

There's no avoiding Google+ - anigbrowl
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324731304578193781852024980.html?mod=WSJ_hps_LEFTTopStories

======
NZ_Matt
The way that Google is pushing G+ down my throat has really made me more
determined not to sign up.

The question that I ask myself every time I get redirected to a G+ sign-up
page is What's in it for me? My friends don't use it it and I have no interest
in using it as a glorified RSS/Twitter.

~~~
stock_toaster
I think the occasional HackerNews posts are the only times I have ever ended
up on a G+ page, in all honesty.

~~~
znowi
Yes, and on my phone it requires me to login to read a page. This is why I
know skip any G+ links here.

------
gwillen
"Vic Gundotra, who is in charge of Google+, says he sees little in-house
controversy today. "There was more resistance two years ago," when the project
wasn't well understood internally, he says."

This is absolute bullshit.

As I've mentioned before, I quit about 1.5 years ago, around the time the G+
fiasco was starting (and partially for that reason.) I also know, directly or
indirectly, dozens of people who still work there. I can tell you that, if the
internal complaints have died down, it's only because of the pervasive feeling
of futility about it within the company. The engineers are most probably still
not happy about the creeping Social-ificiation of everything, and they're not
going to be happy, but they're also well aware that the company does not give
two shits about their feelings on the subject.

------
naner
I just happened to register a Gmail account. You're given a Google+ profile by
default but you can dig into the settings and delete it. It is a hassle and it
is obnoxious, but it is possible.

That being said, I'm really frustrated with Google and other Social Media
companies for this aggressive behavior.

There are hardly any laws in place protecting consumer information or
regulating the troves of information being collected through social media. I
imagine Facebook and Google at this point must have more extensive "dossiers"
on more people than spy agencies.

It makes me a little uncomfortable, I don't fully understand why. Nor can I
grasp what the implications of all this data collection/mining are yet. But
here we are going full speed ahead.

Also I think this mindset officially makes me an old fart.

~~~
hyperbovine
It never ceases to amaze me how people can go on gleefully accepting the
thousands of dollars worth of free services that Google, FB et al. provide
them year after year, and then in the next breath cry foul when said companies
use the information voluntarily provided to them to try and make money.

No offense, but if you were really an old fart you would be accepting some
personal responsibility for your role in this transaction.

~~~
kill9
You don't seem to appreciate what a major change G+ will be for some of
Google's users. I for one would never want the following scenario from the
article to happen. Ever.

    
    
        "You'll go to search for a camp stove on Google, 
        and you'll find that your friend just bought one, and 
        you'll be able to ask him about it," says Dylan Casey,
        a former Google+ product manager who now works at Path 
        Inc., a smartphone-based social network.
    

Had I known that Google would one day decide to go social and share my private
life, possibly without my consent, then I would have never "gleefully accepted
the thousands of dollars worth of free services" in the first place. Fact is
that this is a change of direction for Google and people have every right to
voice their opinion about it... just like the TOS with Instagram... How is
this any different?

~~~
tsycho
First of all, how credible is a Path PM's opinion on the "camp stove" example?
Conflict of interest, anyone? Did Vic G or anyone official at Google say
that's going to happen?

IMHO, what's more likely to happen is: You search for a camp stove, and your
G+ friend has written a _public_ review of one, and your personalized search
results show your friend's review as well. Personally, I would find that quite
helpful since I can now contact my friend directly about this, but even if you
don't, why not disable personalized results for yourself?

~~~
kill9
That's a quote from "a former G+ product manager". His credibility is beside
the point anyway... this was a hypothetical feature mentioned in the article
that conveniently illustrated a potential privacy concern.

(To your prediction of how this feature might play out in reality I would say
that you are probably right, but also that I don't give two shits about what
my friends buy OR about what they publicly review.)

