I'm in agreement, but generally pessimistic that there will ever be a sufficient number of "we."
Voicing my dissatisfaction outside of a news cycle where they're in the mud gets me labeled a hater, neckbeard, out of touch, a hardliner, or any of the dozens of bog standard reasons to dismiss criticism.
Is it possible the problem lies at least somewhat in your approach? I appreciate that's not a pleasant possibility to consider, but my experience has been unlike yours, and I've been speaking against Facebook for a while now, both here on HN and with random people over drinks in bars.
I would like this to be the kind of thing I would discuss with friends, but that would require having friends. I did, once. Then Facebook happened. My comment history here, mostly just a few pages in from the top, details the whole story, if you're interested. (Sidebar: I've been thinking I should probably put together a list of links to some especially salient posts from there, in order to make it easy for people who aren't already interested to understand where I'm coming from and the nature of the problem I see. If you decide to go poking through my back numbers, perhaps you'd be so kind as also to mention whichever, if any, of those comments spoke strongly to you, so that I can be sure to include them in that list.)
In any case, what I do seems, if not necessarily to work, then generally not to fail. Here on HN, I almost always find a sympathetic ear, which I gather is pretty unusual for anyone talking about anything even remotely controversial. In real life, not everyone is interested, and that's okay. But I have noticed that, on lately less rare occasion, that people seem to take a mention of Facebook in a negative light as an opportunity to unburden themselves of their own complaints. These mostly seem to revolve around privacy concerns and platform lock-in, which is totally reasonable. That seems to be happening a bit more often lately. It's not something I really mention a lot here, on the one hand because those aren't really my stories to tell, and on the other because I also go to bars to drink, to enjoy myself and the company of others, and to remind myself that it is in fact possible to have an enjoyable social life that totally excludes Facebook. Quote-mining that wouldn't be much fun. So I don't do it.
You're right that it can be trickier to make these kinds of points outside a news cycle that includes Facebook having fucked up somebody's life again. It is far from impossible, but it does take a bit more effort and delicacy. And is it just me, or do such news cycles seem to be happening more and more often lately?
I understand your pessimism. Sometimes I feel the same. But it's important not to surrender, because to do so makes us useless, and since we refuse to help make money for it, useless is exactly what Facebook needs us to be. That by itself seems sufficient reason to me for us to be otherwise.
(Oh, and - if you actually do have a beard that extends down onto your neck, consider trimming and shaving to maintain a neat border along the underside of your jaw. Perceptions matter. If you look like Richard Stallman, people are less likely to take seriously anything you have to say. Perhaps that shouldn't be true, but it is, and we ignore the truth of the world at our peril.)
