Ask HN: Why is the Facebook desktop website so bad?
Like, it's really bad, and lags after some scrolling. Uses 50GB*of RAM after an hour of scrolling.
EDIT: Was joking about 50GB. But it consumes a lot of my RAM.
- Push notifications. Last time I installed the app (to test this) the default notification settings are unreal - literally dozens of push notifications per day. If you change your notification settings in the app to essentially turn off everything Facebook will still send you a few per day as in "Hey, you don't seem to be addicted to the app and use it every hour. Here's a reminder for you to jump back in and get those dopamine hits you're missing." This of course translates to more add views (and potential clicks), more DAUs, etc.
- Greater access to XYZ on mobile. Apple famously cracked down on this a bit but it's still more data.
- Doom scrolling. It's easier for people (and I think they're more conditioned) to swipe endlessly on a mobile device vs scrolling on desktop. Again more add views/clicks, etc.
It's the way FB can track you in the real world, via GPS, have direct access to various sensors, locate people you are in the same room as, etc.
I honestly think that might be worth more than the "no ad blocking", given that FB can use that data to deliver ads on many other people's apps.
The new Reddit web interface makes the Facebook web interface look fast. It's amazing just how slow it is – many buttons take multiple seconds to respond, scrolling is nearly unusable, all on high-end modern computers in modern browsers.
I know threats like this are cliche, especially about UI refreshes of long-loved web sites, but this one rings true for me. Like Facebook, I'll miss some of the content, but at a certain point the experience isn't worth it.
Luckily the absence of the newest features is generally a positive.
This feels like the weirdest instance of stockholm syndrome, I've seen this so much. And don't get me wrong, I totally understand where you're coming from, Reddit is user-hostile as hell. But... why keep using it then? Why keep giving pageviews and ad money to a trashy website that hates you?
I used to post a ton on Reddit. My browsing of it has been reduced to maybe all of a couple times a week on my local city's subreddit only. I didn't wait for the UI to go even more to shit to essentially stop using it.
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Edit: I guess my point's been missed. Maybe to rephrase: How do you get any sort of enjoyment out of actively using a website that hates you? How does this not make you want to use it less and less regardless of how good the content is?
Edit: I don't understand how my comment did not answer your rephrased question, so I probably wasn't that clear. old.reddit.com is still there, the API still works just fine, so does my favorite third-party client - the same one I've been using for years. The new features I'm missing out on by using the site in this way, I don't care about. My usage is still perfectly enjoyable and the site doesn't do anything to actively make me feel that "hate" you're talking about.
It's like .. okay, imagine you have this market you used to shop at. You really enjoyed going there for years, but it's been bought by Walmart. For reasons, Walmart isn't shutting down the market, but they're not restocking it, making sure it smells bad and the products are past due-date, and they're almost threatening you to use their big store which you absolutely don't want to use "or else".
And instead of looking for your shopping elsewhere, you decide to keep shopping at that market until Walmart shuts down what you used to like, because, idk, I guess there's still a couple products there you like?
It's a stretched comparison, sure, but this is how it feels like to me. Bar some very specific communities (which are moving over time), content on there is not exclusive to Reddit. And even the niche communities you might enjoy there, there's plenty more on the internet (or even offline) you can be a part of and find true enjoyment in.
Tildes for example is the one I'm a part of (https://tildes.net/). I quite like being part of a community where the website doesn't do everything in its power to piss me off and force me to make it more money. If anyone wants an invite feel free to email me (cf profile).
The comparison isn't just stretched IMHO, but downright faulty. With the old site and the API being both still present and perfectly functional, it's more like if said Walmart kept the old store up right next to the new one, still keeping it stocked - the new store has new sections, but I'm perfectly free to shop in the old one. Nothing makes me feel like I'm not wanted there.
Maybe that's enough for you to feel unwanted, it doesn't for me - yet. When they do cut old/API, it'll start feeling like they're actively pushing me out, therefore my previous stance.
You, and for the record I, are not the target market for this money making angle anymore. They don't hate us though, they nothing us.
We can still bypass all of the A/B testing with old/api methods so it still works. Why use Reddit? Because it's user generated content not Reddit generated content. It's not much deeper than that.
Tildes is like that now, they'll probably be doing the same or shut down given a long enough timeline. Imgur for an easy example here. Built because all the image hosting sites of the era sucked. Now it's worse than they were.
In your example, PRODUCT is bad or lacking (past expiry, not restocking, etc). With Reddit, PRODUCT is still good, plentiful, and arguably unique. It is the shopping experience that is lacking.
As well, in your example, only the poor-experience method to obtain the product exists. I believe overall message is that good old way STILL exists to obtain good product; and people are indicating they aren't sure even the good product will entice them once new shopping experience is the only way... but it isn't currently.
What it comes down to is whether one will make a principled stand (I want your product, but I do not like your attitude, so I'll leave) or pragmatic approach (I am still getting what I need out of this, I reserve the right to change my mind).
1) I still gain value from it now. Why do you buy an expensive car if you know eventually it will cost more to fix than it is worth and destined for the scrapheap?
2) The more people credibly saying that they will leave reddit when old.reddit disappears, the less likely it is to. Appearing in engagement numbers on old.reddit is clearly telling reddit there's a possibility I'm in that group.
3) If they do remove old.reddit, and then enough of us drop reddit, they may reverse course.
I have stopped using it in other contexts, as a casual user. Too painful.
Jokes on you Reddit. I deliberately stick with the mobile website so that the sheer friction of it limits my Reddit time. Works pretty well.
As for access on mobile, they are far more contained to within app, at least on iOS. On the web they can have their cookie everywhere.
