Comment by djhworld | Hacker News Reader

Comment by djhworld | Hacker News Reader

A lot of people I know have online lives that live within or around facebook and nothing else.

They get their news from facebook as the news/media organisation posts updates to their feeds, which they can share with others via WhatsApp or messenger. No need to visit the news sites it's all there.

They get their local second hand marketplace through Facebook Marketplace, no need for eBay et al.

They get their local community updates, gossip, business recommendations etc. through Facebook Groups. No need for nextdoor or neighbourhoood specific websites/forums.

They can find local businesses through the Facebook as the businesses have a Page that describes what they do, testimonials from previous customers, bit of a social feed to add some personality/'blogging'. Contactable through messenger. The businesses don't need to setup a website, Facebook offers all the tools.

You never have to leave, especially on iOS/Android if you use the facebook app. Even links to external sites are rendered in a webview, so no need to look at URLs.

I've been dragged into Instagram.

For months now I've been searching for some good used furniture. Mostly MCM stuff. I'd prefer private party sales, but am open to dealers as well.

For the personal side I was checking Nextdoor, Craigslist, and OfferUp. Hours of scrolling and modifying search queries and I couldn't find anything worth checking out. Those sites are for $50 couches and $20 bookshelves.

For the dealer side, I was just searching the web. My impression was that furniture dealers were either a dying business, or all search engines suck. The only results I kept getting were Pinterest, 1stdibs, or Chairish. These are sites with insane markups where (I suspect) you're supposed to be smart enough to haggle down. I gather they also take a large cut, so not many dealers list with them at all.

I finally got a clue and re-animated my ancient IG account. Whaddayaknow? That's where everyone is! Suddenly I've found and followed a couple dozen resale shops that offer all sorts of cool stuff. All within an hour of where I live. Half the time, the URL they have in their bio is a dead website. Or, it exists but hasn't been updated in months. They've given up on having their own website and sell only inside the walled garden now.

It's a shame.

I still haven't logged into Facebook proper. I probably should find out if Marketplace is better than Craigslist, et. al. for classified ads.

Marketplace is far more active in my area. It's not better, IMHO (the search is all but unusable) but there's more stuff to be had and items showing up in one place (often FB Marketplace) aren't always on the other (CL, offerup, etc.)

Out of curiosity, where exactly on IG do you find MCM furniture? Is there a specific hashtag or?

For me, it was one local shop that had an abandoned website. (I actually drove to their old location, trusting the address on the site).

When I talked to the owner, she said something like, "Oh. Yeah, I post everything on Instagram now."

So I followed that business on my IG and looked at other shops she follows. They're mostly local, so I did as well. After a few of those, Instagram took over and started recommending me more and more places. About 10% of the recommendations are more local shops, so I keep adding them.

I don't search by hashtags (yet?), but looking through some of the posts in my feed, these seem to be the common ones: [#furniturerestoration #midcenturymodern #midcenturyfurniture #midcenturydesign]

This whole experience has made me feel what my parents must have in 1996, when I was teaching them about e-mail and the difference between "slash" and "backslash" :)

Facebook might not be the place to find high-end furniture, but it is everything that Craigslist was, and before that newspaper classifieds were, especially in rural areas.

I've recently purchased these items via Facebook groups and marketplace, all of which were listed no place else:

- the exact boat I had wanted for years

- a ton of home brewing gear

- lightly used children's shoes, at $75 off list price

- a chest freezer

- a 4k monitor

I'm not saying this is a good thing, but it is outrageously effective.

I agree about high end items.

We started some home renovations recently and used FB Marketplace to get rid of everything. We got rid of a vanity, toilet, light fixtures, oven, skill saw, media center, and more. We usually list it for ~$20 (except the oven) and if the person doesn't do anything weird we give it for free. It's way better than throwing things out.

Maybe try aptdeco.com?

(Haven't used it myself so can't testify)

I just checked it out and they seem to have good stuff listed. Prices are also decent. Unfortunately they're not in Southern California yet.

Bookmarked anyway. Hopefully they add more regions soon.. Thanks!

At this point I look at Instagram because it has way more "here is a shiny thing you want to buy" and way less "doom-scroll for more things wrong with the world" than any other platform I have used in the last 18 months.

FB provides local groups as well that I have yet to find popular alternative for. There is a whole portion of the population that doesn't mind sharing their whole life with FB for the convenience offered by some key services.

Mind that the same people might not share all their "moments" directly on FB, and therefore you might not necessarily see them on your feed.

This is exactly what I've seen too.

Sure, young people may not use FB too much these days, but there are a ton of adults that are close to 100% invested in FB usage. It's simply a one stop shop for almost all their needs.

And I'm gonna be honest, a LOT of my previous forum and classifieds usage has been taken to facebook, which I'm using every single day.

Young people (say under <20, those that actually don't use FB[1]) have no need for FB in the first place - they see their friends every day in school, in parascholar activities and social gatherings. Once you are out of school is when the model gets sticky, FB becomes the bridge between you and your social life for most people - it really is between FB (+Insta/WA), phones and e-mails, and guess which holds the most contacts for most people [speculation/projection]. Snapchat and TikTok and great competitors for their share of online time-spent, but they won't be able to replace FB's utility for keeping in touch with people you've met once they need such a SM.

[1]: https://www.statista.com/statistics/187549/facebook-distribu...

> Young people (say under <20, those that actually don't use FB[1]) have no need for FB in the first place - they see their friends every day in school, in parascholar activities and social gatherings.

Yeah..2020 and the better part of 2021 might have something to say about that

>FB becomes the bridge between you and your social life for most people - it really is between FB (+Insta/WA), phones and e-mails

And guess what Facebook did in 2012? Stripped out email addresses from profiles

I have thought about this before. As someone who would never use Facebook, I want to judge the Facebook—centric view of the web, but then I think about how I live my entire online existence around an RSS reader (Feedly in my case). There’s obviously a level of manipulation in Facebook that isn’t present in an RSS reader, but I understand the mindset of setting a central portal in the online world.

Having different sites'feeds you look at in an RSS reader is different though. In my case I have over 500 of them. I continue to add and remove whenever a feed breaks or sites stop updating.

That's exactly what Facebook wants. Becoming your OS.

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