[JoshMnem]

> What is a quality alternative to Facebook?

Independent forums and self-hosted blogging. They are about content and real connections with like-minded people. Instead of mindlessly posting little updates throughout the day just for the sake of posting updates, people should save it for when they actually have something to say.

In general: read books not timelines.

[vkou]

> Independent forums and self-hosted blogging.

My social circles consists of ~6 different cliques of people with no intersection between them. I'm not going to move them all to one forum. Nobody will want to cross-post their life updates in 6 different forums.

> Instead of mindlessly posting little updates throughout the day just for the sake of posting updates, people should save it for when they actually have something to say.

Forums solve the posting part of Facebook, but don't solve the other, even more important part - the reading part.

I derive more value from reading what my friends post, then I do from posting myself. The UX for me getting this information through forums/self-hosted blogging is horrendous (And my aunt is not going to figure out how to self-host her own blog, either.)

[closeparen]

Forums and blogging are for internet strangers; Facebook is for your real-life community. While you of course accept some risk of Facebook content becoming accidentally public, there is little to no intersection between the content I would intentionally share on Facebook vs. HN or a blog.

At minimum, blogging would need a universal federated identity system with reciprocal ACLs, which is already starting to sound a lot like Facebook.

More to the point on antitrust, the quality alternative to Facebook that most of my peers are now using is Instagram, which Facebook conveniently purchased.

[JoshMnem]

For people who grew up before the Internet, the idea of needing to share everything with everyone you know isn't a necessity. Some things were better before the Internet. My real-world social life improved after I left Facebook. The quality of the information that enters my mind on a daily basis also improved. I don't read timelines or experience life by constantly thinking about whether I should post the current moment online. There are other ways to stay in touch with people.

I recommend Digital Minimalism.

http://www.calnewport.com/books/digital-minimalism/