
Facebook is an attack on the open web - tambourine_man
https://daringfireball.net/2017/06/fuck_facebook
======
Tossrock
I deactivated my Facebook account several months ago, and it's been about 90%
great, 10% frustrating. It's great for all the obvious reasons (less timesuck,
less compulsion to endlessly scroll your life away, no notification
interruptions).

The frustrations are real, though. Primarily it's around events and photos.
There are some communities I participate in that regularly organize events
through Facebook, and now I don't really get invited to those anymore. It's
also harder to organize events where you casually invite people you don't know
as well.

It's also occasionally annoying not being able to dig up a certain photo you
wanted for reference. Even if you have a copy of the photo somewhere, if you
don't have it hosted online then you can't really bring it up to show it to
someone.

Still, frustrations aside, it's 90% great, and I recommend everyone try it for
themselves.

~~~
gthtjtkt
Facebook was great in the early years.

No ads, no political spam, no viral garbage, no pictures of what your friend
ate for dinner, no psychologically manipulative algorithms. Just people
talking to their friends and posting pictures of themselves hanging out.

If someone made a new social network like that, I'd sign up today.

~~~
aeorgnoieang
Excluding the "ads", how would you prevent users from posting "political
spam", "viral garbage", and "pictures of what your friend ate for dinner"?

~~~
guelo
Part of the Facebook problem is that they mostly took control of the feed away
from users. They now surface the more "engaging" posts at the top and more
frequently. This leads to the overemphasis of viral images and videos. If you
post a simple personal status message without an image and Facebook's
sentiment analysis considers it to be non-engaging many of your friends won't
even see it as Facebook will favor marketing spam over your actual personal
post. Users also become trained over time by the number of likes they receive
to tailor their posts to conform to Facebook's whims.

~~~
odbol_
I tried to write an extension that would hide _all_ video/photo/link posts and
only show pure text posts from my friends. It was really nice, although there
wasn't much to the feed once all the garbage was hidden...

------
adtac
You've ever been to one of those pages that embed Facebook's comment engine?
Yeah, those are the worst. I did some analysis on a random page with just
three Facebook comments. Requests to Facebook's servers accounted for 1.5 MB
of the 2.4 MB tranfered by the ENTIRE page. 87 network requests, 35 javascript
files injected and it didn't even load all the comments! (I had to click on a
"Load more comments" button to load the rest of the comments.)

Why the hell do you need 37 javascript files and 1.5 MB to load three
comments?

(Shameless plug to my own open source, lightweight and tracking-free comment
engine alternative to Facebook, Disqus and the rest:
[https://github.com/adtac/commento](https://github.com/adtac/commento))

~~~
dilap
Oh god, the shit where incredibly overweight pages make you click the slow
"load more" buttons just to load a few more kb of text that could've been
immediately shown to you for basically no extra cost drives me crazy.

And as much as facebook sucks, _most_ web sites suck. It's amazing to me how
many sites I read on my phone are basically unusable until I fall back on
Safari's reader mode.

Javascript handlers that fuck up scrolling speed, tons of popups obscuring the
content, just all kinds of shit. It's like the last thing the website wants
you to do is actually read it. (This is probably true, from some sort of
limited penny-wise, pound-foolish ad-driven perspective.)

~~~
slackoverflower
I think this is where Google's AMP succeeds. As much as people don't want to
be in Google's walled garden and for them to destroy the open web, they have
made visiting websites and reading articles much more pleasant. Their
incredible engineering talent has done a great job tackling the problems you
mentioned.

~~~
dilap
AMP does do an excellent job of showing just how slow many normal pages are.
But even an old-fashioned web-page will load very quickly if designed to a
similar visual style as AMP! I'd imagine that with HTTP/2 this should be even
faster.

Other things about AMP are pretty annoying to me -- the URL getting hijacked,
the way on mobile safari the URL bar never shrinks when scrolling (how do they
even break that?), and the ribbon with the fake URL bar that keeps popping in
and out of view as you scroll.

You think Google basically replacing the entire web for news sites because
their sites are so shitty might encourage them to focus more on basic
usability and speed, but so far, no...

------
tuna-piano
I posted this comment a few weeks ago, but this seems super relevant to extend
the author's point. I agree that Facebook is a walled garden. But in the
developed world, Facebook is just part of the internet that people use.
However, in some parts of the developing world, Facebook is the only internet
people use.

\------

Facebook's dominance is even more pronounced in parts of the developing world.
I've met people in Asia (Myanmar and Nepal) who have just accessed the
internet for the first time in the past 12-24 months (through their Android
smartphones). But they don't know the true internet - they only know the
internet through the Facebook app. They use it like we use Google and web
browsers.

To them, Facebook is the internet. They don't have email accounts. They don't
use the browser. They don't search the web. I met someone in a small town who
never even used the maps feature. I tried to think of what value the true
internet might bring them, but when I suggested that "you can search for news
and read other things", the response was that they already did that with the
Facebook App.

One guy handed me his phone, so I could add myself as a friend on his
Facebook. While I started typing my name, I noticed his search history... and
to him, Facebook was even a substitute for what people in the USA might use
Incognito mode for!

I would call Facebook their internet portal, but it's not really a portal to
anything - Facebook is just the entire internet to them.

Buzzfeed (yes, Buzzfeed) did an excellent writeup of Myanmar, that mirrors
what I saw there: [https://www.buzzfeed.com/sheerafrenkel/fake-news-spreads-
tru...](https://www.buzzfeed.com/sheerafrenkel/fake-news-spreads-trump-around-
the-world?utm_term=.wb6pxGMyM#.qlR21yOxO)

“Nobody asks, they don’t care about the email,” he said, explaining that most
don’t know that creating an email address is free, and easy. “No one is using
that. They have Facebook.”

~~~
yla92
Folk from Myanmar (but working in Singapore) here. People in my country, they
regard Facebook as "The Internet". They walked into the mobile phone shop,
they asked for "open Facebook for 3$" which comes with a FB account, followed
the celebrity pages etc. They do everything you can imagine on FB.

Now there are "digital agencies" who take care of the celebrity/company FB
pages, post click-bait articles, run campaigns and throw money for
advertising.

I don't think these things are going to change anytime soon and I don't have
an answer. So, either promote yourself, things you are doing, on FB or your
online presence is mere. Just sad.

~~~
tuna-piano
Do you think this will change overtime as people become familiar with
technology and the internet?

Like do people start with Facebook and it later becomes a gateway to the
internet, or do they start within only Facebook and stay within only Facebook?

I also assume people in the bigger cities (especially Yangon, but also
Mandalay) use computers+the actual web for work, university and pleasure...
right?

~~~
659087
Facebook's zero rating programs are being implemented to discourage these
people from ever finding out that Facebook isn't "the internet". They even
went as far as to use the name "internet.org".

------
tobyjsullivan
Not everything on the internet needs to be public (or part of the "open web"
as the article calls it). Facebook is a fantastic place for web content that
isn't meant to be public.

This idea of posting "public content" on Facebook is inherently flawed. I
agree with the article on that much.

