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Comment by wccrawford | Hacker News Reader

Why does Facebook have such a history of bad decisions like this?

I -just- rejoined Facebook yesterday due to the fact that I seemed to be missing out on too many opportunities by boycotting it, and my 6-month-long boycott has made absolutely no dent in their popularity.

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I once went to a info session that Facebook put on at our school (this was trying to attract coop students). One of the things that the previous coops, as well as the recruiters/presenters emphasized was the lack of formality and 'set' procedures. One coop recalled how he was directly responsible for a 20 minute downtime in facebook because he pushed something to production after testing it locally a bit.

Yeah, no real testing servers (they exist, but aren't actually required), no real dedicated QA, none of the usual trappings. The coop laughed it off. And the recruiter did too, and pointed out that a lot of responsibility is placed directly on whoever is coding the code. They're even the flexibility and freedom to do what they think they should do, and if it causes a little downtime? As long as its short, and nothing is lost, no problem. It's something to laugh at at the bar.

Now, I'm sure there's some embellishing going on there to ensnare more young minds, but I even if its half true, I think this anecdote provides a lot of insight into how facebook works. Perhaps many of the little privacy things isn't the result of Zuckerberg deciding that everyone doesn't need control, it's just the individual programmer placing it lower on their priorities to even think about, and there being no real overarching structure to impose these privacy concerns.

Until it gets released to production and 'blows up' in their face.

Can you list some of the opportunities? I have an account, but no idea what to do with it.

As a facebook non-joiner myself, I find that I miss out on a lot of baby pictures, knowledge of other people's birthdays, and (a few) parties.

I would regard that as a benefit.

That reminds me of another effect: I am thought of as a person that regards missing these things as a benefit!

For me, it's timely knowledge of friends doing things I might want to join in on, keeping up with a few groups and organizations that post things there, and cheaply signalling my affiliation with just about anything by joining a group named after it.

I also found a great band called "The 21st Century Monads" because I was looking through famous people's profiles, and it's the only music group on David Chalmers' page.

I have some friends who use FB as their main means of communication. Instead of firing on a quick email to them, I send it on FB.

While it's not my primary means of communications, my Facebook account gets near 0 spam (both literal spam and "mailing lists which are fairly boring but every now and again I should check") which means that while I made everything else in my smartphone just give a little "pop" sound, Facebook messages (and SMSs) actually make a "pring-pring" (more noticeable) sound -- if my Facebook mailbox has something in it, there's a high likelihood it's a real person, needing something real from me (and there's a high likelihood that I want to give them that, since I actually know them...)

My point: It's actually rational to assume FB messages are more valuable, and given people who do that, it's equally rational to send them messages on FB :)

Oh, I agree. Some people just see FB was a means to communicate and don't bother worrying about how cool/uncool it is.

A friend of a friend offered me an opportunity recently for some development. They (who own the business) are big into Facebook and that the the first method of contact that they offered.

It's not a huge money-making opportunity, but it's the first step towards a path I've been wanting to take for quite some time.

It's not that I'm mining Facebook for jobs any more than I mine my phone for jobs... It's that by boycotting it, I cut off a means of contact that others might prefer. (And I could also appear childish or out-of-touch as well.)

Nothing against communicating via Facebook, if that is your thing. But it is definitely not childish to not communicate via Facebook. Boycott is too strong, perhaps, but if you simply see no use for it.

Personally I am just old fashioned in that way, I still run my own email server. I don't feel too happy about my communications belonging to some mega corporation.

Also, I don't like having to log in to FB to get my messages, and in turn to be trackable by all the sites that partner with FB.

That's just my reasons - but I don't boycott it. If somebody messages me on FB, I usually reply. I just don't initiate communication on FB.

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