant Facebook a monopoly on 'keeping up with old friends', every other 'social vertical' that currently relies upon Facebook for connection, networking, and event planning represents a startup opportunity with massive market potential. Big one: mommy groups.

Events is probably the only thing keeping me on the platform.

Same for me. I think Events are the oxygen of facebook

Yes. Yet I often struggle with the UI. E.g. on mobile, when searching for events, you have to swipe a menu to the right and click "events", which is not obvious. Also getting a list of RSVP'd events is not trivial.

Same experience in the UK. I shut down facebook for a while a couple of years ago. Net result? I found myself getting invited to fewer social events. Basically, you make yourself a PITA for all your friends and acquaintances[1]. As much as I dislike facebook, for now, leaving really isn't a viable option.

[1] Granted, this may be age group specific. My friends tend to be 30-40-somethings, or late 20s at the youngest. Not so surprising, given I'm in my early 40s.

My solution was to keep my account, but use uBlock to remove the news feed. This allows me to use Facebook to reply to events and messages, but avoid the rest.

It's not optimal, but as others said, getting out completely can make you a bit of a hassle to others.

> but also by quickly running their facial recognition stuff before the GDPR goes into effect.

Could someone explain what this means? Is Facebook’s facial recognition illegal under GDPR?

Without explicit and specific opt-in consent, yes.

But what if your face was on Facebook before GDPR is in effect?

GDPR does not make a distinction based on when the data was collected as far as I know.

I just attended an event I had two lucky ways of knowing about:

1) Find out through Facebook as if I'm friended to "the right people" like it's 1987 [my "usual network" would never have heard of these people, not even a little bit]

2) Find out through an acquaintance live and in person by them randomly inviting me simply because I was around the right place at the right time like it's 1987

I'm not on Facebook, even if I was it's still 1987. Perhaps this is "the discovery problem", but even so in "current year" it still exists if only in ever-smaller measures. Choose your intensity of flavour, I guess.

One of the reasons why I left Facebook was because I was tired of invites. I got tired of getting harassing messages from people upset I hadn't yet logged in to Facebook to RSVP yes/no/maybe to events I had zero interest in. No, I don't want to go to your child's birthday party. Leave me alone.

I never understand this problem, I'm friend with people I'm actually friend with and the ones that annoys me I just unfriend or unfollow. What's hard about that?

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