Hacker News Reader

Comment by sambeau | Hacker News Reader

It looked good until I needed to agree to all this before I could actually see how it worked:

* Access my basic information: Includes name, Profile picture, gender, networks, user ID, list of friends and any other information I've made public.

* Access my Profile information: Likes, music, TV, movies, books, quotes, About me, Birthday and Current location

* Send me email

* Post to Facebook as me

* Post status messages, notes, photos and videos on my behalf.

* Access my data any time

* Access my data when I'm not using the application.

WTF? No! Sorry.

View on HN

I know FB Connect is a deal breaker for lots of HN readers.

From a product standpoint, I decided that requiring FB Connect (for now, at least) is one of the best things I could do to make sharing more frictionless, which will help the site grow hopefully.

Is there no way to do it with less? I just get very twitchy when I see that level of permission. We're getting to the stage where a FB profile is important to life, work, family… well everything. We have parents, grandparents, children, mother-in-laws and bosses linked in there… and some near explosive issues always bubbling near the service.

Can't you take the minimum and ask me again when I want you to do something more sophisticated for me? If you have built my trust and have demonstrated the trade-off I will almost certainly grant you more permission.

But, dude, you're asking for the key to my front door and we've never even drunk a beer together!

"But, dude, you're asking for the key to my front door and we've never even drunk a beer together"! -Well put. I'm a musician and would likely love to utilize the site but I'll never find out because I won't support this sort of intrusion. F_ck fb. You can grow without them... in spite of them even!

For me personally, sharing shouldn't be frictionless (which Facebook have started using as a synonym for 'involuntary'). Sharing should be a conscious decision. I do understand how this is beneficial to both Facebook and Fandalism, and although I don't agree with the concept, it looks like you've built a really great product, and you deserve a good bit of exposure and success. I'll certainly be evaluating it for a while. Great work, sir.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com