However, what I haven't figured out yet is if this is actually an evil-
Facebook issue or just a user issue. Is Facebook actively encouraging this web
breaking behaviour or is it a "mis-use" of what the tool originally intended
(e.g., a safe place to post content/blog/etc. with privacy restrictions)?

~~~
jbigelow76
_However, what I haven 't figured out yet is if this is actually an evil-
Facebook issue or just a user issue._

I have a side rant that has been bubbling in me for a long time on this issue.
My city's alternative weekly paper, The Dallas Observer, switched from
Livefyre to Facebook's commenting system about two years ago. Livefyre was bad
but the Facebook comment system is worse. With Facebook forcing "real" people
accounts, comments plummeted on stories that presented alternate takes on
local stories that didn't fall into line with the Dallas Morning News's
traditional power structure patriarchs (mostly land developers).

The editor's suggestion to people that wanted to comment on a story without
using their "real name" was to create a separate Facebook account. Un-fucking
real.

My conspiracy theory is that The Dallas Observer, and probably all Village
Voice Media properties, were promised better exposure in Facebook user's news
feeds if they used the Facebook comment engine. Seems like a devil's bargain
to me.

I put the Facebook comment system squarely in the evil-Facebook pile.

~~~
MikusR
Probably had nothing to do with them being liable for the content of comments,
need for moderation, spam.

~~~
jbigelow76
Livefyre and Disqus both have tools for moderation and spam control, probably
better than Facebook since comments are the primary business of Livefyre and
Disqus. Regarding contents of comments, I would think the Safe Harbor act
and/or First Amendment protections would be sufficient for a news
organization.

So I'm going to be generous and agree with your statement at face value, it
probably did have nothing to do with any of the things you mentioned.

------
unabst
They've been openly attacking the open web since day one. I think the problem
now is that they've been too successful.

Zuckerberg was on to something. He saw the web connecting pages, but not
people. So he created a web connecting people and now it has grown to what it
is. With both MySpace and Google+ practically buried, Facebook has no
competition.

We desperately need an alternative, and not just one for the sake of not being
facebook, but something that works. The open web needs a way to connect
people.

~~~
aesthetics1
What does an alternative look like that does not eventually lead to another
Facebook? I've seen decentralized platforms, platforms that do not sell your
data or target you with ads - how are they sustainable?

~~~
unabst
This and this. Precisely the right questions.

I haven't checked the landscape in a minute, but I wonder if there are any new
projects out there.

------
macawfish
Amen. There are dozens of very good reasons for righteous anger toward
Facebook, and only a handful are in this article. But just those are enough.
And enough is enough.

------
ArchReaper
I'm no Facebook fanboy but this article feels like a "why does my square peg
not fit into their round hole" type of complaint. Facebook is a social
network, not a public blogging platform.

Here is my interpretation of the complaints. Please point out what I am
missing.

>It's impractical...

Square peg round hole.

>It's supporting their downgrading and killing the web...

Facebook posts being inherently (mostly) simple text is 'killing the web'? I
don't buy it.

>Facebook might go out of business.

Just a generic SaaS complaint. Nothing unique to Facebook about this.

Am I missing a core argument here?

~~~
5ilv3r
Yes, you are. The argument is that facebook has become something that causes
the rest of the web to be worse off. Less open, more bloated, more central.

~~~
wuliwong
I think the main argument of the article is a little murky. The notion that
you shouldn't write an article to be shared around the web on Facebook is
simple enough and pretty obvious to a technically savvy audience. But the
argument is baked inside of this very emotional claim that because of this
Facebook is "killing" the open internet. While that may or may not be true,
the fact that I shouldn't write blog posts inside of Facebook doesn't map
directly to "Facebook is killing the web!"

------
irrational
I have a feeling that Facebook will be on the decline. My teenagers and
early-20 year-olds and their friends (not just local, but all over the US)
think Facebook is for old people. I actually heard a 16 year old recently
giving a speech where he mentioned Snapchat Stories, then, as an aside, said,
"That's like Facebook or Pintrest for you old people."

~~~
criddell
Your 16 year old will eventually be old too. Facebook will still be there.

~~~
b0rsuk
Remember Myspace ?

~~~
criddell
Yes. Everybody aged out of it.

~~~
wuliwong
That is not what happened to myspace.

------
bad_user
I tried deleting Facebook once, but I've got family there and ... the big
problem is that I haven't gotten my time spent online back.

I'm on Twitter, I'm on Hacker News, I'm on Reddit, I'm on Gitter, I
send/receive dirty jokes on WhatsApp, etc. Plenty of opportunity to waste
time, no need for FB to be in the picture at all. I've been composing this
stupid message for the past 5 minutes.

But I'm using Facebook less and less. For me the "open web" is a necessity,
not a moral high ground or anything like that. I don't like opening Facebook
blog posts because Facebook sucks for blog posts. TFA mentions the Internet
Archive or Google not indexing articles. Hell yeah, those are really good
concerns.

Also, forget the open web ... how about the fact that if you give them
permissions to access your photos, on iOS at least, they are uploading your
photos to their services for making photo collages, without you explicitly
allowing this.

I know this because I opened the app a week ago and I was proposed a collage
with animated transitions and music in the background, titled " _Your Sunday
evening in Bucharest_ ", that couldn't have been processed on my phone -
especially since iOS restricts background activity, plus it would be pretty
bad for battery life.

And I freaked out, so now Facebook is gone from my phone. Article mentions an
all out assault on the open web. Sure, but it's also an all out assault on
people's privacy.

I was 7 when Ceaușescu was shot and communism fell in 1989 and before that
paranoia was at an all times high. People were afraid for example that their
phones were tapped and that their neighbours were listening. Which was in fact
true, but oh boy, that's nothing compared with what happens today.

------
joshbaptiste
ah a "Why FB is evil" article, here come the slew of HN'ers to proclaim their
deletion of FB years ago. I myself have no issues with the social network, I
keep up with friends, family and it isn't a time suck for me anymore than HN.

~~~
exergy
And contrarians who revel in their "I'm not snobbish like you all" Regular Joe
aura. At least the ones who talk about why they quit stick to their own
experiences rather than belittling others who still find value in it.

~~~
ambulancechaser
> At least the ones who talk about why they quit stick to their own
> experiences

> I myself have no issues with the social network, I keep up with friends,
> family and it isn't a time suck for me anymore than HN.

~~~
exergy
I'm taking issue with his first sentence, not second.

------
kirse
All this open-web bitching sounds oddly familiar from back when AOL was a tech
monstrosity with nearly everything inside its walled-garden. Facebook is
basically just a worldwide version of AOL, and plenty of people are tiring of
it, just as they tired of AOL's dialup shenanigans and obnoxious floppy disk
marketing.

And Facebook, too, will eventually crust away when the underlying tech
improves (universal 5G? who knows?) and the next Steve Case / Mark Zuckerberg
visionary builds the next generally-centralized service for most internet
users. But the open web will survive just fine.

~~~
b0rsuk
Facebook has wider reach than AOL. Maybe walled garden builders are getting
better at their tricks ?

