[Eerie]

1. You don't have to use Facebook. You really, really don't.

2. Facebook is under no obligation to provide societal benefits for you. It doesn't even have a moral duty to act upon your complaints. Why? See 1. It's not a government program, you are not forced to use it, you are not even buying anything from it. You are just complaining about free stuff. So. Seriously. Just stop using it.

PS. I'm not defending Facebook here. Facebook is objectively abhorrent. I'm just stating facts. They best way to fight Facebook is to stop using it.

[carvalho]

In Europe there is a mindset that companies can become so big that you can not avoid them anymore. Nobody forces you to use Google or Facebook, but you are put at a disadvantage if you do not use them.

Facebook is not free. You trade your data for usage.

[blfr]

Google? Maybe. Facebook? I would argue that using Facebook is a net negative and you're at an advantage if you ditch it.

[Normal_gaussian]

For uk students Facebook is almost a requirement of the social life. Few people have other contact lists, if you aren't on Facebook you can't be contacted. Event invitation is done through Facebook - the event is rarely advertised elsewhere nor is it a deliberate topic conversation.

The few people I knew who didn't use Facebook at uni ended up using it through others whether they are were willing to admit it or not.

[saurik]

I live at a University in California where I am part-time faculty, and if you don't use Facebook you are essentially screwed: even local government ends up using Facebook as its primary means of disseminating information as literally no on reading uses anything but Facebook for events and the web is sadly dead (it only has meaning if linked to from a Facebook post).

[Eerie]

>For uk students Facebook is almost a requirement of the social life.

So, are you telling me that students, people at the stage of life when they are most rebellious, and their minds are most flexible, just won't be able to find any replacement for Facebook, if they wanted to?

(◔_◔)

[Normal_gaussian]

You've taken something that said 'almost' and taken it to the extremes.

> any replacement for Facebook, if they wanted to

That requires organising several thousand people who don't want to to change platform.

Perform whatever gymnastics you want and break all of the rules - that task ain't getting easier.

[kobeya]

Facebook is used in different markets in different ways. In Japan for example it is a common medium for corporate communication, much like slack.

[RobertoG]

I am not so sure. I wanted nothing to do with facebook and they bought WhatsApp.

Should I tell now to all my contacts that they should install another app in order to talk to me?

I suppose it's possible but it's not going to happen.

The fact is that facebook is a monopoly with strong network effects and they work very hard so you can't escape them.

[dredmorbius]

By necessaries I understand not only the commodities which are indispensably necessary for the support of life, but whatever the custom of the country renders it indecent for creditable people, even of the lowest order, to be without. A linen shirt, for example, is, strictly speaking, not a necessary of life. The Greeks and Romans lived, I suppose, very comfortably though they had no linen. But in the present times, through the greater part of Europe, a creditable day-labourer would be ashamed to appear in public without a linen shirt, the want of which would be supposed to denote that disgraceful degree of poverty which, it is presumed, nobody can well fall into without extreme bad conduct.... Under necessaries, therefore, I comprehend not only those things which nature, but those things which the established rules of decency have rendered necessary to the lowest rank of people.

Adam Smith, Wealth of Nations

https://en.m.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Wealth_of_Nations/Book_...

[avaer]

The second argument hits a snag when a Facebook account is counted as a border credential by the government.

[lwhalen]

And 'just not entering that country' isn't a solution how?

[avaer]

That's not a solution that absolves Facebook of social or moral responsibility if they are a link in the chain of immigration policy.

[lwhalen]

Facebook, to my knowledge, didn't ask to be a link in the chain of immigration policy.

[treve]

You're not wrong, but what point are you making exactly in this thread? You're responding to a thread in which the top-poster argues that we shouldn't complain about a free service, and then the point is made that facebook may effect immigration.

Are you saying that we shouldn't complain because we can just not enter that country? That we should avoid facebook, as well as the countries that ask for facebook credentials when you're entering them? That's definitely the implication I'm getting from your comments.

[lwhalen]

That's exactly the point I'm trying to make. Nobody owes you anything - not Facebook, not Google, not the coffeeshop down the street. Governments that are not your own owe you less than nothing, if such a thing exists. Don't like the service they provide, or how they do their business? Don't whine about it online and clog up our feeds, just... stop using the service. Behold - instant peace.

[zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC]

> You are just complaining about free stuff.

That's bullshit. Just because an exchange isn't for money, doesn't mean you are getting things for free.

[lwhalen]

If the transaction is no longer worth it to you, you are free to walk away from said transaction.

[zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC]

Which is relevant to the question of whether it's free how?