
The Best Alternative for Every Facebook Feature - jonbaer
https://www.wired.com/story/facebook-alternatives
======
harel
Replacing functionality is the easy part. How do you replace volume of people
using the system? Scandal or not - Facebook is still where "everyone is". And
until "everyone" are not there, there is no "replacing" Facebook - just
replacing some functional aspects of it. I use Facebook for one main purpose -
to keep in touch with people around the world whom I know from different
periods of my life. Unless all of them pack up and move to an alternative,
leaving Facebook means leaving them.

~~~
wolfgke
> Replacing functionality is the easy part. How do you replace volume of
> people using the system? Scandal or not - Facebook is still where "everyone
> is".

I actually _do_ know people who strongly prefer their friends _not_ to have a
Facebook account. So this is a feature and not a bug, since it is a strong
opportunity to sort out to whom of the Facebook "friends" one really wants to
stay in contact with.

Or to give another argument why this is a feature and not a bug: About
everybody who has used Facebook for a long time also has collected "friends"
that one would love to drop from the friends list, but has not done for
politeness. This is finally an opportunity to get rid of them in a much more
socially accepted way.

~~~
make3
come on you're a tiny minority, most people's friends are on Facebook

~~~
wolfgke
> come on you're a tiny minority, most people's friends are on Facebook

My impression is that this strongly depends on the social circle the
respective person is.

You first have to keep in mind that in Germany many people indeed use
Facebook, but it is not not that deeply integrated into the life as it is my
impression that it is the case in the US. Also in Germany it is often the case
(at least in my impression) that people that come to some gathering explicitly
say that don't desire that anybody puts some photors that were made of them on
Facebebook.

In this case: if I were living in the USA, I probably were in a tiny minority.
I am also probably a minority in Germany, too, but it is not my impression
that this minority is tiny.

~~~
Semaphor
> that don't desire that anybody puts some photors that were made of them on
> Facebebook.

Can confirm, coming from festivals I'm not allowed to upload some pictures to
FB and have to send them via email to a bunch of different people who'd still
like them.

------
Broken_Hippo
This article seems to miss a few things.

I can do just fine without "news" from newsfeed. Their alternatives don't let
me see pictures of, for example, my sister and brother's families. Random
thoughts of people And so on. I'm sure my family would occasionally send me
pictures, but it is hard to inconvenience everyone else. Not only that, but it
would be more inconvenient for me. The main reason I joined facebook was
because it was a simple way to keep in touch when moving overseas, after all.
I can give updates and pictures without sending to so many people.

Groups are a weird thing. I find things like Reddit to be a different sort of
feel.

Lastly: I think for a lot of people, alternatives need to be able to
communicate with facebook and have be compatible in some ways. Right now,
facebook is more akin to a phone company that only lets folks speak with
others in the same network. If they would allow "friends" outside the network,
allow public posts to be viewed by anyone, messenger coordinates with other
messenger services, there would be more chance for folks to actually switch.
In addition, more folks would switch to other services if there were an easy
way for people to port some things to a new service: Profile information,
pictures, and so on.

Marketplace misses the point as well. I occasionally sell artwork, for
example. I don't advertise or self promote much, but do keep up an art page.
The sales I get are generally from facebook. There are a few social networks
dedicated to artwork, but it definitely isn't the same.

Someone else commented that facebook is great for finding events - I, too, use
this.

Sometimes the biggest problem with replacing messenger is that others still
use messenger. My experience from pre-facebook times is that no, most people
don't change for you. They simply talk to you less. Not having messenger on my
phone (desktop only) causes some issues here and there as it is.

~~~
alecco
> Right now, facebook is more akin to a _phone company_ that only lets folks
> speak with others in the same network. If they would allow "friends" outside
> the network, allow public posts to be viewed by anyone, messenger
> coordinates with other messenger services, there would be more chance for
> folks to actually switch. In addition, more folks would switch to other
> services if there were an easy way for people to port some things to a new
> service: Profile information, pictures, and so on.

I wonder if there is already legislation for this situation.

------
iuguy
Somehow they managed to miss the point that it's the handing over of
information to these services that is the thing giving them power.

Instead of Paperless post, how about Framadate? No love for Nextcloud?
Diaspora? Mastodon?

~~~
Kalium
You're right! They did miss the larger point about centralization.