~~~
wuliwong
It's a bit of tough comparison. When I used AOL, it was literally my "portal"
to the internet. I may have even used a browser embedded in AOL? Facebook is
not that for most of it's users.

But that being said, if we are just concerned with statistics, obviously
Facebook's user numbers are much larger than AOL ever saw but I wonder what
percentage of people using the internet use Facebook today vs. AOL "back in
the day"?

~~~
b0rsuk
I read comments on HN that claimed Facebook is many people's only portal to
the Internet. Especially in Asia.

Recommender reading: How to confuse a Facebook user (2010)
[https://www.theguardian.com/technology/blog/2010/feb/11/face...](https://www.theguardian.com/technology/blog/2010/feb/11/facebook-
readwriteweb)

------
awinter-py
I'm in a small minority of people who want to pay money to get _on_ FB and
can't.

I've been trying for months to advertise on there but there's no such thing as
a business-only FB acct, you need an organic personal account. And some
combination of my activity (not friending anyone, not using FB for anything,
using an incognito tab, my IP address? I don't know) looks like trouble to the
powers that be so my account keeps getting shut off.

I hate them just as much as these other guys but for 2x the reasons.

------
wehadfun
The popover things pisses me off as well. For a company like facebook to use
such an annoying thing to get people to subscribe seems immature.

~~~
arprocter
It's incredibly obnoxious - the first time my dad showed me I couldn't believe
how much space it took up. He has no interest in joining Facebook but his
friend promotes his business via pictures on there

------
cwyers
The open web is an attack on the average user. It's unremittingly hostile as a
place to go to if you aren't part of the culture that spawned it. Facebook
does a very poor job of sheltering people from the worst of the open web, but
it's about a billion times more bearable than the open web scaled up to modern
adoption rates would be.

~~~
camillomiller
And why would "learning a culture" before getting to be a part of it be any
bad? Why should we be entitled to a free pass to some place that needs a
culture to be grasped? This is exactly facebook problem: lowering the bar is
not a good thing per se, especially if you then pretend to run away from the
responsibilities that come with it (i.e. being a fucking awesome amplifier for
the worst shit ever)

~~~
cwyers
> And why would "learning a culture" before getting to be a part of it be any
> bad?

Because they don't want to. They don't want to learn it, they don't want to be
a part of it. So they stay in a walled garden where they can participate in
groups they want to participate in, with their own culture. And they're not
the ones complaining about it, the open web advocates are complaining about
their voluntary association with each other.

------
torgoguys
I LOVE Facebook, even though I never use it.

Before FB, my email was clogged with trivial crap that family members and
aquaintances​ forwarded to everyone in their address book, including me. Now
that never happens. Based on everyone else's complaints, it sounds like that
stuff has moved to FB leaving my inbox a much more useful place.

THANK YOU ZUCK!

------
knieveltech
Facebook is an attack on society itself. Ignorance of other people's
stupidity, bigotry, and pettiness is a necessary lubricant for society to
function.

~~~
camillomiller
Totally agree. Especially if the expression of such ignorance comes with a
sense of pride and entitlement. It's easy to get entitled and proud, because
nobody in real life would give you 200 nods to your racist musings while in
line at Walmart. But 200 people press a stupid like button, and suddenly you
feel like your idiotic and uneducated opinion has a great meaning. This is
straightforward dangerous for representative democracies, which are founded on
the subtle concept of an elite of better people that have a mandate to lead
society. The fact that this mandate has been misused so many times is no
excuse to suddenly drop all the good that comes from having someone who knows
more in a position of power.

~~~
makecheck
The interesting thing to me is how online numbers are nowhere near
statistically significant and yet they "matter" to people. There are
_billions_ of people, _thousands_ just in your neighborhood (probably) and yet
most people interact with a few dozen network links and the few dozen comment
posts they are likely to read. That skew is _gigantic_ , and it should terrify
people that they are not relying on more professionally-edited sources.

~~~
camillomiller
What makes the difference, I guess, is the fact that you can actually measure
"agreement" in a direct way, with numbers of "agreement units" such as likes.
Very easy to misread and blew it out of proportion. Facebook KNOWS that and
definitively leverages that. The mission of the company is inherently broken
and Mark Zuckerberg, if he's really being honest when he talks about it, well
then he's in full blown denial.

------
niftich
Look, there's no dispute that Facebook is an assault on the 'open web' because
it's a walled garden where the data only flows in. In fact, on the HN thread
for Gruber's previous post about Google's AMP, I defended [1] some aspects of
AMP because at least it tries to be distributed vs. Facebook, and in that post
I echo much of what Gruber would later say.

But sadly, today's so-called 'open web' is just as much of an assault on the
open web: trackers, cookies, and cross-correlated advertisements follow the
user everywhere; every new link is literally a crapshoot which may execute
arbitrary code placed there by the webmaster or their delegates. It's the
devil you know vs. the devil that's brand-new every time: do I want my
browsing habits aggregated to help them better target ads and content for me
inside some walled garden, or do I want my browsing habits across the 'open
web' to be aggregated by a dozen third parties to help them better target ads
for me on the outside, while I blissfully extoll the virtues of
decentralization and pretend I'm better off?

Until recently, the only way to avoid this was to spin off a clean incognito
session in a browser running only one window, then close it after every
pageview. Who does that? Short of a very particular few, no one.

The web is a wonderful, versatile medium of referencible documents and
multimedia that we've turned into an application delivery platform; and the
one thing that content silos like Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, and Apple
News get right is that not everyone cares to visit unvetted content solely
judged by its URL.

[1]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14384607](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14384607)

~~~
aethertron
>Look, there's no dispute that Facebook is an assault on the 'open web'
because it's a walled garden where the data only flows in.

I dispute that. I don't feel like my 'open' WordPress blogs are being attacked
by Facebook.

Does Facebook's lack of full-blown openness constitute an attack on anything?
I don't think it does.

It seems open web advocates resent that FB successfully competes against their
offering. I have a fondness for the open web. I'd rather see us learn from FB,
and compete, rather than whine about losing market share.

------
amelius
Reminder to self that I should put in my LICENSE files:

    
    
         Copyright (c) <year> <copyright holders>
         Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person ...
    
         (the usual stuff, followed by ...)
    
        It is the express wish of the author that this software shall not be used in derived products or services to collect or spread information about users against their will for any purpose other than the main functionality of the product or service. Users will need to explicitly "opt-in" to such use of information if desired. The functionality of the derived product or service should be sufficiently broken down to avoid an all-or-nothing proposition to the user.
    

Suggestions for extensions and/or better phrasing welcome.

The rationale is that, while this will not have meaning or uphold in a court
of law, the least we can do as developers is to send a message of our
disapproval for the way big companies are treating the web and its users.

~~~
Ajedi32
Probably not a good idea. If you include vaguely-worded restrictions like that
in your license you're 1) using a non-standard license, and 2) breaking
Freedom 0 of GNU's Free Software Definition.

Personally I feel that it'd be better to put that sort of statement in the
README; especially if you're not concerned with whether its legally-
enforceable or not.

