Ask HN: Knowing what we know about Facebook, why do you still have an account? - cityzen
======
dpau
Groups is the _only_ reason I signed up for FB three years ago. These groups
are very important for my open-source projects and professional life. FB is
the only platform that offers a common place where these diverse communities
exist. Formerly, mailing lists and discussion forums like phpBB filled this
need, but unfortunately FB has _become_ the internet for many non-tech people.
I have tried my best to lure members of these groups to free spaces that I
have set up using software like Discourse. (And briefly, Flarum.) I've put
hundreds of hours into building content within Discourse and providing
support, but to no avail. It's simply too convenient for people to use
Facebook, instead.

I'm really saddened by this development. The rich archives of mailing lists
and forums from these communities from the 90's and 00's are still searchable
online via a few old sites and archive.org. But all of our discussions and
knowledge shared within FB seems to fall into a "black hole". Search
functionality within groups is horrible. Not to mention that it's impossible
to search if you're not logged into Facebook.

FB is a horrible place to build and share knowledge. But I haven't found a way
to convince people to go elsewhere, nor have I found software that's
convincing enough an alternative.

~~~
KajMagnus
> _unfortunately FB has become the internet for many non-tech people_

I'm wondering if this is slightly changing? I'm in a non-profit and we have a
FB group for us volunteers. However, messages posted there, are seen sometimes
by only 10, sometimes by only 2, members. Out of maybe 40 in total. The FB
group doesn't work, because FB doesn't show things posted there, in people's
news feed. Instead, FB shows one's friends kittens, and vacation pics? And
we're looking for other solutions. (see below)

Agree about the benefits with forums. Closer to 100% certain delivery (instead
of 5% or 50% in the Facebook group), and searchable discussion topics,
categorizable, taggable, nice formatting and nice full screen editor, various
types of topics (question-answers, or HackerNews open-ended, or Slack like
chat), weekly summary emails and announcements ... if using sth. better than
Facebook.

> _But all of our discussions and knowledge shared within FB seems to fall
> into a "black hole"._

Exactly

> _Search functionality within groups is horrible_

Yes

Plus, Facebook is rather buggy I think. I start typing a chat message —
Facebook doesn't save any draft, and the chat message text gets lost because
of the-lost-update-bug which FB hasn't fixed. Plus, the chat message window is
sometimes like 1x1 cm, on a 30'' screen. Crazy. Network lockin —> UX disaster
:-/

> _I haven 't found a way to convince people to go elsewhere_

It'd be interesting to maybe talk a bit about good ways to do that? :- )

> _nor have I found software that 's convincing enough an alternative._

I'd like us to try Talkyard (see my profile), which I'm developing, and it's
like Flarum and Discourse (which you mentioned). However there's also built-in
chat, and Question-Answers topics for quickly finding a solution, if one gets
stuck e.g. at work, so one can find a solution and get back to work. ...
Whilst FB instead does its best to distract everyone with ads and new things
in the news feed.

------
amha
I have family and friends all across the US and across the world. I like them
all, and I like hearing about their lives, even in the silly little details.
Social networks are the easy way to do that, and Facebook is the network
everyone seems to use.

For people who are more misanthropic or introverted, or who don't value their
connections as much (I mean that in a non-judgmental way), the utility of
Facebook is probably a lot less. I think that's one of the big things I see on
HN: a lot of people who hate Facebook partly because one of the main services
it provides (maintaining long-distance social connections) isn't useful to
them.

(And of course I could call/email/text/etc. many of these people one-on-one,
and of course I do that, too, but Facebook is a useful supplement for major
life announcements from more distant friends/acquaintances, as well as trivial
little details from closer friends.)

------
ageitgey
Facebook is not only a sketchy company, but the FB product itself has also
gotten continually worse. It's now a bloated mess absolutely plastered in ads
and viral/scammy/politics-as-sports trash. Even the annoying autoplay
"facebook trash" videos in the feed have interstitial ads now - i.e. ads
inside of ads. The whole site has become a down-market cesspool that I have
very little desire to use. That's ironic because I feel like FB got it's start
because MySpace became a cesspool of trash and FB felt like the upscale
alternative.

But all that being said, I still have a FB account so I can check in on family
members who don't (yet) use something else. But even among that unhip group of
older people, they are quickly drifting away to instagram and I barely ever
check in on Facebook anymore.

------
brosirmandude
Honestly, public & private FB groups. Groups dedicated around specific
subjects (mostly related to my career) have been some of the most influential
places for learning, networking, building relationships that I've been able to
call on later.

FB groups are king because:

1\. Everyone is already there. 2\. It's tied to your real identity (for the
most part).

Other areas to learn/network and ask dumb/advanced questions exist, but to
"community" vibe in FB groups is unrivaled.

My FB feed is almost nothing but groups posts. I've hidden/unfriended most
people I don't care about and no one I've kept really posts to their actual
pages much these days anyway.

I really wish Groups was a separate app. I'd keep that and messenger.

I realize my privacy on fb, and likely around the whole web is the tradeoff
for this but unfortunately that's what's required to stay on. The advancements
I've made in my career and personal life directly & indirectly due to the FB
groups I'm in are definitely worth it, and likely would not have happened
without the existence of FB groups.