Also, you've mostly been posting unsubstantive and/or flamebait comments and that's not allowed either.
If you don't want to be banned, you're welcome to email hn@ycombinator.com and give us reason to believe that you'll follow the rules in the future. They're here: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.
You think that just shutting down the communication medium really makes all of that go away"?
I don't think shutting them down will stop it but I think a lot of todays hyper-partisan inflammation of the citizenry is owed to these platforms and their encouragement of any and all "engagement" on their platforms in service of ad dollars. These companies know how harmful these products are but since they're profitable they ignore the findings. I would argue that Meta/Facebook is the Philip Morris of our generation.
It's like some giant parody art project of dysfunctionality, you just have to step back and admire how phenomenally effectively they're demolishing everything. It's Yahooesque
At least Google has enough sense to can things that aren't working. It'd be like if they were still pushing plus and glass
Does FB even need to change? What's wrong with a product becoming stable and maintained and just growing in users but not features, etc?
Why can't we just have products that are "done". When's the last time HN didn't get something in "maintenance mode"? With SaaS, it's not even like you need to produce new versions to get more money.
When (90%/99%) of facebook valuation is based on growth potential? About (90%/99%). Money basically.
I had similar issues with Twitter. I kinda understand it now after lots of use. Kinda. But it still confuses me, and that's part of why I never tweet and rarely even log in. Just navigating it read-only is difficult, and that's before they throw multiple kinds of LOG IN TO KEEP READING walls at you.
Why wouldn’t Google fix this obvious issue? Top comment on this thread right now assumes malice of Facebook. I’d prefer an explanation that explains why Gmail is a memory hog too. Maybe it’s just hard to develop complex web apps.
No gridding, no sizing, no custom or alternative layouts, no nothing --> I have no control over layout, either as I browse/use it, or the layout of my page to others. I cannot easily provide photos or music or articles or links or content that I want to friends & family.
I used to be a somewhat prolific poster of content, but over last few years my engagement has dropped to basically nil - I have been dis-incentivized from creating or adding content, and have complete disinterest in consuming content on such an uncontrollable platform.
And yes, I do miss Google Plus, but that's a whole other incendiary discussion :D
Sign me up.
Nah, they’d rather focus on the metaverse, than meatspace hehe
Could even make a fake "meta" looking logo for it and get sued!
And then some competitor would come along, slaughter Meatverse, and eat Zuckerberg's lunch.
My YC application is pending.
[1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/277125/share-of-website-...
I'm mainly a desktop user because my hands are too big to use smartphones comfortably. I can scroll decently well but I can't operate the keyboard without running my finger in a pencil sharpener first. There are lots of sites I simply don't use because they don't work well on desktop. It's kind of annoying being told I don't exist.
https://mbasic.facebook.com/messages/?ref_component=mbasic_h...
Screenshot https://img.imgy.org/-w3G.png
But no in all seriousness it's crazy that 98.5% of people browse fb via mobile. I have never and will never consume social media via mobile. I literally use my phone for three things -- screening my email inbox, accepting and creating calendar events, and SMS/Slack/Discord comms. Other than that it's just not going to happen for me, ever, unless I have no other choice.
It used to be that if you clicked on an email link ("your friend Bob just posted a new picture"), you'd see the mobile website and then you could click on the left arrow at the top left of the page to go "back" to the home page feed. Someone changed that code so now the left arrow button just does a vanilla browser-back, which does nothing in this case because it's a freshly opened page.
The whole point of those email links is to suck me back into my feed, not just show me what that one singular friend posted. The only way I can find to get "back" to my feed today in that newly launched page is to manually enter the Facebook url in the address bar, which obviously makes me infinitely less likely to get sucked into my feed, see the ads, and make money for the company.
I'm not a fan of FB, but that seems like it's got to be driving a pretty mind boggling drop in email to revenue conversion rates - the real bug isn't the change in the code, it's the failure of the analytics dashboards to spot the revenue loss.
That doesn't even bring up the fact that I cannot select a volume for some videos while watching from my PC. It's either muted or fully on. Not only should there be a volume - but the volume you previously selected should be automatically selected when you start the next video (reddit, youtube do this).
To be honest, I'd put more of the blame on the browser. They should probably be handling all that activity better. Like chromium browsers will freeze background tabs after a certain amount of time/usage.
That said, I didn’t use it much because I wasn’t able to view my friendss’ posting on their wall due to crazy preemptive algorithms in favored of paid accounts.
No loss for me there.
I am however thankful for the option to download everything from my account that was provide by Facebook before this clusterfuck occurred.
I should mention I do have uBO and uBO extras or whatever, it might help cut down on some runaway stuff.
Twitter on the other hand is awful with long load times and heavy resource usage.
Sometimes I'm forced to use an alternative frontend like Nitter to browse tweets.
Javascript was probably invented by Satan.
These cause non-trivial issues on corporate firewalls a lot of the time.
But yes, the desktop site is garbage. They don't care.
Is the newsfeed leaking mem, or is it just 50GBs over time?
0.0.0.0 www.facebook.com
Works for me as i have zero lag, zero ram used and any scrolling i would have done i do elsewhere.
Another help is FBPurity.com which is a web browser plug-in that lets you customize your Facebook feed. I have mine set to not show things other people "Like" or "Comment" on. This way I only see things my friends actually post of their own.
In that case, the page gets pretty large because there is actually a lot of content in the DOM. It's just not designed for your use case.
And, just to make that clear, it's a violation of the terms of services and of some national laws (including the GDPR) to collect user data, you may want to tread carefully.