I Was Right About Mark Zuckerberg | Hacker News Reader

I Was Right About Mark Zuckerberg

theatlantic.com

27 pointselsewhen13 comments

This is a pretty weak connection to a single word in the subtitle... astute readers will notice his forthcoming book also deals with "betrayal" (and also "genius"). Buzzfeed-worthy subtitling is a Mezrich specialty, after all.

I don't think there's really a throughline from the "betrayals" of Saverin and the Winklevosses that the book was concerned with and Facebook's privacy travails (other than maybe "Zuckerberg is a bad dude").

I agree that the author was right about Zuckerberg. I also contend that, at this stage, it doesn't matter. You can't put the djinn back in the bottle. The tech world has been making the case for years that privacy matters but it's clear that it doesn't. The companies that violate it over and over, publicly, are not punished by the market and the companies that respect it are not rewarded.

People don't care about privacy.

People != the market. Anecdotally Facebook usage among my circles has dropped. Most of that activity has shifted to Instagram which Facebook, Inc. owns but the general stigma attached to it is less.

Sure. But the market is a good proxy. Investors are betting billions that people don’t care about privacy and so far that bet has been good

Facebook is a natural monopoly. People have to use it, whether they like it or not, whether they care about privacy or not.

No one has to use Facebook.

No one has to use electricity, for a uselessly narrow definition of "have to".

Facebook's usefulness outweighs users' concerns about privacy, which leads me to conclude that users don't "actually" care about privacy. They might wish that Facebook were different, but that wish hasn't translated into loss of market share for Facebook.

Not really sure what the author thinks he got right about Zuckerberg

It doesn't matter what he says the message is clear "buy my book".

...really?

I'm not saying you have to agree, but the article is pretty clear about what he thinks he got right.

Did you read it?

"From the very beginning, Zuckerberg has shown a pattern of deflecting and discarding things and people that don’t conform to his worldview or his ambition. In the same way that Zuckerberg discarded people like the Winklevoss twins and Eduardo Saverin in his quest to launch his revolution, he’s endeavored to shake off our fears about attacks on privacy and mishandled data. When we discover that our private information isn’t actually private, we feel betrayed.

And that’s why I believe I was right about Mark Zuckerberg—and why every one of us knows a little bit what it feels like to be a Winklevoss."

It's sad that there is so many people that are in a position of power but abuse the trust of those who believe them.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com