With that said, is it perhaps possible that they're writing for a more general
audience that isn't particularly interested in the overhead that comes with
administration and decentralized platforms? People want one, simple, clear,
drop-in replacement for a given use. They want it to be one that's as easy to
use as possible and trivially easy to get their friends to use.

Most of all, people want to use something their friends are already using.
Isolated, un-federated systems that require some level of technical skill
(i.e., my late-90s grandma can't figure out in two minutes) to use are a hard
sell.

~~~
iuguy
Ok, start here:

* Nextcloud - [https://nextcloud.com/providers/](https://nextcloud.com/providers/)

* Diaspora - [https://bitnami.com/stack/diaspora](https://bitnami.com/stack/diaspora) (not that you need to host, see [https://diasporafoundation.org/#get_started](https://diasporafoundation.org/#get_started))

* Mastodon - [https://masto.host/](https://masto.host/) (again, like diaspora hosting isn't needed, see [http://joinmastodon.org/](http://joinmastodon.org/))

Of the above, only Nextcloud generally needs some sort of hosting (which is
reasonable given what it does), but there are plenty of low overhead options.
It's not expected that normal people host their own Diaspora or Mastodon
instances, there are plenty of open instances for people to choose from.

------
reacharavindh
I wish there was GNUbook or something that is run by a non-profit organization
like Wikipedia that provides a service that serves as a social ID(think like a
portable phone number), and then let people use whichever "messaging service"
they like by bringing their ID with them. This way the messaging services
become replaceable and users a avoid the network lock-in.

~~~
0kto
So [matrix] seems to fit the bill: federated network, bridges to other
services (like IRC), encryption, you can write your own client or run your own
server...

[Matrix]: [https://matrix.org/](https://matrix.org/)

~~~
beagle3
Also hubzilla (nee red/matrix, unlrelated to matrix; descending from friendica
which DID federate with Facebook and Twitter for a while, until FB & T closed
off the federation API bridges)

------
Y_Y
I wish there was one good messenger. Signal can't be it, because not
federated, uses phone number. Riot can't be it because network effects. Google
and facebook are abominable. WhatsApp and telegram are worse versions of
signal. Who will save us from this efficient market competition?

(a previous version of this comment incorrectly claimed signal was closed-
source)

~~~
andrepd
>Signal can't be it, because closed-source,

Wrong, both clients and server are open-source.

>not federated,

This is intentional. See [https://signal.org/blog/the-ecosystem-is-
moving/](https://signal.org/blog/the-ecosystem-is-moving/)

>uses phone number.

I think this is for the best. This means you can seamlessly add contacts you
already have on your phonebook to Signal. No need for emails or separate user
accounts. If you're worried about this, you can buy a prepaid SIM card for
pennies, or use an online service. It's not an issue.

~~~
Sir_Cmpwn
The matter of federation is by no means settled. Many experts do not agree
with Signal's conclusions and suspect ulterior motives, myself included. It is
open source, though, but Moxie has definitely made decisions that are harmful
to open source. Again, ulterior motives may be at play.

~~~
davidgu
I feel that it's unlikely that ulterior motives are in place, given that
Signal's core user base consists of privacy conscious folks, thereby
preventing an easy pivot towards a closed ecosystem once critical mass is
reached. It's likely that if this were attempted, someone would just fork
Signal, with support for some kind of decentralization, and split the user
base in two.

However moxie seems to have an outdated form of federation in mind when he
gives examples of IRC and email. While it is true that these technologies have
been quite rigid, there are other examples of distributed technologies that
are quite flexible in implementation. Bitcoin and Mastodon are examples where
changes and updates are pushed through regularly.

The determining factor seems to be the amount of control the principal
developer holds over the ecosystem. Mastodon instances basically all run the
same code, and (mostly) everyone is happy with the direction they are going.
Thus, Eugen pushes a new release, everyone runs it, and protocol changes can
propagate throughout the network. Old nodes get left behind. However, say
Eugen (or Signal) massively screws up, and they get forked. Now, any protocol
changes must be adopted by both camps (who by definition have differing
philosophies) to be fully applied.

~~~
Sir_Cmpwn
It's already a closed ecosystem. The software is open, not the ecosystem.
Moxie toes the line so that Signal's strengths always outweigh its faults for
most people, which prevents an alternative from reaching a critical mass. By
not federating he locks users into his ecosystem - a fringe group of upset
users can't draw the rest of the users out if they have an incompatible
platform. I think he's a smart guy who knows exactly what he's doing, but he
puts on a nice face for PR because he can't exactly come out and admit his
design choices are self-serving.

Also, Mastodon is built on open standards that have several competing and
compatible implementations (GNUSocial and Pleorma are the main two), which are
run by their own maintainers.

