

Ask HN: what would make you switch from Facebook? - joering2

those who believe Facebook is just a stage in still  evolving Internet and one day will be in MySpace shoes, whats your take on the future Facebook?
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mcherm
Wrong question. The right question is "What would _allow_ you to switch from
Facebook?" For me, the answer is "if all my friends and relatives would move
someplace else". I suspect Facebook will work hard to prevent that, blocking
data liberation tools and things intended to synchronize your data across
multiple social sites.

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joering2
thanks. that actually surprised me when they released the tool to export your
entire profile. Thought it was kind of a mistake to give that feature to the
users.

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jgrahamc
I 'switched' from Facebook, LinkedIn and G+ the other day:
<http://blog.jgc.org/2012/01/social-site-shutdown.html> I simply closed all
three accounts and decided to live life without them.

~~~
polyfractal
Agreed. I hardly use Facebook and I find it's UI a nightmare. All my close
friends stay in touch via Gchat, more distant friends either don't need to
contact me or have my email (or know a closer friend).

My girlfriend closed her facebook though, and it's amazing how much aggression
people display when she tells them that. _"What?! You don't have a facebook
account? What's wrong with you?"_

Then they go on and start bitching about how much time they waste on
Facebook...

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beatpanda
Events are the only reason I still have an account. If I had a better way to
be notified of parties and small local concerts, I would deactivate my account
in 2 seconds. The news feed doesn't do anything for me, I don't use any apps,
and random people from my past already can't look me up.

I already use other apps to share the kinds of events and connections Facebook
wants me to put on their platform, and I falsified my profile so ads show up
in a language I can't read. But I cant get al the way rid of my account,
because not having one would be too inconvenient.

I suspect its going to stay this way for a long time, for the same reason I
have a Yahoo account I never use.

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AznHisoka
Facebook has something MySpace never had: an ecosystem. With Facebook Connect,
a place to receive invites, a central place for contacts, albums, etc, a
developer program, brand/fan pages, etc. it's hard to see them going away for
a long long time.

That said, I am not in Facebook. I would consider joining a social network if
it had meaningful/interesting conversations I would want to participate in.
Sort of like Hacker News, but more geared towards any general meaningful
topic, not just tech. Quora is as close as it gets, but even that is too much
Q&A.. I just want general chat, like Reddit except a bit more serious.

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Reebz
I don't think I would move due to the multitude of family/friends, but
Facebook will die off when there is an open social networking framework.

I see it like shoes. You wear Nike, your friend wears Adidas, but you can
still walk together. You can connect across networks, tag photos across
networks, etc. You will have your personal page but it's really just a place
to rest your head - your 'Newsfeed' aggregates all your friends activity from
whatever network they're on. It won't matter what shoes you wear, just get a
pair and go walking.

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joering2
opengraph does that, right?

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robdoherty2
Really-- a stiff breeze would blow me out of my roost on facebook.

But like mcherm, I am bound by my connections to my relatives/friends with
whom I would likely otherwise lose touch.

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PonyGumbo
I'm only on Facebook to stay in touch with friends and family who I don't get
to see on a regular basis. I'm not in any way committed to the platform.

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mike-cardwell
I want to use a distributed social network which no single corporation or
government can control, monitor or censor. Everything should be private by
default, with PKI and encryption playing a central part.

If somebody can create that, and make it easy for my mum to use, then I (and
many other people I suspect) would spend _considerable_ effort to get people
to move over to using it.

~~~
balac
<https://joindiaspora.com/>

~~~
mike-cardwell
Diaspora has the distributed part, but not the PKI part. I'd be happier using
Diaspora than Facebook, but not so much so that I'd go out of my way to
convince my non-techy friends to move.

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wtvanhest
It would have to be some sort of network that starts out as an extreme niche
and slowly builds network effects.

~~~
joering2
good call. is there any other "niche" of a human life that hasnt been tapped
by network effect?

~~~
wtvanhest
Yes, there are plenty of niches without established social networks.

The issue becomes whether the niche provides a compelling value proposition
for people to deal with the beginning. I would argue that HN or maybe Reddit
have the right type of environment where if they decided to add a social tier
to comments stuff like I could add someone as a friend that it would take off.

Also, I think dating sites have potential to win here too. Site A could easily
add a friend button and end up with network effects to keep people from going
to site B. That could grow in to a real network.

The way I think about it is the same way I think about the universe. Without a
doubt, with 7 Billion people on earth, someone will figure out a way to create
network effects. From an investment standpoint I would be fearful to back
anyone unless they had traction.

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brudgers
Facebook won't be in the same shoes as MySpace because it was not sold at a
"quasi-dipshit" price after less than three years to a massive media
conglomerate [see also AOL].

Instead, Facebook has focused on growth and Zuckerberg has maintained a huge
ownership stake.

Indeed, MySpace was vulnerable to such a sale because it was a division of a
larger company and its founders did not have the sort of control over its
destiny that Facebook's founders have.

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tstegart
What would make me switch? If I could still access all the Facebook info
without using Facebook. That would make me switch.

