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by kmavm
5695 days ago
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Sorry for any perceived "valley-centrism"; feel free to substitute "small industry" for "small valley." What does Zuck's level of personal awesome have to do with anything? This strikes me as a major confusion about the business/consumer relationship. I know Zuck, and I happen to think he's a fine guy, but you don't, and you shouldn't have to. I don't trust Google because Eric Schmidt is spiritually advanced, or because an engineer who now works at Facebook coined a tongue-in-cheek "Don't be evil" motto 12 years and 25,000 employees ago; I trust it because its search business' incentives are aligned with mine as a searcher. So, what are Facebook's incentives? Facebook wants you to use its service to communicate with friends, so that it can show you targeted display ads. In the long run, using the service requires you to feel comfortable with who has access to your data, so Facebook's business has to get privacy and openness approximately right. Like everything about a customer-facing service, that turns out to be harder than it looks, at least while providing a stream of new features, but get it right we must for the business' health. But you're about to find out all about that... |
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The answer is, "a lot". And there is no confusion.
I believe that Facebook's behavior stems from attitudes I dislike at the top. Believing this, I believe that they will continue to push the boundary. You're right that they need to find the right balance between openness and privacy. However the corporate DNA looks to me like they consistently err on the side of openness for profit.
Worse yet, the corporate belief seems to be that while people will moan, they will accept continued encroachment on privacy. As someone who has things that I really need to keep private, I don't trust that and don't want my information there.
As for Google's social ventures, I have nothing to do with that and know little about it. If Google starts doing the sorts of things that I see Facebook doing, then I'll readjust my thinking about Google. Companies do change. In the meantime I have my preferences.