~~~
ValentineC
> _2\. It 's tied to your real identity (for the most part)._

Why would you prefer this, versus anonymity-by-default on somewhere like
Reddit?

~~~
babygoat
Networking and being anonymous don't go together very well.

~~~
newscracker
Counterpoint — this depends on the area of interest and the people. That
networking and being "anonymous" don't go well is not necessarily true always,
and need not be true always. One can have a handle/username/name without
revealing one's real name to _everyone on Facebook,_ and yet reveal one's real
name through other means (out of band communication) to specific people at
specific times for specific needs.

------
carlesfe
I don't.

But it isn't because I disagree with FB's politics. It's because all my
friends (Europeans around 35 yo) just stopped using it.

They all moved to Instagram.

Facebook (the product) will be a desert by 3-5 years. However, Facebook Inc.
had a lot of hindsight and bough Whatsapp and Instagram.

I commute via train every day. 99% of the phone screens are either Insta or
Whatsapp.

Facebook Inc. wins.

PS: I miss Facebook (the product). I hate Insta. I loathe the fact that it's
all pics and no text. I have no good way to share ideas or jokes with my
friends. But if I want to know what my friends are up to, that is the app I
have to use.

~~~
nakedrobot2
Excuse this old geezer, but.... how do you have discussions on instagram? how
is instagram replacing groups and forums for people who share specific
interests?

this "we don't use facebook anymore, we use instagram" seems for a narrow
usecase.

~~~
reidjs
You can direct message and do group chats. To set up events you can just
message a bunch of people time and place.

------
ta3216
I think it’s important to take a more active stand. My child joined a school
sport this fall and the coach told us information will be provided on a
private Facebook group. I told him I don’t use Facebook and demanded he also
put the information elsewhere, which he did end up doing. I hope over time, as
more people demand this, more people will float away from FB.

------
dzek69
Because nothing on my account is actually private.

I use fb mostly for groups (buy/sell groups, some technical knowledge sharing
groups) and being up to date with band/companies news.

I accept only people I really know and like, but I rarely invite anyone first.

I don't "share my life" nor I look at other people posts about their lives
(most of them haven't written a wall post in months anyway). I share "life
stuff" with people in person and looks like most people are doing the same.

Oh, and while a lot of people use Messenger I completely don't. Not at all.

~~~
dzek69
To not lie about Messenger: I use it on webpage directly as a private contact
initiation when buying/selling stuff. We exchange telephone numbers and that's
usually all.

And when somebody starts a random conversation (hadn't happen in a while) I
just redirect them somewhere else.

I also keep away from FB/Messenger apps and I avoid visiting FB on phone.

On my pc I block trackers and stuff.

I think all of above is sane way of using Facebook.

------
abathur
I would like to request my data and delete, but severing the only mechanism I
have for finding some people I know from previous academic programs is
anxiety-inducing, so I avoid making a final decision.

I've been bearish on it for a while now. I think I've been pondering deleting
my account since around 2011 or 2012.

I'm not sure when I last logged in.

To a lesser degree, it's also probably the only way I'll find out if a few
former professors/mentors die. I am slowly discounting the value of this one
because I visit so infrequently that I already only find these out if my
spouse notices, or someone I stay in regular contact texts/emails about it. I
should probably look into configuring search/news alerts for this, or
something.

------
strken
I have two groups of friends who mostly communicate via private Facebook
groups, and because I decided to travel for a few years, I don't see either
group enough to know what they're doing without Facebook. The social penalty
for deleting my account would be the potential loss of a lot of my
relationship with a large chunk of my friends.

This also means that I don't use the feed, which is the primary source of
Facebook's problems. I get an unfiltered list of posts my friends make, which
is really all I ever wanted anyway.

~~~
hrbf
What I find interesting with this description is how anyone can be worried
about losing “friends” when just changing the contact medium would result in
losing them. There’s email, SMS, Signal, and yes: actual phones. Letters even.