~~~
davidgu
_Moxie toes the line so that Signal 's strengths always outweigh its faults
for most people, which prevents an alternative from reaching a critical mass._

Signal is released under the GPL, meaning that if something did happen to
shake user faith (data breach, data mining) a fork pointing at different
servers could be instantly created with complete feature parity.

Every traditional barrier to user migration is removed. Features are the same.
UX is the same. Compatibility is the same.

That's a precarious line to toe.

 _Also, Mastodon is built on open standards that have several competing and
compatible implementations (GNUSocial and Pleorma are the main two), which are
run by their own maintainers._

Yes, Mastodon is inter-operable with OStatus and ActivityPub. However I do not
know of any significant user base that interacts with Mastodon through an
alternative platform. Given the will, Mastodon could implement its own
extensions to ActivityPub and break compatibility, with most users unaffected
due to the strength behind the core development team.

~~~
Sir_Cmpwn
>a fork pointing at different servers could be instantly created with complete
feature parity.

But _not_ federation. No one can talk to people on other servers. Such forks
already exist, none of them are successful.

>Yes, Mastodon is inter-operable with OStatus and ActivityPub. However I do
not know of any significant user base that interacts with Mastodon through an
alternative platform.

I know of many people on both of the platforms I mentioned. Collaboration
between all of these platforms is frequent and they drive improvements in each
other.

~~~
davidgu
>But not federation. No one can talk to people on other servers. Such forks
already exist, none of them are successful.

They are not successful because Signal has not yet done anything particularly
egregious. If they do, I believe that a fork would quickly gain popularity.

>I know of many people on both of the platforms I mentioned. Collaboration
between all of these platforms is frequent and they drive improvements in each
other.

We've both given anecdotes; user counts would be more conclusive. I've found
+1 million [0] for Mastodon. Do you know how many users GNU Social and Pleroma
have? I can't find these numbers from a quick Google search, but they might be
somewhere.

[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mastodon_(software)#Adoption](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mastodon_\(software\)#Adoption)]

~~~
Sir_Cmpwn
>They are not successful because Signal has not yet done anything particularly
egregious

Like I said: Moxie toes the line. He doesn't cross it. Well, everyone has a
different line. He's crossed mine but not the lines the average user sets.

>We've both given anecdotes; user counts would be more conclusive. I've found
+1 million [0] for Mastodon.

I question the methodology behind this figure. The nature of the decentralized
network makes it difficult to get good estimates. All I have are anecdotes.
Yes, the overwhelming majority of users are on Mastodon. However, I personally
interact with several users on several different Pleroma instances and a
couple on GNUSocial instances, and I did not seek them out for this purpose.

~~~
davidgu
>I question the methodology behind this figure. The nature of the
decentralized network makes it difficult to get good estimates. All I have are
anecdotes. Yes, the overwhelming majority of users are on Mastodon. However, I
personally interact with several users on several different Pleroma instances
and a couple on GNUSocial instances, and I did not seek them out for this
purpose.

However they are the exception. Because the overwhelming majority of users are
on Mastodon, the Mastodon developers have the power to modify protocol
implementations. If it was closer to an even split, any breaking changes would
fracture the community, while in this case some smaller groups may be lost.

~~~
Sir_Cmpwn
Come on. You can say the same thing about Chrome's effect on web standards. In
reality that's not how it works, and the situation is far better than Signal.

~~~
davidgu
Gmail is using their influence to modify email standards[0]. This is exactly
how it works in reality. If a certain service provider holds most of the user
base, they can implement breaking changes without fracturing the community. In
some cases it's a net positive, helping protocols evolve, and in some cases
it's a net negative.

[0][https://www.theverge.com/2018/2/13/17007100/google-amp-
gmail...](https://www.theverge.com/2018/2/13/17007100/google-amp-gmail-email-
widgets-features)

------
sriku
Secure scuttlebutt (SSB) anyone?

