

Facebook hated as much as airlines, cable companies - edw519
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/38324957/ns/technology_and_science-tech_and_gadgets/

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lkozma
If the data is indeed valid, it might have less to do with the privacy
concerns and the ads, I don't think mainstream users care about either that
much. The site is designed such as to exploit some of the weaknesses of
people, such as the fear of missing out or the compulsive hoarding (of
friends).. As such, many users might feel addicted to it, but at the same time
feel miserable for wasting time on it. That might show up on the survey as a
vague negative feeling. Kindly argue why I am wrong before downvoting, please.

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gigafemtonano
Adding to your comment, it's my understanding that many people feel the site
is poorly designed. I've often heard "I wish there were an easier way to..."
in relation to facebook.

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Unseelie
And its so very buggy...

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sophacles
I would bet this has nothing to do with Facebook itself. Look at the other
things people hate: Airlines, insurance, the cable and fone companies. Like it
or not these companies are infrastructure, basically things people are forced
to use to function well in society. This breeds resentment, people hate the
things they have to do whether that hatred is fair or not.

I don't like phones, and I hate that I have to pay to have a phone to maintain
a large chunk of social interaction (there are alternatives, but they suck).
This means I am far more demanding of what I want from the phone company, and
far less tolerant when they do things I dislike. Yet I keep giving them money.

Facebook reaching this point means that facebook will be harder to unseat, due
to it having "but whatcha gonna do about it" status, not easier because people
hate them.

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gsk
>function well in society

You are giving undeserved credit to Facebook by equating it to infrastructure.
If facebook disappears tomorrow, people may miss it but they are not going to
stop functioning well in society.

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kscaldef
I'm not entirely convinced. I have a number of actual, real-life friends who I
communicate with almost exclusively via Facebook. I don't know their email
address, and in some cases I don't know their phone numbers. If Facebook went
_poof_ tomorrow, I would be able to get new contact information via other
mutual friends, but it would be a major pain.

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whakojacko
Exactly. Not to mention planning events and sharing pictures (the second one
being significantly less important, but still useful). Sure there are
alternatives, but they are far less convenient for everyone involved.

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dvvarf
There is absolutely nothing about methodology on the ASCI site. Here is their
official commentary on the results:
[http://www.theacsi.org/index.php?option=com_content&task...](http://www.theacsi.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=220&Itemid=236)
The MSNBC pretty much lifts sentences from there.

This is a bigger picture summary of how other industries fare to give some
perspective: <http://www.theacsi.org/images/stories/ACSI_TREE_07_10.pdf>

It's hard to tell if these findings really mean anything, since this is social
media's first year on the survey. And without more information, it's hard to
say if a direct comparison across industries even makes sense.

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thinkinghard
If you look at the survey closely, you'll see that FoxNews has the highest
satisfaction among all of the other brands that were analyzed.

I would take this data with a grain of salt.

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Agathos
Their methodology is a great mystery, but I think they poll people who hit the
websites in question. In which case Fox News' score is no surprise. It's the
most polarizing news source out there, and the other pole isn't part of the
poll.

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arnorhs
I would love to know exactly what group was surveyed and how the score is put
together. Was it an opt-in kind of thing, so only passionate/angry people
would chime in. What were the questions phrased as? etc...

Traditional questions like "How much value would you say Facebook brings
you?", "How valuable is FB to you?", "If Facebook were to stop existing, how
bad would that be for you?" etc..

Those are the kind of questions even your average airliner or insurance
company would have at least somewhat positive responses from, but since people
feel like they're possibly wasting their time, the score might seem low.

btw. more info and stats:
[http://www.theacsi.org/index.php?option=com_content&task...](http://www.theacsi.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=212&Itemid=220)

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Groxx
> _“Facebook is a phenomenal success, so we were not expecting to see it score
> so poorly with consumers”_

What, do they not _talk_ to people? 9/10ths of the people I encounter / talk
to / overhear (friends or not) on campus & otherwise house quite a bit of
dislike for Facebook, "but all [their] friends are on there", so they feel
obligated to stay. About 9/10ths of the remaining people have no strong
feelings either way, and the left-over 1/10th actually _like_ it.

edit: And yes, I do actually mean those ratios. In the past year or two, I
have heard _only a couple people_ say they like FB, and quite literally
_hundreds_ of dislikes. Nearly everyone on campus has an account, and that
means you can sometimes catch a dozen or two (or more) remarks daily out of
several thousand students if you listen for it.

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fuzzmeister
I think most people will _say_ they dislike Facebook, mainly due to the time
commitment involved, but they would feel quite disconnected if they were
suddenly unable to use it to keep up with their friends.

It's not that people are using Facebook "because everybody else uses it" (that
is, because of peer pressure), but because people have come to _need_ a
service that "everybody else uses."

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Groxx
Isn't that kind of the _definition_ of peer pressure? You _need_ to do
something to stay in group A. Do it or be removed.

Or maybe an addiction? One can dislike what they're addicted to, and still be
strongly pressured to use it.

Except this group A is the biggest & most connected group the world has ever
seen => potentially the biggest & most powerful peer pressure the world has
ever seen (depends on what value you assign to those connections, and what
value they assign, and the availability of other options (i.e.: none, for most
people, however incorrect that belief is)).

What people _want_ is something _like_ Facebook. Clearly. But that doesn't
mean they _have_ to like Facebook to keep using it; it's just the only real
option.

~~~
fuzzmeister
Almost all of the complaints I've heard about Facebook from college students
stem from the amount of time "wasted" on it. However, all of this time is
spent interacting with other people on the service, actively or not. So, it is
hard to see how one could make a Facebook-esque service where the problem of
time being "wasted" is solved without destroying the very point of the
service.

~~~
Groxx
Oh certainly, I'm not claiming it's an easy fix. It's kind of an inherent
quality/flaw of social tools.

That said, Facebook has aimed 180 degrees away from productivity. The whole
site is designed to be addictive and encourage more pages / more time. (I
mean, duh. That's how they make their money. It just ends up sucking for
users.)

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orangecat
Sounds about right, in all three cases there's essentially no competition.
Airlines are uniformly awful (with the partial exception of Southwest), cable
companies have a combination of natural and government-granted monopolies, and
Facebook is the poster child of dominance via network effects. Satisfying
customers doesn't have to be a high priority for any of them.

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tokenadult
I actually don't hate on airlines, even though I used to be a frequent flyer
in what is still one of the most one-company airline markets in the United
States. The only dealing I have with cable companies is letting my Internet
signal come into my house on a TV cable that has never been used for TV. I'm
not sure the comparison in the article fits me.

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GavinB
This isn't really a fair comparison. More people use Facebook than they do any
_individual_ cable company.

I don't have an opinion on airlines that I've never flown or cable companies
that only exist on the west coast. It would be more interesting to take a
sample who use both Facebook and, say, Comcast, and see which was more hated.

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kierank
Ryanair is the classic example of a company that is supposedly "hated" yet
people use en masse nonetheless because it provides a service that people
want.

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marknutter
I really just think hating Facebook is in vogue and the fad will pass. It's
the best way to keep in touch with people you don't see that often, bar none,
and people will continue to use it because that's where everyone is.

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balding_n_tired
Right, but people aren't switching to Greyhound or going back to broadcast
only.

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rblion
told you so. you fags negged me for calling it before it happened.