~~~
amelius
> Personally I feel that it'd be better to put that sort of statement in the
> README; especially if you're not concerned with whether its legally-
> enforceable or not.

You're probably right. And the README would be better, because the message
would be visible on the main page in Github :)

Another option could be to have the text "The following is not part of the
license, but expresses the wishes of the author regarding use of this software
..." in the LICENSE file.

I'm hoping we could have a standard phrasing for this kind of thing (just like
we have standard licenses). Perhaps the EFF could develop one.

~~~
throwanem
Perhaps then EFF can develop a way of giving companies that might use these
libraries a reason to care that this language is present. "The following is
not part of the license" is just a long-winded way of saying "Feel free to
ignore what follows this clause even harder than you feel free to ignore what
precedes it."

I mean, full marks for cooperative nature, but being real here, the licenses
in your Github repositories mean exactly as much as you're willing to pay a
lawyer to enforce them, assuming you even find out they're being violated in
the first place. It would be nice if the world were otherwise, but pretending
that is so doesn't seem to me likely to help much of anything. Perhaps I am
wrong in so thinking.

~~~
amelius
The law departments of these companies probably couldn't care less, I agree.
But I think such license addendum could have a very significant impact.

These companies employ people who generally have a warm heart for open source.
These people have been contributing to open source projects themselves. So if
part of the community starts disapproving their way of doing business, they
will take note. And internal discussions will take place.

Further, if these companies misbehave, it hurts their image.

And a bad image among developers (both internal and external) is probably the
last thing these companies want.

------
tkubacki
Whenever I see Gruber talking about openess and standards I smell hipocrysy -
same way we can say iOS ecosystem is an attack on open computing (walled
garden).

~~~
eridius
iOS apps being a walled garden doesn't really have anything to do with the
open web. Apple has long embraced the open web, so there's nothing
hypocritical about this.

~~~
enos_feedler
Apple embraces the open web, but I think what people get upset about is their
lack of effort in moving it forward. For example, adopting "PWA" browser APIs
in mobile Safari.

------
alkonaut
People should just use Facebook for what it's good at, for example event
planning. In a social context Facebook is often the only social platform
"everyone" is on - that's a killer feature. No matter how good a competing
specialized app is - if you e.g invite people by email it's not even close to
the power of Facebook.

People (and corporations) should STOP using all the other features and the web
will be a much better place. Don't put articles on Facebook like a blog. It's
not a blog. Don't make Facebook your only site for your restaurant. A static
html page with your address and opening hours is better. And whatever you do,
don't ever click a facebook ad or "like" a company on Facebook.

------
woodandsteel
It's really very simple.

Facebook was able to become a huge success because it could compete freely on
the open web.

Now that Facebook has become so powerful, it is trying to destroy the open web
so no one can compete with it.

Speaking of which, what wonder what its position is on net neutrality.

~~~
camillomiller
Facebook has become successful because for the first time in history it
materialized the ungraspable matter that is the concept of relationship. It's
like a magic device that shows the invisible treads that link the individuals
in their own monadic lives. It's like a fucking superior level of
intercommunication. And it's scary, and too powerful, and way over the point
of no return. Plus, I don't think it's making the world a better place in any
meaningful way.

------
saosebastiao
By altering the title, you've taken something deliberately strong and watered
it down. This isn't a situation where a different title better conveys the
authors intent or content...this is explicitly an opinionated essay expressing
exactly what the title summarizes. It is _unnecessary_ censorship. Sure it is
a word that commonly is considered vulgar, but it is also a word that has
significant visceral meaning. HN shouldn't censor words just because they're
strong enough to be offensive.

~~~
lolsal
I disagree that it is a form of censorship. I think the title of the post
linked is more click-baity than the HN title. I am more interested in this
article as it's presented on HN than I would have been if I had stumbled on an
article named 'Fuck Facebook'.

------
rndmind
I deleted my facebook account in highschool and have never looked back. The
melodrama and immature antics are hilarious to observe, I'm so glad that I'm
not a part of all that.

~~~
ovao
Another way to say that is "I'm glad I'm not in high school anymore" ;)

I'd say what you're describing isn't symptomatic of Facebook, but of the
relationships themselves. For the most part my Facebook feed is comprised of
30-somethings and melodrama basically doesn't exist. Political rants, on the
other hand...

------
thsowers
Too relevant...Trump tweets out a link to the livestream for his announcement
on the Paris accord, and Facebook bugs me with a banner, and then informs me
after clicking on the stream: "Please log in to continue"

------
peterwwillis
You've got to be kidding me.

Google has taken over search, web browsing, advertising, and has the largest
mobile platform. They hold your email, maps, search history, personal docs,
office suite, and calendar. They authenticate you to services all over the
web. All of your actually important data (you really can live without
pictures, unless you are a photographer or model) resides with them. They have
created _several_ new protocols that the web uses regularly, and influences
new standards. They influence how most web content is created. They have
leverage over most of the companies doing business on the web. They handle
domains, cloud computing, business services, and a range of other products I
don't remember. And they control how you use the web with their browsers and
OSes.

There is no other company that single-handedly controls so many aspects of the
web. Facebook is just a social platform; Google is _everything else_.

~~~
beagle3
You are not wrong.

And yet, many people spend upward of 3 hours/day with the screen showing
Facebook. They actively have google in front of their eyes for much less.

------
guest
[WARNING if you do not like rants stay away]

First off, the open net is dead, people not giving a fuck killed it when they
simply said yet to the shitty deals the unscrupulous companies offered. Those
tech savvy should have lead the way away from these sites to alternatives -
that didn't happen. If that wasn't enough the knowledge of EchelonV killed it.
People will never again act truly honestly on the net, which hopefully will
offset any short sighted plans google and NSA has to premeptively steer public
opinion.

The last real breath was drawn as people kept on using google and that breath
was drawn precisely when google "modified" their algorithm to kill off private
sites who came in high on rankings. Since then any site that has arisen to
challange google seems to have magically have been killed or taken over
(suddenly swapping to using google coding for unexplained reasons). Oh to
mention a few; scroogle, qwant, lycos, zapmeta, qwant, wn, millionshort,
gigablast, xirkle... You can still search through the old altavista pile if u
want but yeah. Most other motors gives u a shitstorm of companies that you do
not care for before you can read private sites off enligthened people who
strive to improve x thing.

The next terryfying thing is as what happens when large sites get taken over
and the large libraries of knowledge falls into informal hands or simply
disappears (IMDB boards to mention a recent setback, and i meant the positive
discussions not the large clusterf __ks of idiots and astroturfers et al).

And of before i forget - as someone who saw through FB before it took off
(previous avid user of ICQ, AIM, newb at IRC etc) i fucking told you (if any
of those i actually told would stumble across this).

Localised meshnets could have been the future (with "netbrowsers" as the tool
to reach em), though with the thought of all that information being in the
hands of normal people governments are "finally" reacting and starting to
spread fibre as far as i know through some of europe (scandinavia) which could
effectively kill that effort. So start taking political action for a free
future of information \/.