The core of all of these recommendations is that you need an _identity_
online. It almost seems like if you solve the identity problem (like how
various blockchains deal with it with addresses and wallets) you can get all
the rest as easy follow ons.

Mastodon still ties identity with a machine online much like email. Even SSB
ties identity to your machine. Even what Sir T.B.L. is proposing - a "data
pod" per person - seems to tie identity with a machine online.

Are there no other solutions to this?

~~~
DuskStar
Isn't that what keybase.io is for? Associating a single ID and trust graph
across multiple accounts, devices and keys?

------
koboll
They missed the point with the Events alternatives.

The problem isn't creating/inviting; you can do that with email. Facebook is
great at _finding_ events, and there aren't any competitors that have anything
close to their reach.

------
dandare
Why nobody mentions the social connection functionality? To stay connected
with my extended family, to be able to see their wedding pics and share my
kids pics, there is no alternative to Facebook. I can not ask my elderly mom
to start using something else on her precious ipad.

------
foxylad
Another part of the puzzle is to return to blogging, for those totally public
posts.

~~~
aero142
And RSS feeds. I have a list of people who's opinion I trust after 10+ years
of reading everything they write. I value their opinion on politics and
economics rather than my aunt or some co-worker from two jobs ago.

------
hashkb
Remember that handful of friends who weren't on FB and so you hassled us to
join for a while and then kind of lost touch? Many of us still have the same
phone numbers.

------
superlopuh
Seems like a key missing piece is the "staying in touch with people" part.
That's by far the biggest feature for me, once I've added someone on facebook,
I know I can message/call them forever. No lost phone numbers/email addresses.

If there was a network that automatically updated my contact for a person when
they changed their phone number, I'd no longer have an excuse to stay on
facebook at all.

~~~
zhte415
I think LinkedIn does almost that - add a contact and have the contact
information they maintain updated as they like.

------
Sytten
All this rage around Facebook makes me wonder if it would be a good time to
start an open source social media.

It seems to me that Facebook is the new Microsoft and we need a "GNU/Linux" to
oppose it.

The best would be a decentralized system for sure, but it is hard to be as
good as Facebook/other social network with full decentralization.

Food for thoughts...

~~~
codingdave
Facebook (and most social media) have a fatal flaw - they have not built
products that people are willing to pay for. So they grow to the point where
they need resources to keep running, and have to monetize in unfriendly ways.
Open source or not, to successfully scale, there must be a funding model that
isn't evil. Whether that is fees, donations, or something else... it has to be
there.

I do agree that now is a good time to start something. I've got my design put
together to stay simple, lean, and keeps costs down while still handling the
basic needs people go to social media for. I'm sure most of us could whip out
their own flavors of that. And many of us could code it, too. Which is the
reason that I am hesitant to start building -- too many competing projects
will steal each other's thunder.

~~~
argonaut
This "fatal flaw" works strongly in their favor.

Good luck building a version of Facebook that billions of people would pay
for.

------
samstave
The most insidious aspect of FB is their inference engine capability - that
they can inherently track aspect of the activity of non FB users based on
their relationships proximity and activity with those who do have FB accounts.

Even if you choose to actively do no fb - they can still track you to a
certain degree.

~~~
beagle3
Most of that inference actually comes from the pervasive "like" buttons --
essentially all of the websites you use are happily and freely giving the
information about you to facebook - who gladly correlate it across sites and
with your shadow profiles.

Your friends who uploaded their addressbooks and phonebooks to Facebook and
WhatsApp are obviously helping to associate that data with a real identity,
and by tagging you in pictures make it even more complete.

But the vast majority of info Facebook has on you that YOU did not provide
directly actually comes from the embedded Facebook bugs ("like buttons") all
over the internet. And it's not surprising that the media doesn't mention it
-- they rely on those bugs to get traffic, so they can't complain about it
without taking it off, and they can't take it off without losing traffic.

------
wousser
I’ve created a simple app for myself that lets me keep track of all my
conversations, and it encourages me to keep in touch with all my friends,
family, (ex)colleagues.

If you like friendly contact reminders or like to recall what you talked about
with friends whom you don’t meet every so often, give it a try. You can create
your own timeline with conversations, photos, and other important things. As
well as general background information. It can send you reminders to talk, and
birthday reminders.

The data is in your control, stays on your phone, is not synced. An internet
connection is not required.

