Comment by jasonbarone | Hacker News Reader

Comment by jasonbarone | Hacker News Reader

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Wow, Facebook has been the exact opposite for me. When Google Reader started becoming too much work to manage, and its closure was on the radar, I moved to Facebook and decided to follow all the brands, companies, and people I'm interested in hearing from, much like what I did in Reader with RSS feeds. After that, I "Unfollowed" everyone I didn't want to hear from me. My news feed turned into exactly what I wanted it to– a resource where I can see everything important at glance. I separated things out into lists, and I made better, more targeted ways to find stories.

It's constantly gotten better with things like "Followers vs Friends", Facebook pushing comments from your friends to the top, Facebook collecting "Shares" towards the top of your feed, lists, displaying links in a more attractive way, etc.

And tastemakers and power users are using it more than ever.

I don't know of any other way to stay connected to the things that matter other than Facebook. Twitter is just a noisy stream of links and quips that you can't keep up with. Linkedin is just awful.

Reddit, HN and things like Techmeme are pretty much the only other places where the curation around topics are really good.

I find it interesting how people use Facebook in such widely different ways. For me, Facebook is strictly for friends--most of whom I don't have any sort of professional connection with. I never follow a brand/company/etc. on Facebook. I use Twitter and Google+ for professional stuff. (And still use RSS as well.)

For me, Facebook = distant relatives.

That's it.

Todo: Get extended family on email list and delete Facebook.

Yes, and you're ok to sell yourself for that? Man, really??

Bands? subscribe to YouTube channels or twitter or mailing lists or what else , your friends? Call them. IT? Come here or use Reddit. This is just over simplification of it, I have ten times more interests than that, and it's not at all hard to manage them without Facebook. You could use some browsers specifically designed with integration of content as their primary feature, I don't remember the names but at some point I've tried a couple and was really impressed.

But again, most importantly, are you really ok with selling yourself for ANY hypothetical advantage FB platform could offer. I never would...

"subscribe to YouTube channels or twitter"

Yes. Not for profit YouTube who doesn't advertise. Twitter? Really?

That's not the point! The article was about how FB deals with privacy, and it makes some considerations on the fact that from the very first moment you start using it, you do accept that they are entitled to record every little detail about your life. And I was saying, is it worth it given there are some least worst alternatives? No! Not at all!

I never said that those alternatives are ad-free, but at least they are operating in a different way.

Google may know my current location, which bands and pizzas I like, my job, all I've searched so far, and even does automatically scan my mail to put some targeted ads in it. Ok, but at least formally, they offer me the chance to opt out from all of that: don't track my position, don't save a chronology of my search history, don't do targeted ads, ...

Speaking of Twitter, they are probably analyzing the hell out of my tweets too, but by design Twitter it's much less all-around-every-aspect-of-your-life than FB. Can you really compare the quantity and the granularity of personal and private information that FB is admittedly collecting with Twitter's? Honestly they have a much clearer business model too: pay them some money, they'll put your hashtags in trending topics. That's it. Moreover being that Twitter is mainly used as a public communication system - and was born like that right from the start - I couldn't care less if they analyzed what I was saying because that's how advertisement has always worked! If I decided to publicly express my love for baking cakes and the day after I was presented with an advertisement for a baking course in my city, then that'd be perfectly fine. Go around and shout out loud "I love dogs!" Sooner or later someone will approach you trying to sell you a dog. That's supply and demand. It's always worked like that and there's nothing wrong with it.

Of course, what Google and FB might illegally be doing under their hoods it's a totally different concern...

Here we are speaking about how FB is publicly and explicitely perpetrating this behaviour and how dangerous it can be not only to the uninformed ones who go by the "I have nothing to hide" argument but to their friends/relatives which don't even own a FB account.

So all I was saying is: is it worth it, given what we know about FB and that there are some least worst alternatives (even by a small degree) ? No, not even for a second. And we should start exploring those alternatives.

And the following quote from @jasonbarone, which I had originally replied to, explains exactly why:

>"I don't know of any other way to stay connected to the things that matter other than Facebook."

"Google may know my current location, which bands and pizzas I like, my job, all I've searched so far, and even does automatically scan my mail to put some targeted ads in it. Ok, but at least formally, they offer me the chance to opt out from all of that: don't track my position, don't save a chronology of my search history, don't do targeted ads, ..."

That's not an accurate assessment. The key here might be "while actively using the service".

You cannot opt out of such things while in Gmail, for example, any more than you can opt out of Facebook intelligence while using Facebook.

Twitter?! I had my company's account blocked because it looked suspicious to them. In my opinion the only suspicious thing was the fact that we tweeted only 2 or 3 times during its one month lifetime. At least Facebook didn't do that to us.

No Facebook will always be glad to have you, don't worry :)

I never understand how people can seriously suggest calling your friends as a replacement for Facebook. How many friends do you have? Must not be very many. I have a small number of close friends, that I talk to at least weekly via some method. But then I have probably around 100 other friends that I talk to not that often, but still want to be friends with, and another 500 people that I like to know what they are up to, but thats about it. For example, I went traveling recently, and one of those 500 happened to post before I left about a trip they made to the same place. I asked them about it, and found out about some cool things to do in that place. That is extremely valuable to me , and if you have a way to replace that type of interaction outside of Facebook, I'd love to hear it.

Calling is absolutely a better substitute for maintaining contact with friends than Facebook. Actual real-life facetime is even better. A lot more information can be conveyed in a real conversation.

I can understand that Facebook might be a good way to keep in touch with acquaintances, but if you use it to keep in touch with friends that's what they'll soon become: mere acquaintances. Exchanging a few typed words every now and than isn't enough.

Also: nice ad hominem on the "not very many", please try to keep it civil on hackernews.

This comment comes up all in sorts of discussions and I don't quite get it. I follow a huge amounts of pages/people on Facebook to stay up to date on industries. The fact that I "like" Humans of New York, the Wynn Las Vegas, or Taylor Swift doesn't mean I actually like them in real life. I've just opted in to receive notifications when they post stuff. For all I care Facebook could have an incredibly detailed profile that I engage with Wynn's page 50x per year somehow, and that I'm in love with Taylor Swift because I clicked Like on one of her posts. I really don't care. I get ads that are somewhat close to what I'd be interested in and I'm OK with that.

I'm using Facebook as my primary listening tool to follow things/people.

Your solution is for me to use a browser or an aggregation tool of some sort. Facebook already does that very well, and has apps for all major platforms.

If at some point there's a better tool, I'll use it, and I'll stop using Facebook. But there's not. If that happens, and Facebook hoards a database entry of my lists of likes and communication, that's cool.

You do realize that brand likes are public, right?

Yes, and my profile is public. I also follow brands I don't necessarily like, but am interested in following, whether it's keeping up to date on an industry, or just knowing what competitors are up to.

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