What we know for certain is that Google is aggressively pushing its users onto
G+ and that is the real heart of the problem. It's a bait-and-switch. I have
no intention of using Google as a social network and I have no guarantees that
I will be able to opt out of current or future features. The writing is on the
wall -- Google will be social. That upsets some people.

------
mitchi
Before, 99 % of internet surfers were anonymous. Now, when they browse their
facebook intranet, everything they do is logged and recorded. And now, we see
the same with Google. I tried to register a youtube account for my foosball
association a few days back. It wouldn't let me use a nickname. It had to be a
real name with a gender, a google+ account and a gmail. I ended up using my
own youtube account. They've asked me about 15 times if I want to use my real
name on youtube, I always say no.

------
petrel
It is clearly an abuse of monopoly. I am already using GMail, Free google
apps, search, android apps review and many other things. If now I have to do
the same thing, I am forced to either sign up for Google plus, which also
force me to give my complete name along with other personal details, If not I
can not use all these services. What a strange, is it not a abuse of monopoly?
I dont want to give my personal details, is it not my right? Why google is
forcing me to do so? Why I cant keep using android review withoug using Google
plus?

------
kriro
Is it just me or is there a recent surge of G+ stuff here? Almost seems
systematic. Some free books post with the G+ book, some Facebook "bashing"
posted on G+ now this.

Maybe I'm just paranoid but it smells like a targeted campaign :P

~~~
bcoates
Targeted by who? The coverage of G+ seems to be almost consistently negative.

~~~
jlgreco
Maybe some social-media marketers have taken _"any publicity is good
publicity"_ a little too seriously and decided that bashing G+ is easier than
praising it. ;)

~~~
w33ble
Ah, maybe they hired the same advertising firm as the IE team then.
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lD9FAOPBiDk>

------
dannyr
Wow. So much anger from people here just for Google asking to create a G+
profile.

Is it really that bad?

Google is a free service that we reap a lot of benefits from. We have a lot of
software engineers here. Google is indispensable followed by Stack Overflow. I
highly doubt we'd be able to finish an app if Google goes down.

What's a couple of minutes to set up one?

We know that Google+ is also a way for Google to more accurately target ads.
Advertising is the main source of revenue. If Google can't make enough money
off advertising, it would have to shut some services down.

This is why I don't use AdBlock. If a free site is useful enough that I visit
it regularly, I'll let them serve me ads.

~~~
taligent
Wow. So much lack of understanding about what the issue is.

I don't want my search results, the YouTube videos I watch, my mail or ANY of
my Google activity to be made available either to my friends or to the general
public.

With a normal Google account I could say this with certainty. But given their
behaviour recently I couldn't say the same thing with a Google+ account.

~~~
dannyr
Can you show me something that Google shared publicly (or your friends) that
you didn't do yourself?

I have a Google+ account. Posts show up on my profile because I shared it
publicly myself.

None of my search results, YouTube views, Email are public.

(Also it's stupid for me to reply to you given your history. But your reply is
just not based on any facts.

~~~
bjustin
Google Buzz[1].

[1] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Buzz#Privacy>

~~~
kill9
Well played.

------
zaidf
At some point Google should insert a reference to every user who has signed up
on any google property into their google+ user db. At least then we will have
one huge news day about how "well" google+ is doing and that will be the end
of this farce.

 _The impetus for such integration comes from the top: Google Chief Executive
Larry Page has sought more aggressive measures to get people to use Google+,
two people familiar with the matter say._

That is extremely telling about Google. Taken positively, it means the founder
has bet the company on social. Taken negatively, it means google's biggest bet
is so far a spammy and largely disliked product.

------
thinkling
If you've activated your Google+ profile in any way, Picasa will now detect
this and will no longer offer to upload photos to PicasaWeb, only to Google+.
I believe the back end may be the same, but the sharing UI and access control
is different.