------
ilamont
I have used FB since 2004. It became less and less of a place I wanted to
spend time in when they started filling the feed with junk. First it was
Farmville updates and other social games, then viral videos, then ads, then
links to news articles and clickbait that I had no interest in clicking on. I
must have blocked hundreds of apps, sites, and clickbait generators shared by
friends in the last few years alone.

However, I won't disconnect FB as long as it's the primary way for me to check
on/communicate with/share photos with relatives and friends from years ago.
But it's hardly an addictive time-suck for me, and also for some of my friends
judging by how seldom they post updates.

------
donatj
I find the change of title in complete opposition to the message and meaning
of the post.

------
doughj3
> But Facebook pulling a Vader and altering the deal, blocking public access
> in the future to a post that today is publicly visible?

Or, maybe worse, altering visibility for something that is private today such
that it is public tomorrow.

------
SkyMarshal
It's almost like Facebook is a new AoL in web's clothing, trying to trick less
sophisticated users that it's "the internet" when it's really just a single
corporations's closed system.

------
anigbrowl
Facebook succeeds because the open web is a UX nightmare for anyone without a
tech background. FB is the usccessor to AOL is the successor to [prodify,
genie, whichever] is the successor to text-based bulletin board software.

People primarily use social media to connect with and make new friends. They
do not want to deal with a million and 1 different user interfaces in the name
of openness. That's why Usenet worked so well until people like Canter &
siegel killed it with commercial spam.

The open web is great for the same reason that magazines and TV are great, but
it's also shit for the same reason that magazines and TV are shit - too much
shallow design competing for people's attention, with everyone trying to
differentiate themselves from everyone else via style and gimmicks. That's the
same thing that made myspace unusual, an impossible excess of visual cruft
that far outweighed its substantive communication value.

The open web is fine, but the web is not the right platform for social
networking. For social you want a fast, clean, boring interface...like the one
on HN. If you think FB is the problem (and it's very very problematic but
plenty of other people are already making that case), stop rabbiting about web
standards and get to work on NNTP 2.0.

NNTP was fucking awesome. Gopher was fucking awesome. the _semantic_ web
is/was awesome. _The web is not for social._

------
l33tbro
The "open web" is really an Eden-like myth, as there has and always will be
stakeholders with various agendas chicaning the free exchange of information.
Sorry, yes, but we really are opportunistic fucks. Not to Gordon Gecko levels,
but an element of it will always be there and we need to collectively
acknowledge and integrate it if we are to evolve.

Either way, Facebook's obfuscation of data is justifiably a cause for the
concern due to the mass adoption of its platform. Yet, it's easy to focus on
the machinations and fuckery that Facebook engage in to hold our gaze and numb
our minds. What's more difficult is to question the agency of its hundreds of
millions of users, who each have a slab of skull-encased smartmeat that gifts
them with relative free will in their lives. Rather predictably, it comes down
to a question of agency and personal responsibility: if you don't like the
site, get off it.

But were only it so simple. Facebook is so deeply entrenched in the
infrastructure of our personal lives, that it's very difficult for a lot of
'normies'(sic) to just pack up and fuck off. While the HN community may be au
fait with the finer points of privacy, mass surveillance, and the founding
principles of our nascent virtual civilisation - Dave from softball in Akron
or Juliette who has a duck farm in the south of France do not. While they'd be
concerned about those things if they were explained and they grokked the
implications, their fucks lie elsewhere and, hence, Big Social Media remains a
fringe idea.

TLDR: We get the social media we deserve.

------
dvt
The irony, I think, is that Facebook tends to be _too_ open. There are
pictures or posts or status updates I'd like hidden from the world. Facebook
isn't necessarily an attack on the open web, it's an attack on content
ownership. When it comes to my personal blog, I can create, alter, and delete
as I see fit. On Facebook, I'm sure that posts from my early 20s still linger
somewhere in the abyss of their data centers.

I'm sure that some embarrassing or unflattering picture of me is _somewhere_
out there. And I think that's the crux of this problem: Facebook is the
gatekeeper; it decides whether or not it wants to open or close the door on
content. Of course, this has an implication as far as its openness is
concerned, but the far more dangerous aspect is, as I mentioned, the fact that
_I_ should be the gatekeeper for my own content.

At least that's the way I see it. I agree with the idea that as a social
platform, Facebook is dying. People contribute less and less personal and
intimate content in lieu of linking articles or throwaway memes. Nowadays, I
mostly use it as a news feed.

I think there's a vacuum out there ripe for disruption; a combination between
Snapchat and Tumblr. A sort of MySpace for the new decade and a platform where
people can be themselves again.

------
jroseattle
Gruber's post is overly dramatic.

He was an Apple fanboy for the longest time, and didn't see that eco-system as
an attack on interoperability?

The only difference I see here is he doesn't like FB.

------
hobarrera
That popup that takes up a third of the page is ridiculous (I actually think
it's a bit more on my screen).

Whenever I get a link to facebook for something I sigh, because that sort of
stupid, hostil UX won't get them anywhere.

If people wanted an account, they'd have one. It's not like visiting the link
is going to be my first time ever hearing of facebook, and that's probably
true for 99% of the people visiting one.

------
nihonde
My experience with Facebook was that it made me a lot less fond of people that
I used to call friends. I'm a bit of a nomad, so I have clusters of friends
and family that exist in places I've long since left behind. At first, I was
curious about what they were up to, but the reality of their curated online
selves was more disappointing than enlightening.

I was getting a lot of annoying politics and boring photos of kid play dates,
pets, dinners, sporting events, etc. Obviously, the quality of your feed
depends on the quality of the people you connect with, but I found myself more
disconnected from people who previously occupied a nostalgic fondness in my
mind.

On the other hand, the people who I cared the most about were routinely the
quietest people on Facebook because--let's face it--smart, productive people
don't waste time on things like that.

I'm relatively old (40's), so my experience is also skewed by that.

I left by editing my hosts file to block all FB-related servers and never
looked back.

------
bambax
The (real) title of this post is exactly how I feel about Facebook. Facebook
is AOL, if AOL had won.

But the question is: what can we do about it? Resist certainly helps (never
had a Facebook account and hopefully never will -- although I did get on
Whatsapp two months ago). I will also prevent my kids to have Facebook while
under my roof.

But what else?

------
thr0waway1239
>> Facebook going out of business seems unlikely

Is it? Because it seems to me that they are having plenty of issues with
gaining the trust of advertisers too. Considering that advertising is the
bread and butter of their business, this would normally be something of a
mini-crisis.

A quick search for "do advertisers trust facebook" gives me

[https://techcrunch.com/2016/11/12/facebook-needs-
accountabil...](https://techcrunch.com/2016/11/12/facebook-needs-
accountability-to-win-back-advertisers-trust/)

[https://venturebeat.com/2017/02/10/facebook-verification-
ad-...](https://venturebeat.com/2017/02/10/facebook-verification-ad-buying/)

[http://www.thedrum.com/news/2017/01/31/will-facebook-chip-
aw...](http://www.thedrum.com/news/2017/01/31/will-facebook-chip-away-its-
walled-garden-restore-advertiser-trust)

[http://www.adageindia.in/digital/40-of-marketers-say-they-
pl...](http://www.adageindia.in/digital/40-of-marketers-say-they-plan-
facebook-audits/articleshow/56667098.cms)

[http://marketingland.com/facebooks-measurement-errors-
impact...](http://marketingland.com/facebooks-measurement-errors-impacted-
marketers-trust-200091)

Of course, no one actually believes anything Facebook says with regards to
privacy, and probably never did.

