> What grand utility does Facebook provide that makes it so difficult to stop using it?
For example, all your friends might be on it, and organise events via it. Then, if you don't use FB, you don't find out about events you might have wanted to go to.
This is the power of network effects, whiuch causes monopolies. The monopolies would be broken up if social networks had to use open protocols to allow interoperability.
> Can you imagine using WhatsApp to chat to your friends on Reddit or share photos from Flickr to Facebook and still see likes and comments? That’s the power of open protocols.
It could, but if you rely on being sent a calendar invite you'll miss the event, because people aren't sending calendar invites, because everyone is on Facebook, because people aren't sending calendar invites, because everyone is on Facebook. This is the network effect, as the parent post was saying.
For example, all your friends might be on it, and organise events via it. Then, if you don't use FB, you don't find out about events you might have wanted to go to.
This is the power of network effects, whiuch causes monopolies. The monopolies would be broken up if social networks had to use open protocols to allow interoperability.
As Irina Bolychevsky and James Moulding put it ( https://newsocialist.org.uk/do-we-really-need-a-statebook/ ):
> Can you imagine using WhatsApp to chat to your friends on Reddit or share photos from Flickr to Facebook and still see likes and comments? That’s the power of open protocols.