~~~
wooptoo
The backend is indeed the same (same API), only the UI is different. You can
access the old UI at <https://picasaweb.google.com/home>

~~~
thinkling
You can access the PicasaWeb website, but if you have G+ enabled, you won't be
able to use the Picasa desktop app to add new PicasaWeb albums, it will now
only upload to G+.

Free service, you get what you pay for, etc., but this odd cascading change is
the kind of thing that drives my (70+) parents crazy, and they take note of
the fact that it was Google that broke the thing they were comfortable using.

~~~
mvgoogler
I work on the Photos backend team at Google.

Picasaweb and Google+ use the same back-end. The back-end makes no distinction
between albums created in Picasaweb and albums created in G+. Having an option
in Picasa desktop client to control whether an album is created in Picasaweb
or Google+ would be nonsensical.

I just tried creating an album in Picasa desktop client. I clicked on "Sync to
web" and the album was uploaded and was available from both Picasaweb and in
G+ Photos with identical functionality.

I tried creating a second album, but instead of turning on "sync to web" I
clicked on the "Share your album on G+" button. I 'shared' the album with
myself. The resulting album is available in either Picasaweb or G+.

~~~
pgrote
Hey ... I think I already know the answers to these questions, but I thought I
would ask anyway:

1) Any upgrades the Picasa Web interface planned? 2) Why when I search for
tags it shows everyone's photos by default? 3) Why do tag searches not return
all photos that are tagged with the term?

Thanks.

------
dredmorbius
All the more so when you're required to have a Gmail account to activate
android devices.

Tying indeed. DOJ?

~~~
jordanthoms
This is simply not true.

~~~
dredmorbius
Um. It most certainly is for at least some vendor-supplied Android builds, in
my experience.

It may not be necessary for _all_ Android activations (particularly
CyanogenMod builds), but there are phones for which this is at the very least
a practical, if not essential, requirement.

~~~
jordanthoms
On my Nexus 4 and 7 you can answer that you don't have a google account and it
will allow you to set it up without one, this has been the case on every
Android distribution I've seen. I don't think that Google or AOSP builds have
ever required a google account and it's not really fair to blame them if a
particular vendor does.

------
wengzilla
I absolutely HATE the fact that google forces me to have a profile on Google+,
but Google Hangout is so compelling that I've done it anyways.