Currently only for iOS: [https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/social-contact-
journal/id118...](https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/social-contact-
journal/id1186696582?ls=1&mt=8)

------
limeblack
> You can sync the app to other social networks you might use, like Twitter
> and LinkedIn

LinkedIn is in my experience is as bad as FB. I really can't take anyone
seriously that is recommending syncing with it. It uploaded my friends
contacts which I did not want.

~~~
Jaruzel
I had a bunch of legacy contacts inside my hotmail account that I hadn't
touched in years. Shortly after MS took over LinkedIn, it started bugging me
to add them all to my LinkedIn network, by listing them all on a special
LinkedIn page and automatically ticking the checkbox on each one. Took ages
for the penny to drop, as to _where_ these contacts were coming from!

Needless to say, my hotmail/outlook.com account now no longer has ANY contacts
in it.

------
andrewl
Maybe we'd all have been better off on Google Plus.

I avoid giving Google information about myself that it doesn't need, but I do
trust them more than I trust Facebook. Although maybe that's naive of me.

~~~
username223
> Maybe we'd all have been better off on Google Plus.

Haha, probably not. G+ enforced a "real names" policy, then tried to merge
accounts across search, YouTube, etc. It's the same Panopticon, though
slightly less amoral.

If we want to solve this, we need to make it easier for non-tech people to
decentralize their data. Distributed communication was solved long ago: email
(private 1-1), mailing lists (private many-many), weblogs (public 1-many),
Usenet (public many-many). All of this can be self-hosted, or hosted on a
shared server for a few $/mo, i.e. less than 10% of your phone bill.

Since that will never happen, the least-bad way to do this is to silo your
online activity among separate entities and identities.

------
skrowl
The younger generation is more IM focused than social network app focused.
InstaGram / SnapChat / etc are going to do to Facebook what Reddit did to
Digg.

~~~
Larrikin
Maybe AIM will decide to come back online with new branding

~~~
mcgarnagle
we want MSN! (bat_emoji)

~~~
GyYZTfWBfQw
Haha, how about XMPP, using Gajim? Good times!

------
vinceleo
> Scandal or not - Facebook is still where "everyone is". What about Elgg?
> [https://elgg.org/](https://elgg.org/) Good point for starting your own
> 'Facebook'

------
GyYZTfWBfQw
Seems like a suitable alternative:
[https://www.minds.com](https://www.minds.com)

Source code: [https://github.com/Minds](https://github.com/Minds)

------
anonu
tldr;

    
    
      News Feed          -> Nuzzel, Digg, Apple News
      Messenger          -> Signal
      Events             -> Paperless Post, Doodle
      Birthday Reminders -> Google Calendar, etc...
      Marketplace        -> Nextdoor
      Groups             -> GroupMe
      3rd Party Logins   -> 1Password, LastPass

~~~
newsbinator
That was pretty much the list before Facebook (or the popular version of it,
anyway) existed too.

It's not that people use Facebook because it's better than those tools, or
worse than those tools, or even because it's an aggregate of those tools.

They use it because all their friends/family/colleagues are there.

------
SnowProblem
What about photo sharing and commenting?

~~~
SomewhatLikely
Right? They leave out the feature Facebook was created for.

------
naskwo
www.famipix.com Online since 2005. 700k users. No ads. Free for schools and
for private use up to 1000 photos.

------
zerostar07
second best.

------
psergeant
I feel like now — after the recent furore — is a great time to be on Facebook.
They know they’re under the microscope for privacy issues, and have the time
and treasure to find real solutions. Also, naive as it might be, I think Zuck
genuinely cares and wants to fix what he’s broken. I am less inclined to trust
any other service to get both security and intentions right.

~~~
ahartmetz
You got fooled much more often than twice.

------
zombieprocesses
The media pile on against facebook is reaching absurd proportions. And it's
getting harder to distinguish between news and advocacy or journalism and
propaganda.

When a journalist is leading a #deletefacebook movement and when news is
pushing alternative products over facebook does it cross a line from
news/journalism/reporting to advocacy/advertisement/pay for play/etc?

I hope one day we get to the bottom of what this is really about. Because it
isn't about privacy or data protection. And the scale and scope of the
facebook campaign is rather unsettling also. Maybe real journalists are out
there and hopefully we can get some answers.