A friendship is not endangered by a switch of context, while casual
acquaintances may be lost. Friends are people who are mainly interested in
you, not ones who choose theirs ranking by convenience of communication
method. Any social media has a broadcast mentality to it, like it would be too
cumbersome to stay in touch otherwise. This is not a new occurrence. It has
always been easier to “stay in touch” with the people immediately surrounding
you. However, following that definition, the people who are your best friends
would be the people you spend the most time with, which are probably you co-
workers.

Just imagine anyone taking the time to actually formulate a piece of personal
writing, process thoughts before writing them down and in the end having to
weigh what information to share or to write that letter at all, to have finite
resources to write and to have to choose who is important and who is not.
Instead of just flooding everyone with the same, probably curated and edited,
information.

Then again, I’m probably not the intended target group of Facebook and similar
networks. People also smoke, drink, take drugs, have unprotected sex with
strangers, risk their lives in stupid endeavors and generally do highly
illogical things on a constant basis.

------
Domark
Facebook is just another website. Sure it has problems, but it’s super handy
for keeping up with a ‘distributed’ family across the globe.

What are you fishing for?

~~~
dxhdr
> Facebook is just another website.

Strangely this website comes pre-installed on every phone I buy, and I can't
uninstall it; the best I can do is deactivate. How do I get rid of this
"website"?

------
teaneedz
I haven't looked at the newsfeed or added new posts in over a couple of years.
It's only used to access Pages, but I see activity stalling as quality
declines. US growth is stalled and I hear nothing but negative sentiment
against the Facebook brand from regular users. It's the equivalent of MySpace
now, but will always have its diehard users—those who don't like change, or
those who just don't get the anti-privacy and adtech poison it's built on.

We should be asking why those who left Facebook still use Instagram which is
feeding the same machine.

------
psychometry
Because for keeping in touch with people and being aware of events, there
isn't a better alternative.

------
lordnacho
It's an easy way to see what people are up to. Especially once you have kids
it's not often you get to catch up with friends. And they aren't going to
another service en masse.

It's also a way to see some random content, much like my LinkedIn. Just a
bunch of articles and memes. I do find that it's low quality, often very
political on the articles side. But the memes and jokes are okay.

It's gotten a lot less addictive over the years. Maybe I'll end up using it
less and less naturally.

------
jnurmine
I don't have an account now and never had an account either.

Their purpose seemed somehow shady from the get-go. All that for free, what's
the catch? What do they sell? And later the catch became obvious.

For some people Facebook is certainly useful to keep in touch with folk. But
for my part, I am happy I never joined.

A corporation in a position to collect all kinds of information about you, to
build graphs of who you know, when you communicate with them within the
service, to learn even the people you know but who are not in the service yet
appear in your pictures (shadow profiles), and so on... That is too much power
for a single entity. Who watches and regulates them? Who looks after how that
data is used? Who makes sure they behave? How can you ask them to go away if
you don't like them? What if the political situation goes bad as in post-1920s
bad and someone repeats the IBM/Hollerith tabulation machine use-case using
data from Facebook?

Some might say the tinfoil is strong in this one but come one, after
everything with Snowden, after the Cambridge Analytica and everything else, I
am happier and happier about my initial decision. The only way to win is to
not play the game and all that.

------
Jedi72
Facebook does have utility for making new friends. Just last night I was out
at a bar, chatting to some people, and at the end we added eachother on
Facebook. We need some kind of service like Facebook, just one which is fully
encrypted and where the data is in the users hands.

~~~
yulaow
I just use directly telegram, the cool thing is I have not even to give them
my real number

~~~
newscracker
How did you create a Telegram account without your real number or a number you
control? You can create a username and avoid giving out your phone number to
other people, if that's what you're referring to. This is not available with
WhatsApp or Signal.

Telegram requires a phone number to create an account and to activate the
account on additional devices. As an aside, Signal is also tied to a phone
number. Wire is the only one that allows people to use email addresses to
create accounts.

------
tzs
They require use of real names and are popular. That means that there is a
decent chance people who encounter me offline might try to look me up there,
because all they need is my name.

If my name was something like Lorenzo Von Matterhorn, then I could go without
having an account on such sites and people looking for me would find nothing.

But my name is not Lorenzo Von Matterhorn. I have a very common last name, and
a reasonably common first name. Such sites have many people with my name.
People looking for me will find people with my name.

By having an account at such sites, I can make sure I show up when people look
for me, reducing the chance that they will mistake someone else for me which
could lead to misunderstandings.

------
cheeze
Beer.

Im part of a bunch of private beer raffle groups. It goes like this

1\. Someone buys a rare and sought after beer (say, at a release they waited
hours in line for) 2\. They come up with a valuation 3\. They post the beer
for N spots in one of these groups (almost always 10 spots, 0-9) 4\. Folks buy
spots by claiming number 5\. Everyone pays up 6\. Once full, the next Illinois
fireball pick 3 "fireball number" (0-9) that gets drawn decides winner 7
winner gets shipped their beer

These communities _only_ exist on Facebook. And in that sense, fb works very
well as a way to keep people honest (must use real accounts, must be vouched
for to become a member)

Yeah its a niche, but it's my niche.