I am hoping that Google bumps up security and visibility preferences for
Google+ profiles in 2013.

~~~
jonknee
> I am hoping that Google bumps up security and visibility preferences for
> Google+ profiles in 2013.

What options are you wanting? In my experience Google+ is much more upfront
about what gets shared to who than other social networks (especially
Facebook). It's based around Circles and that's _all_ about limiting who sees
what.

------
darklajid
I really don't feel the pressure yet. The article is certainly right in that
Google seems to try hard - it's just that I couldn't be ar.. - erm - bothered
to resurrect my dormant, blocked ('real name..') G+ account.

What do I lose, even at this point?

\- Youtube comments? That medium is 'watch only' for a long time already.
Reading the comments hurts and was never funny or interesting. Writing
comments didn't even cross my mind unless it's 4am and I had a beer or two too
many.

\- "Play" store reviews: That thing went basically into the direction of
Youtube and was full of people that had no clue but liked to post stuff.

(Before anyone claims that G+ will make this better and so-called "real names"
will fix that: Yeah, right. See HN. Twitter. Every other forum under the sun.
I don't buy it)

Hangouts might be cool, but I couldn't care less about hangouts without people
to hang out with. Since I never really joined G+ yet, this is a chicken and
egg problem (public hangouts? Naah, not for me, I prefer text over video for
most content). No G+ account, no G+ contacts, no need for that feature,
period.

The only one time I felt I'm missing out was when my local Ingress resistance
started organizing raids on G+. I'm mostly kidding, of course.

So, back to the point of the article: I see that they are trying really,
really hard to sell G+ to the masses and integrate it everywhere. What I'd
like to understand is: Do others feel that it works? That there really is 'no
avoiding' G+?

I disagree.

------
drucken
I have multiple Google accounts, from well before they required telephone
authentication, and use multiple Google services (gmail, youtube, search
primarily) but I do _not_ have any Google+ accounts.

I know this for certain because if I actively try to access Google+ from any
of the Google services, it asks me to first create one.

I have also never tried to change any Google service or access it differently
so as to avoid Google+ account creation.

So, clearly, _Google+ can be avoided_ , if you never had it.

That said, I do browse with scripting disabled (Google is not trusted by
default and neither gmail, youtube or search require it) and I only log into
Google services from trusted, i.e. personally owned, devices. I can read posts
on plus.google.com with this configuration. I have also never given my real
name to an online service account, except at the time of individual payments -
financial information always claims among the highest protections of laws.

In my opinion, I think Google has been very fair with people who are only
interested in access to their individual services, especially those that well
predate Google+, without being bloated or forced away by the rest of their
ever widening ecosystem.

Compared to Facebook and even Microsoft, Google is angelic in terms of access,
privacy and service encapsulation considerations. I cannot compare to Apple
since I only use them for music purchases.

------
xentronium
I don't see how using google+ to add reviews results in using google plus to
post. In other words, this integration might show an increase in ridiculous
stats google is posting, but it doesn't really increase amount of time user
spends on the actual site (so he doesn't read newsfeed). Thus any comparison
with facebook stats is not possible.

Disclaimer: I don't use either social network, but in their stats facebook
will consider me an inactive user and google will consider me an active user.

------
martincmartin
_Research firm comScore Inc. a year ago estimated that Google+ users spent an
average of three minutes on the site each month, versus more than 400 minutes
for the average Facebook user. In the U.S., Google+ had nearly 28.7 million
unique visitors through PCs in October—well below Facebook's 149 million,
comScore says. Those numbers don't include mobile-device users._

------
mikec3k
I still prefer Google+ to App.net.

------
aresant
Obvious comparison but interesting how close this feels to the DOJ hitting
MSFT over the head for bundling:

"The issue central to the case was whether Microsoft was allowed to bundle its
flagship Internet Explorer (IE) web browser software with its Microsoft
Windows operating system . . . Underlying these disputes were questions over
whether Microsoft altered or manipulated its application programming
interfaces (APIs) to favor Internet Explorer over third party web browsers."
(1)

When does leveraging a platform flip from good business to unfair competition?

(1) <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft>

~~~
pohl
_When does leveraging a platform flip from good business to unfair
competition?_

The moment you gain monopoly status in one market and attempt to leverage that
status in another. Until then, happy bundling! Read the Findings of Fact and
Conclusions of Law docs from that case. They make it pretty clear.

<http://www.justice.gov/atr/cases/f3800/msjudgex.htm>

<http://www.justice.gov/atr/cases/f218600/218633.htm>

~~~
AnthonyMouse
I don't think that's the right thing to be looking at. That's the district
court, which wouldn't be binding anyway, and if I remember correctly the
appellate court had some pretty harsh things to say about the district court's
opinion in that case. (As in, start over and try again, although the trying
again never actually happened because at that point Microsoft decided to
settle.)

~~~
pohl
It's my understanding of that it was Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson's
interview(s) with the press (an embargoed activity) while he was still hearing
the case that were at issue (as well as some issues about liability for
remedies). They did not have issues with his application of the Sherman
Antitrust Act or relevant precedent, though.

From Wikipedia: "...the appeals court did not overturn the findings of fact.
The D.C. Circuit remanded the case for consideration of a proper remedy under
a more limited scope of liability."

...and then Bush replaced Clinton in the White House, after which the DoJ
dropped the case.