I would seriously doubt if there is anyone who actually looks at their
practices who doesn't think they conduct large scale psychological experiments
on the human lab rats who continue to use FB.

In other words, seems like there are enough ingredients here for an implosion.
Something has to give.

~~~
ceejayoz
> Considering that advertising is the bread and butter of their business, this
> would normally be something of a mini-crisis.

It would, if there were an alternative.

------
erikpukinskis
The popover doesn't seem as big an issue as the fact that you can't browse the
archive of public posts unless you are logged in.

John Carmack posts public reviews of VR games frequently on Facebook. Here's
one:
[https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=1717273305...](https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=1717273305173846&id=100006735798590)
But if you want to browse previous reviews, there is no mention of them on his
public Facebook page. Look at these two screenshots:
[https://imgur.com/a/wal8p](https://imgur.com/a/wal8p) If you log in, Facebook
is all of the sudden like "look at all this public content!"

Totally skeezy.

------
pc2g4d
Facebook solved some real problems and thus pointed out weakness with the open
web as it is. The way to combat this is not to wring our hands but to improve
the web so it solves the same problems.

Things like spam/moderation. Is it possible to have a distributed, open
solution to this problem?

------
jessaustin
Poor Dave Winer. 131 HN comments and no one even pointed to his post that
shook Gruber out of his slumber in the first place.

[http://scripting.com/2017/05/31.html#a110526](http://scripting.com/2017/05/31.html#a110526)

~~~
eridius
That link is literally in the first sentence of Gruber's post.

------
hossbeast
I prefer the original title, "fuck Facebook"

------
Sir_Cmpwn
I usually post this on HN's Facebook threads, happy to do it again:

[https://www.facebook.com/help/224562897555674](https://www.facebook.com/help/224562897555674)

------
idibidiartists
I switched to Observer Only mode on Facebook after Trump got elected because I
did not want to be stopped and e-frisked at airports. It turned out that that
was the best way to use Facebook: stay on top of happenings with your friends
and relatives but let them reach out to you on other communication channels if
they miss you or wish to communicate some news. All the sudden, I'm having
more meaningful, coherent dialog over email and text as opposed to stupid
Facebook comments and likes.

------
omash
Yep and Google to a bigger extent.

------
Huhty
Recent post from my blog that goes into this a bit further:

Modern Social Media Platforms Are Kicking Your Blog’s Ass. Here Is How You Can
Fight Back.

[http://blogenhancement.com/blog/2017/03/28/modern-social-
med...](http://blogenhancement.com/blog/2017/03/28/modern-social-media-
platforms-are-kicking-your-blogs-ass-here-is-how-you-can-fight-back/)

------
webuser321
Idea for startup: Compete with Facebook on one item: meetings for groups and
organizations. Allow users to join groups without having to join Facebook.

------
mmjaa
Facebook is the AOL of the 21st Century. There will always be these closed
gardens, walled-off. (Could've been CompuServe.)

The point is, the open web is the open web. This also needs to be common.
Eventually, kiddos grow up and escape the pretty gardens - at least lets have
something out here that they can clutch on to, in awe, at all the non-curated,
non-owned, non-manipulated/-manipulative content ..

------
id122015
I closed my FB in 2013 and time passes so quick. I created a dummy account to
have access to certain pages but I dont use it. But a lot of people have
created thousands of dummy accounts to show how many friends they have. They
sell on the market fake accounts/followers.

And I dont want to be part of such a group. Plus other reasons like the ones
in the article like this.

------
b0rsuk
There's a string of submissions critical of Facebook on HN recently. I agree
and approve.

But one thing interests me: doesn't Facebook have something like that, but in
reverse ? I mean updates along the lines "We need more Facebook", "Open
internet is for nerds", "Why more websites need to migrate to Facebook"... ?
Unless you have a Facebook account, you don't know what's going on on the
other side of the barricade.

One puzzling fact - stars on github: jquery/jquery - 45k, angular/angular -
25k, facebook/react - 68k, twbs/bootstrap - 111k,

On my local job market (I live in a 500k city), react is the least popular JS
framework. I keep seeing jquery and especially angular over and over.
Meanwhile react, the facebookiest of JS frameworks, shows up least frequently.
Yet React is the most popular JS framework and by a large margin! I suspect
it's because job offers with 'react' are mostly circulated via facebook. I
also see very little job offers with the 'facebook' keyword - mostly for non-
technical people, like marketing, salesmen, assistants, various misc jobs.

Hypothesis: we, outside Facebook, live in our own _filter_ _bubble_. We don't
get the whole picture.

~~~
blazespin
I really like facebook. It's nice to stay in touch with your friends,
especially when abroad.

~~~
compiler-guy
Facebook is really nice for many usecases.

But it could be way more open without ruining those usecases. It is just so
hostile to non-facebook users.

The primary example being the one cited in the article: The only reason to
block 1/3 of a page to nonlogged in users is to convince you to either sign up
or log in. There is no user-based reason to do so.

That is open-web hostile.

There is no need to make the all the content non-searchable, except to
convince you to log in and search locally.

That is open-web hostile.

I used to think Google was bad for its intrusive "No really, you should log-
in" campaigns, but facebook makes Google look so reasonable on this score.

~~~
blazespin
For people who are privacy obsessed, just create a fake account. You'll find
that all your friends are sympathetic and are more than happy to friend you. I
know several people who do this and I happily friend them. My bday and
location information is all fake, for example. I click on ads sometime when
they peak my interest. I think once I actually bought something based on what
I saw on Facebook, but I can't remember if it was because someone shared it or
it was sponsored. I honestly don't know whether it matters or what the big
deal is.

Admittedly my profile picture is there. I worry about that sometimes and is
probably my biggest concern. But it's not facebook's fault i posted a picture.
There's no rule you can't see your friends posts if you don't post your own
photo, and I have friends who just use a picture of their dog or something
instead and it never bugs me.

Honestly, Facebook is just a business and in return you look at ads now and
then. If people had to pay I don't think it'd be very popular.

~~~
659087
Your "fake account" isn't fooling Facebook if you're adding all of your real
friends to it.. Nor is your fake information.

------
haywirez
Love the post(s), the reasons mentioned are precisely why I took the time to
make my own site. There are so many unexplored opportunities with custom
components that will never work on platforms, but too few are doing it. Alan
Kay's talks completely changed my way of thinking - you need to take control
of your tools.

------
calebgilbert
Besides Facebook banning search engine indexing of itself the search
functionality of Facebook itself is _terrible_. I belong to several groups and
I've seen numerous examples of content, which I know is in the group, not
showing up in search results while using very straight forward and matching
searches.