~~~
catacombs
Great. But, Facebook is surely collecting a shitton of data from you and the
other beer group members and, possibly, selling it to data brokers, who, in
turn, sell it to beer advertisement companies.

You are the product.

~~~
jarfil
But he gets beer, so what if some beer companies know that he likes beer and
decide to pay someone to know what kind of beer he's more willing to pay for?

I mean, what's the problem with some companies knowing what you like, if
you're intending to pay for it anyway?

~~~
catacombs
Because the beer companies can trade the data with another company. And that
company will trade the data to another company. And the cycle continues.

------
newscracker
I have a need to connect with people on a couple of specific topics that I
believe are very important, and unfortunately, Facebook is where most people
are. So I use (only) Facebook groups. All the forums and message boards of the
past are not where many people are. I stay away from my timeline and the news
feed. I believe that the timeline is a useless stream of junk with people
always arguing and fighting one another. Recently I noticed that Facebook has
prioritized video content, and now the news feed is an endless stream of
useless videos that auto play. This is not the result of personalization,
because I do not react to people's posts or comments (and give hints to
Facebook). _It 's as if Facebook intends to create its own version of a future
based on Idiocracy (the movie)._ [1]

Facebook groups has some good features and has improved a lot for
administrators over the last couple of years. But as dpau says in another
comment here [2], search on Facebook and Facebook groups is terrible — it's
worse than any bad web search engine one can think of. Most people end up
posting the same posts and the same comments over and over again (this is not
a Facebook-only issue, but the lack of good search makes enforcing "searching
first as the norm" next to impossible). All the etiquette built around
newsgroups and online forums over decades is nowhere to be seen on Facebook
groups. Everybody seems to want to be spoonfed with answers, instantly.

As dpau says [2], Facebook as a place to store useful information for
posterity is a lost cause. If, either intentionally or unintentionally,
Facebook were to delete all content older than a week from groups and
timelines right now, nothing will be missed! _Facebook _is the place_ where
content goes to die!_ I tell people to put their content elsewhere on the web
and share the link on Facebook, but many people are loathe to do it, not
understanding that their effort, knowledge and time are wasted so pitifully by
an incompetent and arrogant corporation that doesn't care much about anything
on the human side (except showing more videos to show more video ads to make
more money).

I'm of the opinion that the sooner Facebook dies, the better off we'll be,
even if there's no single alternative that fulfills all the features it
offers.

[1]:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idiocracy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idiocracy)

[2]:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18481458](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18481458)

------
yulaow
I honestly have not an account since an year but just for two reasons:

\- all of my contacts stopped using it well before, basically their whole
profiles were empty of any news, photo or share. They just used it to read
some news from some groups

\- I was still there because a group of my college was still active and I
needed the contacts with some of those people. As soon as I didn't need them
anymore I left

SW-eu seems a totally empty space for facebook for what I could see. New
generations are directly ignoring it, old generations are not even using it,
and my generation has just stopped to find it useful at all

------
jarfil
I use Facebook's login on some websites, its groups... and I like the ads.

It may sound weird, but I adblock the hell out of ads everywhere when I'm
doing something "serious", so the only ads I ever see are the ones in
Facebook's app... and they're over 50% relevant and interesting to me.

So I pretty much know that Facebook on mobile is a time waster, and I only use
it to check out fun/cool stuff, which includes looking at curious things I'll
never buy.

Also, I have Facebook's notifications disabled, so I only use it on my terms.

------
paglia_s
As someone else said, Groups.