So I think I still have a good answer for aresant's question.

~~~
AnthonyMouse
>They did not have issues with his application of the Sherman Antitrust Act or
relevant precedent, though.

I think they did. I'll give you a quote from the actual appellate opinion: "To
establish a dangerous probability of success, plaintiffs must as a threshold
matter show that the browser market can be monopolized, i.e., that a
hypothetical monopolist in that market could enjoy market power. This, in
turn, requires plaintiffs (1) to define the relevant market and (2) to
demonstrate that substantial barriers to entry protect that market. Because
plaintiffs have not carried their burden on either prong, we reverse without
remand."

Naturally there is a context to that (and they didn't reverse everything the
district court did, but some things) and you're invited to read the entire
opinion if you're interested.[1] Incidentally, if there is one thing I've
found Wikipedia to be _regularly_ wrong or incomplete about, it's the content
of court opinions.

Moreover, findings of fact are a distinct thing from conclusions of law.
"Findings of fact" are usually decided by juries, but sometimes by trial
judges when there is no jury, and it means deciding what actually happened,
not deciding what the law is. For example, a finding of fact might be whether
Microsoft did actually pressure OEMs not to bundle Netscape, but not whether
or not having done that would be a violation of the antitrust laws, which
would be a conclusion of law rather than a finding of fact.

(I should point out that we're having a nice theoretical discussion here and
that this is not legal advice, and if you need legal advice you should consult
an attorney.)

[1] Here is one freely available copy of the appellate opinion I found through
Google: <http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/msdoj/msft_ruling.html>

~~~
pohl
Thank you for posting that link. It made for good reading over my morning
coffee.

While I am not a lawyer either, my reading is that you have quoted from a
section of the document pertaining to a claimed violation (in the Conclusions
of Law) that are with regard to § 2 of the Sherman act (monopoly maintenace),
whereas aresant's question is with respect to product tying, which is a § 1
violation, which was merely remanded – and, eventually, dropped.

~~~
AnthonyMouse
>While I am not a lawyer either, my reading is that you have quoted from a
section of the document pertaining to a claimed violation (in the Conclusions
of Law) that are with regard to § 2 of the Sherman act (monopoly maintenace),
whereas aresant's question is with respect to product tying, which is a § 1
violation, which was merely remanded – and, eventually, dropped.

OK sure. And "remand" means the trial judge made mistakes and has to try
again, not that they did everything right. When they do substantially
everything right it will say "affirmed" and then that part of the case is over
(or gets appealed to a higher court instead of going back down). And as you
already pointed out, the case being settled/dropped probably had a lot more to
do with politics and the incoming Bush administration than anything to do with
the court system or the law or whether the original district judge was right
or wrong.

------
mtgx
Google+ _should_ be Google, in the same way Gmail and Google Talk are just the
same Google accounts. Someone said here today how he found Hangouts
complicated on mobile, because it wasn't well integrated into the OS, the way
Facetime is. And that's exactly why Google+ needs to become synonymous with a
Google account. Apple allows you do use any and all of their services with
your itunes account, from iCloud to payments, doesn't it?

You don't have to use it, just like people don't have to use all of Apple's
services, and as long as they are not too in-your-face about it.

~~~
JoshTriplett
> and as long as they are not too in-your-face about it

"In-your-face" such as prompting me with a page-modal dialog every time I log
into YouTube, demanding that I create a G+ account, and if I say "no" actually
requiring a _reason_ before the dialog will go away? I currently work around
it by logging in, closing the tab when the dialog comes up, and opening a new
tab.

~~~
jordanthoms
I agree it's horrible, but I gave them a BS reason and that modal has gone
away and never come back.

------
lkbm
Google accounts have long come with public profiles. How is an empty Google+
profile different?

~~~
kill9
It's not just about having a profile or not. Google seems to be changing
services to require G+.

