There are a ton of people I've met throughout my life and around the world, but only a handful with whom I want to interact regularly. FB, annoying as it is, at least let's me know if they are doing ok.

For some arbitrary definition of they. I've had a father of a childhood friend die and I didn't notice for two years. But that weird Australian friend of my former roommate that I helped through public transport from the airport last year? I get her drunk pictures. They didn't even like each other.

I've clicked that button for plenty of sponsored links and hit "unfollow" for people I no longer seek input from. But there are hundreds more where they came from.

This is perhaps viable, like transparently maintaining multiple sets of subscribers to different types of posts is an option. Although the mental overhead of maintaining these sets, and the risk of addressing the wrong crowd, are both too big for me.

My current method of keeping an address book in a spreadsheet, and an active, short list of people that I wish to see, has, however, beat social media when it comes to intimacy and not wasting time.

Do the websites you visit define who you are (with zero context on why you visited it)? Do all the friends you have provide clear signal to what you want?

I don’t care how much $$$ is poured into ML, garbage in will always be garbage out. Something has to feed the model and if it’s all passive clicks with no strong signals from you, you get crappy results generally.

I also tend to need to message people at odd hours, and a Facebook notification feels less intrusive/urgent than, e.g., an SMS.

I personally mostly use messenger.com, rarely use the news feed anymore.

  Unfortunately, there are a lot of 
  events/organizations that organize almost exclusively
  through Facebook

If your business, event, whatever relies on the fact that I have a Facebook account then fuck you very much! I'm not interested.

Eg. I've seen some housing communities use FB for their mailing lists.

I think the best option is to create dummy throwaway accounts if there's something on FB you really need access to.

WeWork bought Meetup recently so I don't know if any of that will change now.

Everyone has the gmail they probably created just to sign up for Facebook, since it seems this younger generation doesn't believe in email.

I guess this leaves email, SMS and IRC as the main remaining options.

Somehow this needs to be communicated to the general public, but I don't have the slightest hope that this can be solved.

The future sucks.

Have you tried mastodon?. Imagine Mastodon, but with a bloggy/(2008's facebook) vibe instead of a twitter clone.

There would be no ads, because it's decentralized, just like mastodon. The feed would be chronological, and the interface would desincentivize spamming (links wouldn't have thumbnails or previews).

The idea is to make a clean and simple blog interface with a profile section added, where you could put some contact information and a profile pic.

In fact I made a little preview of what I would like it to look like. What do you guys think? https://i.imgur.com/DSD1wE0.png

The only problem I have is about once every few weeks someone wants me to Skype/Hangout/Facetime/whatever-the-other-video-chat-options-are. I really wish video chat was handled by telecoms in the same way phone calls are. Standard and ubiquitous.

Unless WhatsApp ever charges money. That would get people to move.

Sorry to burst your bubble, but I am an European, and I have never used WhatsApp.

Also, from what I have read, WhatsApp is very popular in UK political circles (MPs, SPADs etc.).

They're still using Facebook, just one of its other shapes.

But how are those not also vendor lock-ins?

For me, and I don't think I am unusual in the US at least, texts to anywhere outside of the US, Canada, and Mexico aren't allowed without paying extra. Texts to many countries aren't allowed at any price.

I can text literally any phone number, given I have enough money booked on the account. SMS is by nature not centralized, the data is exchanged between mobile providers.

If you were to start your own mobile provider, you could text anyone everywhere given you manage to get peering.

And the reason they're not leaving and don't want to leave? Where else are you going to connect up with old friends and remote family members?

I said it when Facebook started growing like gangbusters. Facebook is the frickin' devil. It uses your friends and family against you. For a free service, it sure costs like hell.

Wait, are you really suggesting that Facebook is the only way to keep in touch with old friends and remote family?

Pick up the phone. There's FaceTime, Skype, text messages, actual phone calls, going to visit, sending letters, sending emails.

Or, if you can't be bothered to do any of that maybe you should not even bother trying to connect?

A huge GDPR face slap could definitely help. I'm really curious to see how this plays out.

This is good news in the long term, but in the short- and medium-terms it means Facebook is going to get desperate and start deploying more and more dark patterns like the one the GP is talking about. Considering their reach, I shudder to think of what a desperate Facebook will look like for the Internet.

Elsewhere in the world, FB is assumed as to be the standard. My romantic life has been very disappointing, so some time ago I tried creating a Tinder account (it is the only dating [yes you read it right, dating, not hookup] app that has entered the popular consciousness in this country and thus has a significant amount of female users). Last time I checked, they still required a FB account.

IMO Facebook should totally lay off security confirmations, account bans, and all that stuff because it just antagonizes people, unless the user actually does something significantly harmful to other users experience, ie largescale spamming (not just regular sharing), actual fake news propaganda (not just sharing a political story), actually abusing an account (not just using untrue details to protect their own privacy but otherwise using Facebook in an OK way).

Otherwise, yeah, I think everyone's going to jump ship at first opportunity, because they don't get treated that well as users.

As a tool Facebook still has valid use cases for me. The benefits of keeping it edge out any negatives. So for now I will stay. Unless any egregious election meddling information comes out, in which I'll seriously reevaluate that decision

You know they never actually delete user data, right? They don't delete your data if you actually delete your account, much less if you just delete a post. They just stop displaying it then.

Another thing I wonder about: perhaps if some companies want your facebook data, they might pay a rate and see all current information on your facebook. By deleting your data, you've denied these lower-tier companies from accessing it. I suspect that with enough money, they could buy access to deleted posts too. But such companies are probably fewer in number.

Yes

https://code.facebook.com/posts/1433093613662262/-under-the-...

Interestingly enough, these emails occasionally get past my inbox filter, and I have to update my regex. I imagine this kind of circumvention is someone's full time job, which just repels me further from the platform.

Okay we're done here, folks!

But my bookmark points to facebook.com/messages and I practically never look on my feed. I guess (/hope) I'm about as valuable as a deleted account to facebook. Please feel free to correct me if you have some insights into this!

Once upon a time in the USA, and in some nations today, there was/is regulation in the public interest. Why not try it in the USA?

It isn't electricity, roads, water. It's freakin' Facebook.