[meekrohprocess]

I agree in principle, and so did I, but there's no denying that it puts a major crimp on your social life. It's wrong that people are forced to decide between accepting predatory terms or losing touch with friendly acquaintances.

Also, if you own a small business, there's a real chance that you'd rely on Facebook for a significant portion of your business, because without a presence on their platforms you had may as well not exist.

[cmorgan31]

Yes, valid points. Also don't think they should hold social interactions hostage in an effort to not lose their grip on selling your attention span. If their product is worth paying for or the individuals in question are too cheap to pay for it without using ads then so be it. Let them monetize on ads, but I don't expect anyone to give a shit about small businesses profiting off our data. I didn't agree to support them by selling my data so I don't feel any emotional attachment to their situation.

[ogre_codes]

> It's wrong that people are forced to decide between accepting predatory terms or losing touch with friendly acquaintances.

Yes and no.

While I've lost touch with a few older friends I don't do anything with, I've learned that reaching out by iMessage and SMS is welcomed by a lot of people. Instead of talking to people the lazy way and posting on Facebook, I text them individually or in small groups and the response tends to be much warmer and ignored less often.

I've always thought I was bugging people, but I've found that many friends appreciate the more personal approach.

[mr_toad]

> Also, if you own a small business

Unless it’s a one person business, have the office administrator do it. No need to bother with every detail.

[madeofpalk]

> but there's no denying that it puts a major crimp on your social life.

I completely deny that.

I deleted Facebook when I was 25 and never once missed it. It never once put a crimp on my social life because my social life was never really organised around facebook in the first place. I still wanted to keep in touch with friends, and they wanted to keep in touch with me, without facebook.

[logifail]

> if you own a small business, there's a real chance that you'd rely on Facebook for a significant portion of your business

Source?

Even if this is true for some types of small business, in some markets, it's a bit of a stretch to claim this applies across the board.

[umvi]

> but there's no denying that it puts a major crimp on your social life

In what way? Social lives existed before 2008 when FB went mainstream. I don't have a FB anymore, and I still text my friends for get-togethers.

[ska]

> In what way?

In the obvious way for some people? It's disingenuous to pretend that opting out of FB doesn't have negative social consequences for some (many?) people, and dismissing their concerns probably isn't a good way to change anyone's mind.

[artful-hacker]

I deleted my facebook account a long time ago, but I definitely do not get invitations to some parties and events because of that. Facebook events are the easiest way to invite people to a party or other gathering.

[logifail]

> I definitely do not get invitations to some parties and events [..]

Our 7 year old goes to an arts and crafts centre, in the aftermath of the furore over the WhatsApp Terms of Service update the organizers changed their contact details to suggesting reaching them via Signal instead. So we switched. Job done.

[MonAlternatiu]

A lot of my friends use social media to stay in touch. Not being on social media would keep me out of the loop, which is not desirable. I try to restrict its usage as much as possible though.

[umvi]

Collect alternative methods of staying in touch with friends you care about before leaving social media (phone numbers, email addresses, mailing addresses, etc.)

[ryandrake]

Yea. If your friends will abandon you just because you’re not on social media anymore, then I have bad news for you: they probably aren’t really your friends. When I ditched Facebook about 10 years ago, I lost contact with a whole bunch of people who weren't really part of my life anyway, they were simply "names I recognized."

My social life actually got better after dropping social media simply because I'm spending less time scrolling in front of a screen.

[MonAlternatiu]

> If your friends will abandon you just because you’re not on social media anymore

That's a very binary view of the world that I don't share. But that's not a topic I want to get into.

Can you keep in touch with a certain group of friends through non-social media platforms? Absolutely. I do it daily, but that's not the point.

The point is that staying away from these social media platforms reduces your ability to have a social life. It's quite like saying that you decrease your chances of finding work without a driving license or cellphone number.

I could probably get away without social media today (modulo telegram/whatsapp). But at what point would I surrender? Most people of my generation use it, and it looks like newer generations will have even higher usages.