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Comment by Maro | Hacker News Reader

I have a great time on FB/Messenger. It's a tool, it's up to everybody to use it in a way that is a net positive for them. I have friends/acquintances in 10+ cities, and it's a great way to keep in touch. As you mention, this "way" is very different then if we would meet in person, but that is out of the question, as we are separated by 1,000 - 10,000 km. The alternative, on average, is not to hear anything about these old friends and never meet them, lose touch, and that's the end of it. That's what happened with people who are not on FB (and living away).

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The alternative, on average, is not to hear anything about these old friends and never meet them, lose touch, and that's the end of it.

The alternatives are telephone, e-mail, actual mail, text messages, and other means that are not trying to track, tabulate, and sell you and your personal information to the highest bidder.

Amazingly, people managed to stay in touch for thousands of years before Facebook even existed. Even using computers!

Are my emails and text messages not being tracked? My postcards? My telephone calls are definitely being listened to, we know that thanks to Snowden, particularly anybody that talks a lot about stuff the Government doesn't want us talking about.

Whether it's the gov or FB or Google, I assume someone is listening in. When it's time for secure communication, I reach for something like Signal. Otherwise, I'll go for whatever is the most convenient (probably FB messenger, or text, rarely email/instagram messenger).

Bring listened to by the government is very different from being psychologically manipulated by political parties.

Right, but I think that's a separate issue than "...means that are not trying to track, tabulate, and sell you and your personal information to the highest bidder."

Honestly, I'd rather be snooped on by a corporation for advertising purposes than snooped on by the government for worse purposes.

Even when the ad buyer is a foreign hostile foreign government?

In the US at least, being snooped on by a corporation is a subset of being snooped on by the government. All corp snooping is available to the government. In practice, the government often uses corporate snooping to get around laws that would prevent them from legally doing some types of snooping directly.

With Facebook, you get the worst of both of those.

Political psychological manipulation is also done via advertising.

I think the scary part of 1984 was not that the govt spies on its citizens, but that the govt tries to control their thoughts themselves. If thought crime is eliminated via newspeak, the spying is meaningless

You can just lose touch, you know. It happens, and it doesn't make you a bad person.

If only there were other ways to send messages to people over the internet

It's the discovery mechanism that's unique to Facebook.

Other messaging services: tell someone your username on it (when you ever happen to run into them again, I guess.)

Facebook Messenger: search for their name on Facebook, find the one with the right profile picture, hit "send message."

Facebook is the modern-day White Pages, except for the entire planet.

And that's the part that makes it so hard to "quit Facebook": you're essentially erasing your entry from said White Pages, so people that want to connect to you by name can no longer do so (unless you're famous enough for Google to pull up your Twitter when people search your name; or you know enough about SEO for people to find your personal-brand website/blog when people search your name.)

Heh, you've given me a great idea for a weekend project (a free directory where you can put your info in, and you'll show up in Google search results). Think Gravatar, but for all of your contact info.

don't forget to add a picture and allow you to tag some interests as well

What would you call it? Imagine it's not just a publisher to Google, but you could land on the directory through a domain. Something about being a planetary directory.

The parent was probably being facetious (they're saying that you're sort of Greenspunning Facebook.)

Nevertheless, services like this already exist. https://about.me, for example. "Vanity website" is the generic term, I think. It's essentially a one-page business card that you can register a domain for.

The difference between these services, and Facebook, is that people sign up for Facebook and fill out their contact details as a necessary step in the process of doing something else they wanted/needed to do. People don't seek out Facebook, they just... end up there. Like your name ends up in the White Pages.

Whereas, these "business-card website" services, you have to explicitly seek out and register with, just for the purpose of having that information out there. Less like the White Pages, more like the Yellow Pages. People that want to be reached out to (i.e. people with "personal brands"—marketers) are willing to go to this effort, but regular people aren't.

It's very unlikely that, if you're looking to connect with someone (who is not the type to create a big public presence for themselves), that they'll have registered with one of these services. Why would they have?

Thanks.

If it's successful it will be bought and become evil. Gavatar tracks its users. It's blocked in my browser. If it's federated then maybe it won't become another Facebook.

I think the fact that you can’t turn off read receipts is a kind of shady way to keep you using the app. You also can’t turn off notifications for a chat without going into it and notifying the participants you’ve read the message.

It absolutely is a "shady way to keep you using the app", in addition to a whole host of other subtle things you wouldn't even notice. My intern project one summer was a (failed, thankfully) experiment with one of the darkest patterns imaginable. Everything is very carefully tuned and measured against relevant stats. If it looks good in some place like Venezuela or Zimbabwe, it gets lined up for general rollout.

I'm not a big export on notifications, but afaik on current Android there's OS level ways to turn off notifications. Eg. in the swipe-down thing if I tap-and-hold a FB notification, it offers to turn off all notifications of this category (eg. FB comment notifications). I just tried it.

Ideally, we will connect to far away people using tv size video conferencing , that enables eye-contact and the viewing of full body langauge - maybe creating something similar to the emotional experience of meeting people(according to research). And the tech is here , just a bit expensive.

But instead we use a tool,text, that creates very little emotional connection(according to research), addicts people in all sort of ways(intentionally), manipulates them via ads, and creates all sort of negative psychological effects.

Like FB's Oculus? :)

We don't know how Oculus will turn out to be - it may be a very isolating and addicting technology.

And there's no need for VR - high quality video conferecing does the job.

I don't think this is what people really want (most of the time). People tend to use modes of communication which are efficient (time/effort/responsiveness/exposure). They use whatever they can get away with: in person - video - telephony - text - like/reaction. I don't think manipulation plays a big part in choosing to text, people's preferences are just exploited by fb et al. for their own benefit.

>> I don't think this is what people really want (most of the time)

I'm not sure if this is true.

Let's experiment. Let's create a rewarding, addicting environment that will train people not to pay attention, not to develop social skills or empathy(research availble) , and be an easy escape from everything.

What will the result be? people will lack those skills. So for them, Social relationships will become more difficult and less satisfying - so why not use facebook instead ?

First of all Facebook messenger is an ugly app on mobile. Second the dark pattern of always having 1 unread messages even though I have literally deleted all my conversations is obnoxious.

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