For example, you can no longer comment on YouTube or write a review in the
Play store without a G+ profile (or at least I can't). This means that
activity in those Google properties is no longer pseudonymous. That is very
unappealing to some.

~~~
jonknee
> For example, you can no longer comment on YouTube or write a review in the
> Play store without a G+ profile (or at least I can't). This means that
> activity in those Google properties is no longer pseudonymous. That is very
> unappealing to some.

From Google's point of view here there is only gain--YouTube comments are some
of the lowest form of internet communication to be found. App reviews are not
much better. Requiring people to have some sort of profile is not going to
lower the quality of reviews, it will only limit their quantity (which is not
the lacking factor).

~~~
jrockway
Google currently offers YouTube users the option of either using their G+
profile or a YouTube profile.

I tried the G+ profile option for a while, but I didn't really like it. The
first time I posted something publicly, people started commenting on my
Google+ posts, apparently upset because they did not get the joke I made.
Someone in the YouTube comments looked up my profile, figured out where I
lived, and threatened to come to "BrookLine New York" to adjust my viewpoint.
I found it hilarious but most people would probably be scared.

I switched back to using a real-name-inspired nickname. You blend in better
and people won't bother you except in comment replies, which you can easily
ignore.

------
lh7777
I think it was clear long ago that Google+ is just Google, or at least it's
what Google thinks their future is. It's easy enough to avoid Google+, though:
just stop using Google products and services. There are plenty of great
alternatives available.

~~~
hackinthebochs
do you have a suggestion for a good email alternative?

~~~
lh7777
I've been using Rackspace hosted email (actually was webmail.us before being
bought) with my own domain name for over 8 years and my experience has been
nothing but excellent. It's $2/month/mailbox now, but unfortunately they now
have a $10/month account minimum, so not a good option if you just need one
mailbox.

[http://www.rackspace.com/apps/email_hosting/rackspace_email/...](http://www.rackspace.com/apps/email_hosting/rackspace_email/?MMP=loginpg_hosted_email)

------
sakopov
The only part of G+ which i absolutely love is hangouts. Still think
everything else is a privacy concern. The strange thing is that i am
witnessing a significant migration of non-geeks to G+ from Facebook. I didn't
think i'd see the day. I guess people are picking lesser of two evils.

------
brennenHN
Google+ whatever, the writing in this article is really bad. There are so many
confusing pronouns, redundant sentences, and poorly integrated quotes that I
had a hard time making it through the article. Whats up wsj?

------
contingencies
Google's growing G+ surveillance is a worry. This is why after watching the
29C3 keynote (<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QNsePZj_Yks>) and whistleblower
panel (<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XDM3MqHln8U>) a couple of days ago I
blocked all the main google domains (mail, maps, G+, accounts, picasa, etc.)
via /etc/hosts and committed to only accessing Gmail via Tor
(<https://www.torproject.org/>). Facebook I already deleted and block via
AdBlockPlus (though I now recommend <http://trueblockplus.org/>), but G+ is
harder and more insidious to stay free of. After a few days of use, I am quite
happy with my new strategy: keep email (or anything personally identifying,
like banking) in a different and anonymized browser. Keep everything else in a
general browser that never sees you identified.

Edit: add URLs, TrueBlockPlus reference.

~~~
RK
Why not just use IMAP for gmail access?

~~~
josteink
If you are going to use IMAP, why would you use gmail at all?

Gmail's main selling point is the excellent web-interface, not the way the
mail-store works well with IMAP.

~~~
gallerytungsten
>If you are going to use IMAP, why would you use gmail at all?

As an alternate email address, for any number of a variety of reasons.

------
hexis
That was a really effective ad for, e.g., Rackspace's hosted email service.

~~~
nasmorn
Which I use at my company and have nothing but praise for. But who is going to
take an pseudononymous (if this isn't a word it should be) review into
account.

------
exabrial
I'd use google plus more if the mobile app wasn't a flaming turd.

------
chris_mahan
plus.google.com is blocked at my employer.

------
capo
Yeah, no shit! I’m not quite sure what is the point of that article, because
it’s fairly obvious that the main reason for which Plus was conceived is to be
the uniform identity provider for commenting, reviewing, and overall
communicating throughout Google’s services.