------
piracyde25
Hide Yo Feed script to turn Facebook feed into a blank page. You wouldn't have
to worry about timesucking anymore.
[https://greasyfork.org/en/scripts/29032-hide-yo-
feed](https://greasyfork.org/en/scripts/29032-hide-yo-feed)

------
cornchips
Facebook is evil. They knew people would be posting videos killing themselves
and let others watch. If you know anything about psychology; trauma and
copycats. [1]

Facebook retains your data, and you can't do anything about it. I don't know
how any engineers can work there knowing in their mind the delete button is a
ruse -- or "incomplete functionality". From what i've observed there is active
censorship especially in regards to negative statements of facebook (of which
i'm sure they are aware of copycats).

This company has brought out the worst of society and they are deserving of
justice -- or at least balance.

[1] [https://www.theguardian.com/news/2017/may/21/facebook-
users-...](https://www.theguardian.com/news/2017/may/21/facebook-users-
livestream-self-harm-leaked-documents) "Experts have told us what’s best for
these people’s safety is to let them livestream as long as they are engaging
with viewers."

------
krishg
Facebook would be good if they didn't keep shoving more and more services into
it. I don't want to order food from Facebook and don't want to sell anything.
Ad blocker takes care of ad spam.

~~~
enos_feedler
Is it that you don't want to sell anything at all? or just on Facebook? When
facebook launched this feature I had a bunch of old iPhones lying around and I
sold them through facebook really fast. I actually liked it a lot. Identity
was not an issue (never felt like I would get ripped off). It was easy to take
a photo, set a price and publish within 10 seconds. I started to sell things I
didn't even think about selling because it was so easy.

------
inostia
I really, really hate the "log in to Facebook" popover.

I haven't had a Facebook account for over a year and I'm incredibly happy
about it. The only downside is now I don't hear about local events.

------
cgb223
> It is not accessible to search engines

The thought of potential employers searching though Facebook posts I made when
I was a teenager terrifies me.

If they ever made this possible I'd stop using their service immediately

~~~
rndmind
Don't be so naive to think that _YOU_ are the only one who can potentially
read and sift through all your facebook information.

The is empirical evidence that any one who pays for it, can has access to it,
not even to mention nation-states, can has access.

------
lolsal
> Content that isn’t indexable by search engines is not part of the open web.

I'm not really sure what this means, but my knee-jerk reaction is that the
'open web' exists without search engines.

~~~
ominous
In Ultima Online you could write books. While those were fun to find, would
you say they were part of the open web?

What if those books were in Ilshenar, guarded by two stone gargoyles?

Hey, let's just meet and talk there. I sure love to go to Ilshenar. I'm sure
my friends from all walks of life/culture/class would also love to go to
Ilshenar see what I am talking about.

------
partycoder
I think the future of social networks will be turning them into a protocol,
the same way we use e-mail. Everyone is connected through e-mail but nobody
technically owns it.

------
arrowgunz
Oh boy, so many users disliking Facebook in this thread.

> — a full one-third of my window is covered by a pop-over trying to get me to
> sign in or sign up for Facebook.

I get that John is clearly annoyed by a certain aspects of Facebook, but, I
feel like it's unfair to say "Fuck Facebook" based on that. Facebook posts are
primarily meant to be shared on the social network and not on the web. You
can, of course, share it on the web, if the author of the post wishes to. But,
Facebook has an amazing Notes features, which basically acts like a
personalized blog. Long posts are meant to be shared via Notes and not the
regular status update posts.

Check out this awesome note created by Kent Beck:
[https://www.facebook.com/notes/kent-beck/mastering-
programmi...](https://www.facebook.com/notes/kent-beck/mastering-
programming/1184427814923414)

They don't put a pop-over that takes up 1/3 of your page.

Also, I see a lot of people complaining about timesuck and how getting off of
Facebook has improved their lives. How is any of it Facebook's fault? If
anything, it means that it's a win for Facebook since they're providing good
content that interests you, the user.

Also, stating that Facebook is trying to kill the open web is a bit ridiculous
to say. Facebook's main sell is their content. They're not a search engine.
They don't have to let non-Facebook users access their protected content. Yes,
they do have a search engine that searches across the Facebook platform, but,
you'd have to be a Facebook user in order to be able to search for it.
Facebook got a lot of heat a few years ago for the lack of proper privacy
features. Now, people complain about not having access to somebody else's
content? There is no way everybody in this world can be satisfied.

Also, expecting Facebook to allow Internet Archive to index Facebook's content
is unfair. Why should Facebook allow Internet Archive to index their protected
content? The content is for the users to share with whoever they wish to share
with, which may not necessarily be everybody in the world.

~~~
garrettjoecox
> But, Facebook has an amazing Notes features, which basically acts like a
> personalized blog.

Promoting this literally proves his argument. No one even needs a web browser
anymore! Just download facebook! /s

------
abetancort
Fuck Facebook! Stop wasting cycles and bytes discussing over something
obvious, while making "dumb" excuses why you need to go back and get fucked
back.

------
tantalor
> I don’t know what your privacy settings are. So if I point to your post,
> it’s possible a lot of people might not be able to read it

Easy: open the page in an incognito window.

~~~
adtac
I'm sure Facebook is still tracking you in some way. Some low hanging fruits:
IP address, user agent, screen resolution, network speed based tracking, geo
location, presence of various web technologies. With all this and Facebook's
backend data, I'm absolutely sure they'll be able to narrow you down to at
most 5-10 people.

~~~
5ilv3r
I went to a great talk at linuxfest with a mozilla developer talking about
ways you could prevent tracking, and some of the means were mind blowing. For
example, they can process an audio clip using your audio hardware without
playing it to you, and then based on the artifacts introduced, they can figure
out if you are using the same sound card as a previous sample they collected.
The firefox property that allows this is 'dom.webaudio.enabled', and it is not
related to playback.

~~~
adtac
That's insane. [http://webkay.robinlinus.com/](http://webkay.robinlinus.com/)
has some more interesting methods. One of my favourites is querying every IP
address in your local network and seeing which ones are up to generate a
profile on you.

------
bradgessler
What honestly replaces Facebook today with a product and business model that's
not dependent on advertisements?

The best thing I can think of is Apple Photos and Messages.

------
chuckdries
I understand why they don't want posts archived by archive.org. It's a privacy
thing for users to be able to delete their own content from the web.

------
doktrin
Facebook is probably the last place I go looking for quality blog-type
content. Also, the title and tone of this piece both seem intensely hyperbolic
to me.

------
Wissmania
I agree with the authors points about blogging on facebook and having a decent
logged out experience, but I want to push back against him lumping in anti-
adblock pop overs.

Every publisher of high quality content is dependent on advertising to stay in
business. When you are using adblock, your eyeballs are freeloading off of all
the users who are using the website as intended.

I certainly understand the urge to use adblock, but it's amazing to me that
people would feel entitled enough to actually expect publishers not to try to
prevent this.

~~~
makecheck
And he is a publisher of content too, with ads, and you didn't notice what he
does differently? All text, simple links, and usually a nice blurb describing
the company/product. I have read 2000% more of those than I have _ever_ cared
about _any_ pushy, animated, noisy ad on any other site. His system works,
without being obnoxious.

