It's even grosser than that. The attitude here is really "we did what was good for us, but we think you're dumb enough to be convinced we did it because it was good for you."
(To write something slightly more original than the "will not understand if livelihood depends on it" quote)
† https://www.sfgate.com/tech/article/Zuckerberg-to-raze-4-hou...
†† https://www.huffpost.com/entry/facebooks-zuckerberg-the_n_41...
What you describe is an additional problem. A normal person targeted by a blackmailer over their sexual history would be a closer model, although even then it would still not be close to the level of a state sponsored attack on you personally — that can include combining the drones with accurate information rather than whatever led to them hitting weddings, or it could be as mild as Van Eck phreaking to find what you’re looking/who you’re talking to at no matter how well you encrypt the connection.
Oh for the innocent bygone days of around 15 years ago.
'Using Facebook Is A Kind Of Wealth' is what he says basically.
'The whole world benefits so much when they use my product'
This is Trumpian level of delusion.
'It's important that every American gets a chance to stay at home of my resorts. They're so nice! So I'm going to offer a government-backed tax rebate so that everyone can come and stay. Studies have shown people who stay at resorts are in better health, more relaxed. These tax rebates are Good For America'.
Exes, Stalkers, People who can’t let go, Friends who are bad influences, etc...
How so?
Alice tells me she knows Bob and Charlie. I mention Charlie to Bob - completely normal human thing to do. Maybe I think they're in the same circle but I've forgotten exactly why or how I found that out - completely normal human memory behaviour. Where's the invasion of privacy?
In both cases.
Yours is understandable and forgivable. Charlie's privacy may have been violated, but it was a simple mistake.
But suppose you say to Alice, "Tell me all the people you know. I'll tell you which ones I know too." If you then write down that list and systematically start telling them about each other and that they have Alice as a mutual friend, then you're a privacy-invading jerk, and Alice was wrong to trust you.
> This attitude of "we know what's good for you" is apparent in more and more modern tech products.
The attitude that this also demonstrates is "our loyal customers are locked in, so it's time to screw them over to try to make more money".
"This attitude of "we know what's good for you" is apparent in more and more modern tech products"
Billions of people used PYMK and are generally happy with it and Facebook in general. Who are you to tell them it's a bad thing?
If FB is so bad why don't more people leave? Lots of people on HN leave FB and I respect that choice - and lots don't and enjoy using FB with it's pros and cons. What's wrong with that?
You might be right, but that isn't necessarily so. I'm on Facebook, I hate many of it's features, the product design decisions and I think they are hostile and predatory. Wherever a knob was made available I changed it from the default to the more private setting. But I'm still on Facebook because I have no other option for effective communication with my globally distributed family and with the local tech community.
In short, I hate PYMK and many many other things, and generally I'm not happy at all with Facebook, but you counted me along the "Billions of people" because I'm (almost) daily active on the platform.
I believe you have no idea what portion of the users is happy with the platform, what portion is unaware of the privacy implication and what portion is unhappy about the platform's privacy but, as accurately put by the Zuck himself, pay the necessary tax.
But this speaks directly to the crux of this issue mentioned in the article that you take issue with.
Growth team tactics got people on the site and kept them engaged, and having a large and mostly comprehensive network makes it valuable to users. So when you find it valuable that your family and community is there, well that’s the point.
Or they could just say nothing.
Which is better?
> “We don’t view your experience with the product as a single-player game,” he says. Yes, in the short run, some users might benefit more than others from PYMK friending. But, he contends, all users will benefit if everyone they know winds up on Facebook. We should think of PYMK as kind of a “community tax policy,” he says. Or a redistribution of wealth. “If you’re ramped up and having a good life, then you’re going to pay a little bit more in order to make sure that everyone else in the community can get ramped up. I actually think that that approach to building a community is part of why [we have] succeeded and is modeled in a lot of aspects of our society.”
This attitude of "we know what's good for you" is apparent in more and more modern tech products. I find it pretty gross, especially when applied personal data. It's also a convenient after-the-fact moral justification for decisions that improve the bottom line of the company at the expense of its users.