At the time Google lacked the pictured user profiles that every other app
seemed to have and so Google Plus was born.

I think that the discrete social network is secondary and the competition with
Facebook is constantly being overplayed by the media as the reason for this
social play.

The author just seems oddly surprised that G+ is doing what it’s supposed to
do.

~~~
taligent
Google+ is a social network. The only person who thinks otherwise is you:

<http://plus.google.com>

And the reason Google+ is being integrated everywhere is because it is the
only way they see themselves gaining traction against Facebook. Which right
now is their primary online competitor for the almighty advertising dollar.

~~~
saraid216
> Google+ is a social network. The only person who thinks otherwise is you:

Vic Gundotra disagrees.

[http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/03/10/vic-gundotra-
google...](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/03/10/vic-gundotra-google-
plus_n_1336601.html)

<http://mashable.com/2012/06/29/google-plus-problem/>

~~~
taligent
Well Vic better update the website then. Because a site that mentions "share
the right things with the right people" and then has games, photos, events and
videos sure sounds pretty similar to Facebook to me.

You don't think he's just trying to move the goalpost to prevent one-to-one
comparisons with Facebook since you know they aren't doing so well ?

~~~
detst
I'm not going to argue that Google+ doesn't fit some definition of "social
network". But what's up with the snarky comments? How about sticking to an
argument, instead of making comments like "The only person who thinks
otherwise is you", which isn't even true?

------
edwardunknown
It's really depressing to see the "Don't be Evil" company get down in the mud
because they're afraid of some fly-by-night swindlers who nobody will remember
in five years.

I'm not giving you my name and face, Google, no matter how much I used to love
you.

~~~
onedev
>"some fly-by-night swindlers who nobody will remember in five years"

People have been saying this for the last 5 years.

I think it's time to reiterate a point that was made here a couple days ago
that I think really outlines the reason that Facebook WILL be around for a
while.

The comment that I'm referring to suggested that there's a "point-of-no-
return" for a service where people are too deeply invested in it for any
competing service to have a REAL fighting chance. That point of no return is
when you have grandmas and grandpas, as well as little kids, and non-tech-
savvy folks in general using the service (in this case FB) consistently and
constantly.

To give you a personal example, my parents are the LAST people who I would
expect to create a Facebook account. They are very technically unsavvy, but on
top of that they're pretty skeptical people too. However, they finally got a
Facebook account, and I think that highlights why Facebook WILL be around for
many more years.

If you're going to use Myspace as an example, then don't, because Myspace
NEVER reached the tipping point of Grandmas and Grandpas trying to use it. I
think this goes for any service, not just a social network like Facebook. Take
the iPhone and iPad for example. Same thing with that. You have grandmas,
grandpas, and little children using iOS, so you know it's ingrained across
multiple generations.

Now I'm not saying I'm 100% sure they're a rock-solid company, but I don't
think people give them enough credit. It's far more popular to say "oh they'll
be gone in a few years" than to actually understand and analyze the situation.

~~~
edwardunknown
Phooey, Facebook is at this point just a big Lebron James charging down the
court and intimidating everybody in it's way. People will leave as soon as
it's convenient because they _viscerally hate it_.

The Onion told me so: [http://www.theonion.com/articles/number-of-users-who-
actuall...](http://www.theonion.com/articles/number-of-users-who-actually-
enjoy-facebook-down-t,29503/)

~~~
onedev
HAHA! I love the Onion and that article was actually pretty well written,
loved the twist at the end.

Those 4 people represent the reasons that I actually like FB. I really just
like seeing what other people are up to in their lives as well as staying in
touch with the people who are closest to me day-to-day. It's really that
simple.

NOT to suggest that FB doesn't have it's issues or that we should take any
pressure off the company, but at the end of the day, most of the little issues
are easy to ignore, and it just becomes a useful tool that I like using.