------
jarjoura
I think it's hilarious that the comments in here suggest Facebook gets in the
way of quality of life because of the way it captures your attention. Yet,
then they spend a large amount of time on this site practicing another form of
toxicity.

I get that some people, here especially it seems, have very strongly held
beliefs about privacy and personal space that Facebook will never accommodate
for. Nor should they be expected to. Clearly those people will never be the
target audience and that's 100% okay.

------
kuon
I'm a programmer and my facebook account has been created only for testing
apps. I don't even really know facebook is for.

------
piyush_soni
But then, I seem to spend equal amount of time scrolling here on HN as I do on
facebook. How many things can I deactivate now? :|

------
namuol
> I’m sorry no matter how good your idea is fuck you I won’t help you and
> Facebook kill the open web.

This is not how you win hearts and minds.

~~~
rocky1138
I like his/her attitude, to be honest. It's jarring, which is what most people
need to snap them into thinking for themselves.

------
zelphir_kalt
Unfortunately no surprise here. We need more websites telling people this,
until finally people realize it.

------
oconnor663
> Facebook forbids search engines from indexing Facebook posts. Content that
> isn’t indexable by search engines is not part of the open web.

When you make an argument like this, you need to acknowledge that tons people
want the opposite thing you want. That doesn't make you wrong, but leaving it
out makes it so much harder to have a good discussion.

------
colordrops
People in this thread talking about getting off of Facebook like former smack
addicts...

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ProAm
There is a bit of irony here with how Gruber defends Apple but finds Facebook
a threat.

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mmargerum
Seems like a problem that will fix itself. No one under 18 uses Facebook .

------
krupan
Facebook has done wonders to get people creating and consuming content on the
internet. However, Facebook has grown to the point where it has no competition
and is no longer innovating in ways that benefit us. Facebook should split
into Facebook the aggregator and Facebook the content hoster. You could talk
about a third piece that is Facebook the content provider, which is for
providing things like gifs, templates, memes, emoji, games, and other stuff
like that. Because Facebook hasn't completely broken from open web standards
those types of content providers already exist today.

Aggregators would be where you go to set up your friend list and see your
feed. It could look and feel like Facebook does now. It would have an open
standard protocol that content hosters would use if they wanted to be
aggregated. This could still be an add driven business, but subscription, self
hosted, and DIY solutions could exist too.

Content hosters could either charge a monthly hosting fee, or they could serve
up their own adds. Self hosted and DIY solutions could also exist.

The big benefit to this would of course be the competition. Since it's an open
standard anyone could be a content host, and anyone could be an aggregator.

To make extra sure there is competition, and this could come in a phase two
after the initial splitting up of Facebook, there should be open standards for
exporting and importing friends, follows, likes, etc. to and from aggregators,
and open standards for importing and exporting content from the hosters.

Speaking of follows and likes, there could also be aggregator aggregators
(AAs). People could opt in to publicly and anonymously share their likes and
follows and the AAs would consume those and report on trends that cross
aggregator boundaries. Anonymity could be much more protected this way while
still giving us that interesting information about what is trending.

One tricky part of this is how do I as a content author only allow my friends
to see certain posts of mine? It would have to be with encryption. My content
provider could keep public keys of my friends and only my friends (well, their
aggregators) would be able to decrypt my posts using my friends' private keys.
I can see some challenges and holes in this, but it doesn't seem any worse
overall than how Facebook protects privacy now. Open implementations and peer
review could get us to better-than-Facebook privacy quickly.

Facebook would ideally recognize their stagnation and initiate this split
themselves. We as their user base can and should help them understand the
importance of this. Hopefully it doesn't have to come down to government
enforcement of anti-trust laws, but that could be a useful tool to apply here
as well.

------
blazespin
I love facebook! I never post any selfies or personal news, but I love reading
others and I like discussing politics on FB.

I'm not a like whore either. I'm pretty happy to just post and get zero likes.
I wonder if anyone reads my posts? O well.

------
rdslw
In 6..18 months, I'll short facebook stocks.

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ossmaster
What happens when zuckerburg runs for president?

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cakeface
Facebook is not an attack. It's just a website people. If you don't like it,
don't type that URL in your browser software.

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amauta
Ah~ the beauty of killing a social site. Myspace went downhill little by
little (;

Blockchain will also help kill FB :D

~~~
aethertron
I'd be interested to know how you think that will help kill FB.

------
oever
Why do we need Facebook?

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lyra_comms
Lyra is a breath of fresh air for language and communication on the web.

www.hellolyra.com

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MachinShinn-
I'm baffled by some of the comments here... Is it so difficult for you guys to
just have a facebook account that you don't check in on? You can still sign
into random sites that require it that way, arrange meetups, etc but without
'scrolling your life away'

I expect people like me who spend most of their day on the computer to have at
least as much digital self discipline as I have, but perhaps that's a poor
assumption to make...

~~~
nnfy
My problem with an idle Facebook account is at least twofold: my activity is
still being tracked against my will, and out of principle I refuse to support
an organization which so blatantly disregards personal space.

~~~
patrickaljord
> I refuse to support an organization which so blatantly disregards personal
> space.

I suppose you have no cell phone and live in a place with no government then,
because Facebook can't hold a candle to telcos and governments when it comes
to disregarding your personal space.

~~~
nnfy
Some forms of intrusion are more difficult to avoid than others; obviously
that doesn't make it irrational to avoid as much as you realistically can.

Also, Facebook holds a significantly broader type of information than uncle
Sam or T-Mobile. And Facebook also provides an avoidable vector for government
surveillance. Analogy: no machine is totally secure, that doesn't mean we give
up, turn off all security software and stop patching exploits.

------
Cozumel
I think this is more an indictment that people don't actually know how to use
FB.

YOU control what you want to see and who you interact with, spending to much
time there? Take charge of your own life and click off. Seeing something you
don't want to see? Hide it. It's not rocket science.

Personally I get a great deal of value from it. It's a tool like any other,
but you have to know how to use it.

~~~
skc
You nailed it, actually.

I don't actually find it too ironic that HN is missing the point that Facebook
is a cultural phenomenon. The way people communicate has changed, culturally,
and Facebook facilitates that.

I have an account that I only use to get notifications from long lost family
members and friends etc.

------
nnfy
Despite having deleted my little used Facebook months ago, Facebook still
finds ways to remind me of its authoritarian intrusiveness; I have a fake
account which I use for commenting, and I was asked to upload a copy of a
photo ID. I was given a list of options, which included a driver's license and
a passport.

This level of privacy invasion is simply unnaceptable to me, and I wish people
online were more guarded with what amounts to their identity...

------
aanm1988
so is google.

Conglomeration in general isn't great for the open web. That's where we are
though.

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jeena
Meh, old news at least for me who always has been sceptikal, I point out a lot
of those reasons out in my IndieWeb talk:
[https://jeena.net/media/2016/IndieWeb-
Jeena.pdf](https://jeena.net/media/2016/IndieWeb-Jeena.pdf)

