Oh look. Another blog post decrying the evils of facebook that is in reality saying "I don't like facebook, therefor it offers no value whatsoever to anyone else," like it's some universal truth.
A lot of hacker/geek types seem 1. to hate facebook and 2. to be unable to empathize with anyone who doesn't share their dogmatic technological beliefs. Can we stop this already? Most people on facebook enjoy using it. Most people on facebook get tons of value from it. Most people on facebook aren't on reddit or hacker news, so they get a lot of new content from things lifted from those sites and posted to facebook. I don't understand why it eats at people so much that other people enjoy something they don't like.
This is just a cynical blog post by someone angry that something he doesn't like is popular.
Imagine yourself going back to the 80s and explaining the Web to someone. It's as close to utopia as you can get. Most people probably wouldn't believe it. But it's real, it's here and it's amazing.
I'd argue that Facebook undermines a lot of what makes the Web great. And since it's being confused with the Web itself, by being so popular and pervasively devouring, it could be a treat to it.
Us nerds have failed, for whatever reason, to provide a decent competitive way to share stuff that's more aligned with the ethos of the Web. But that's not a reason to excuse Facebook.
But I disagree no one would give a shit if Facebook went away tomorrow. I for one would throw a big fucking party.
While I generally agree with you, I think people like us are somewhat to blame for not providing an alternative to FB that is as easy to use. I also blame my friends, relatives and acquaintances that have been so easily seduced, but I'm not sure that's fair.
Thankfully, my parents are too old to have any interest in FB, and my siblings are equally as cynical (aka "weird").
Sure we are to blame, we are the ones that know better and have the knowledge to build something else. That's what I meant when I said we failed to provide a decent competitive way to share stuff.
The hardest part in my opinion is not the users experience per se, Facebook's not that great. It's getting the traction and the cool factor that's needed to beat the chicken-egg conundrum (I use FB because everybody else does).
It's more like blaming people for eating at Chick-fil-A.
They're supporting a company that is, in our eyes, committing a moral wrong. The difference, in the case of Facebook, is that they aren't necessarily aware of this moral wrong.
A lot of hacker/geek types seem 1. to hate facebook and 2. to be unable to empathize with anyone who doesn't share their dogmatic technological beliefs. Can we stop this already? Most people on facebook enjoy using it. Most people on facebook get tons of value from it. Most people on facebook aren't on reddit or hacker news, so they get a lot of new content from things lifted from those sites and posted to facebook. I don't understand why it eats at people so much that other people enjoy something they don't like.
This is just a cynical blog post by someone angry that something he doesn't like is popular.