Would I prefer them to be hosted somewhere else like a forum? Yes, Groups on
Facebook are quite terrible to use with the non-chronological ordering, the
comment system that encourages everythign but in depth comments, ... but the
reality is that for a few subjects that I'm interested like development
projects in the city where I live, .. they're the place where I can find the
most up to date info and discussion

------
ineedasername
I haven't bothered to delete it because I'm not very exposed to privacy issue
there (I don't given them much of anything to sell) I don't actively post much
of anything at all, but within my family it is considered a social norm. I'm
expected to occasionally check in and give a like to some posted photos, and
send the obligatory "Happy <something> | <congratulations>" here and there.

~~~
catacombs
> I'm not very exposed to privacy issue there (I don't given them much of
> anything to sell)

Facebook still likely has a lot of usage data about you. For example, they
could make a profile of you based on the people you visit and interact with.

------
esotericn
Ultimately explainable by the fact that extremely few, possibly zero people
actually live their life according to principles.

Everyone has their pet topic, everyone has their set of vices.

I don't have a Facebook account, but I do own a (non-electric) car. I'm very
much aware of how bad it is. Giving it up would restrict my life dramatically,
so I don't. (I'd love a Model 3 when they finally hit the UK).

------
throwaway_vnkqd
I deleted my account over a year ago, and I periodically consider rejoining
for a few reasons:

a) My social life has suffered considerably. I've heard that if your
friendships are so shallow that they vanish when you're not on facebook they
weren't worth much anyhow. That may be so, but at least when I was on facebook
I would know when my "friends" (read: casual acquaintances that I met once)
were throwing a party or going out somewhere that I could join. I'm single and
I moved to my current city a few years ago and don't have old friendships. If
I want any hope of meeting new people, making friends, dating, etc I need to
be present enough to get opportunities. Leaving facebook cut off the most
valuable tool I had to expand my social circle, and I now rarely go out or
meet new people. I'm lonely, but I'm really uncomfortable creating a facebook
account so I haven't done much about it.

b) Meetup was a nice idea, but other than tech talks, nobody seems to use it
where I am. If you like $hobby and want to find other local ${hobby}ists to
share your activity with, you need to be on facebook. Do you like riding dirt
bikes, but know that going to the desert with a bike without a buddy is
dangerous...well, if you don't have facebook how are you going to find a
buddy? You won't, instead you'll ride alone and hope you won't break a leg
somewhere there isn't cell reception.

b) Groups have replaced Craigslist. Where I live, not being on facebook costs
money. Want to buy used furniture? Facebook. Interested in a cordless drill
that costs $$$? Buy second-hand on facebook. Or just pay retail and buy new.
Looking for an apartment? You can find a roommate on...wait for it...Facebook.

------
bufferoverflow
Don't give them any information you don't want them to have.

I only keep the account to log in into various services.

~~~
gaius
_Don 't give them any information you don't want them to have._

They buy data direct from airlines and credit cards now.

~~~
bufferoverflow
So whether you use FB anymore or not, doesn't affect this.

------
simonsarris
To share updates with my friends and family, buy used stuff on the
marketplace, get info and be helpful to townspeople on town happenings from my
town group (where I've also met some nice people that I now buy beef and eggs
from), etc.

Nothing in recent history has changed any of it's utility for me.

------
drivingmenuts
I'm somewhat of an introvert and have frequent bouts of depression that keep
me in the house for anything other than work. FB is how I follow up on my
friends lives and maintain some contact with the outside world. I don't
personally know anyone on any other forum.

------
ohazi
Too many of the social event/party/gathering things that I go to use Facebook
events as the primary means of letting everyone know about the details (when,
where, last minute changes, door code, etc.).

------
paulcole
Simple: I like looking at my friends’ posts and don’t value my privacy.

------
sky_projektor
Not long ago I closed my Linkedin account because where I live, far eastern
India, recruiters hardly use linkedin for anything & the rest did not find me
employable either. I had been using Facebook in the hope of staying in touch
with friends but of late I feel that my friends posting their lives not to
connect, but to gather likes & comments. I shall close it too! Instagram, I
use to follow interesting people, but is connected to my Facebook. I don't
need that addiction too & hope to close all cyber social nuisance in near
future!

------
lousken
For chat, I haven't posted anything for 4 years but i still use it regularly
to get in touch with people.

------
rock_hard
It would be great if you could clarify and be more specific about “what we
know”...because so far I haven’t come across a single reason me and my friends
should stop using Facebook.

Broad generalizations and statements don’t help the conversation

Sure, there is a lot of headlines with reasons...but I can’t remember a single
one that wasn’t hugely out of context or debunked.

------
ghostpirate
Troll groups and meme groups

------
qbaqbaqba
You could ask the same question about every company: Google and China
censorship, killer drones, IBM role in the Holocaust, Ford's Nazi creator,
majority of German corporations 'employing' slave labor, NASA importing Nazis,
concentration camps sciencists.

And I don't use it. I just find the recent outage hilarious.

------
jrochkind1
events. and addiction.

