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Comment by fullshark | Hacker News Reader

Until consumers reveal that they care this is how it will be unless governments regulate/punish.

my response to this is always in the vein of, "how exactly should customers show they care?"

"Well, leave!" isn't an option. They can't leave. Quitting Facebook when you're an active user means you lose a huge amount of social contact. I can think of a dozen people I know who are there because it's how they send baby pics and the like to family. They're non-technical and don't care about federated mastodons, they just want to see their niece and go to their high school reunion.

So yeah they get really mad at this stuff but the network effect is so strong, you can't simultaneously convince the entire graduating class of whatever to plan reunions via some new thing when 1)everyone's already on facebook and 2)they've been using it for so long it's part of their workflow.

> my response to this is always in the vein of, "how exactly should customers show they care?"

The answer is the same with any other foul business practice you oppose. The problem is not unique to digital businesses and I really hope those demanding justice don't request something more brash than they otherwise would in a non-digital situation.

And yes they can leave. There are real things you can't leave like your only ISP (internet is essential in modern society and no alternatives), then there are websites you can choose not to leave like FB (not essential in modern society). Your misuse of the word "can't" instead of "won't" just discourages any level of consumer responsibility.

can't and won't are effectively the same thing in this context; you're picking nits about free will.

Yes, of course everyone can always leave. The only price - for more than a few of those 2 billion - is the complete disruption of their social lives. Telling someone they can never see cute pics of their lil cousin again is punishment, not a serious decision about consumer responsibility.

You can tell because a history of malfeasance and yet, 2 billion active users.

Most people I know are getting off of Facebook, or were never on it. The only people I know who are really still active are people using it to market themselves/their business, and are not there because they care about Facebook, but because they want to be findable there (and everywhere).

I guess I'm old, but I find that email is great for sending baby pics to friends and family, and for planning things.

Well anecdotally in your small social group that may be true. But Facebook has 2.27 Billion active users...

...for a certain value of 'active' (do they say how it's defined?) My experience of internet companies has generally been that user figures are somewhat exaggerated (to put it politely).

No matter how you define “active”, there is no indication that in the aggregate people are fleeing Facebook - no matter if a few anecdotes are posted on HN.

By Facebook’s generous standards, active users have been flat for a year or more.

I had this problem recently, I wanted to get in contact with an old friend I hadn't seen in years. Because it had been so long I no longer had a current phone number or email address. At this stage we didn't even live in the same country as each other. Solving this problem, or problems like it, might go a long way to reducing the appeal of Facebook.

That's exactly why I joined Facebook in the first place...

Email is such a failure for sending family pictures. My relatives keep changing their addresses without telling anyone, and many email providers have small message size limits so if you attach several pictures then the message may bounce or just not get delivered. For all its faults, Facebook is a much more reliable and usable delivery channel.

I feel you but a quick search finds "As of the third quarter of 2018, Facebook had 2.27 billion monthly active users"

so solve for that, not your dozen or so social group.

A huge percentage are browsing but not posting anymore I would guess.

Let's make the next mandated change to Facebook's operations a red bordered, 90% screen coverage dialog, modal:

"We are required to notify you that we have leaked information from your account, please be advised that we have no idea who has your profile information, pictures, post history or any other information contained in your posts. Please consider resetiing your entire online persona to avoid financial and/or social consequences."

With two buttons: "Erase me from Facebook" or "I get it, I don't care."

Just planting seeds, Bill Hicks style...

Leaving is of course an option.

The fact that they don't leave mearly show that they value the gained social contact higher than the cost of data breaches.

that's my point, normal people value social interaction over an absolutist position of "well at least my data is secure!". normal people view never seeing their lil' cousin again as punishment, not the correct position to adopt bc it prevents being caught in a data breach

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