Really, asking "what should replace Facebook" is putting things the wrong way around.
A more interesting way to ask the question is, "what did Facebook replace."
People used to build their own websites. People used to have blogs. People used USENET which was truly distributed and un-censorable.
Facebook and Google took the open internet and open standards and monetized and made everything crappy. Enough of that. Nothing should replace Facebook, it's done, stick a fork in it.
@hhardy01 Most of the people who now use Facebook to communicate did not, in fact, do those things. They still need to communicate online. They need a Facebook replacement.
@LogicalDash @hhardy01 are you saying they didn’t do those thing because they are non-technical, or because those things had already been supplanted by Facebook when they started using the web?
@ajroach42 @hhardy01 Both are true, and it doesn't really make a difference to my argument
If you really believe that everyone who currently uses Facebook should get technical enough to start their own blog ... that's what you're advocating as a Facebook replacement. You are now in competition with the other efforts to offer a replacement for it, and should conduct yourself accordingly
@gcupc @hhardy01 @ajroach42 @LogicalDash There’s also an entire generation of tech missing from this argument. The people who did those things could afford the high technical and monetary costs of doing them, mostly by paying University tuition. That internet was a walled garden, and it was Early ISP’s that broke the walls down and, in the process of monetizing the internet, democratized it.
Facebook replaced AOL (and MySpace).
@jay @LogicalDash @ajroach42 @hhardy01 @gcupc i feel like it both replaced those things AND brought in an audience that neither of those things could. there are people in my life who use facebook to the exclusion of all other parts of the internet, who never used a computer regularly before that. part of it is tablets/phones - they come with facebook installed. it's less intimidating
@wolfteeth @gcupc @hhardy01 @ajroach42 @LogicalDash @jay
I feel some of the #openweb tools are getting good anufe to be used by normal'ish people. of course lots are not #geekproblem
@hamishcampbell @jay @LogicalDash @ajroach42 @hhardy01 @wolfteeth I really like the idea of #Indieweb, but like the *minimal* requirement is to set up your own static website on your own domain, and IMO it would be ideal if everyone could do that, but it's not realistic today.
@gcupc I agree with this, and that's why I try not to criticize people for the networks and tools they use.
I'll critizie those networks and tools, but that's a different thing, you know?
And so much of my favorite indieweb adjacent stuff is still centralized (although it's open web, it's not siloed.)
Archive.org + neocities ftw.
@gcupc @hamishcampbell @jay @LogicalDash @ajroach42 @hhardy01 tbh i'd argue blog/website building doesn't actually meet the same need, even if it was easy enough for everyone to do. fb is a communication tool that is relatively easy to use and gives an illusion of privacy and intimacy ("only my friends/family will see this!"). imo the people who really got into the old indie web were oddballs looking for connection we couldn't find irl - so we wanted to broadcast
@hhardy01 @ajroach42 @LogicalDash @jay @hamishcampbell @gcupc some people use fb for that, but i think many more see it as the equivalent of a family email list or a christmas letter. i think that role does deserve to be filled by an easy-to-use tool, just maybe not one that harvests all your data to sell to advertising firms. and maybe not one that assumes all people in your life should see the same version of you
@wolfteeth @ajroach42 @LogicalDash @jay @hamishcampbell @gcupc
Well in my case I'd been doing student and community radio for about 12 years when I started on the ARPAnet so I wasn't without a broadcast channel it was rather that I was happy to have another medium.
But its true that when I started my own website in 1995 that took a lot of impetus from radio.
http://web.archive.org/web/19961219234517/http://ocean.ic.net:80/
@gcupc @hhardy01 @ajroach42 @LogicalDash like mastodon!! 🤓
@LogicalDash @ajroach42
I don't care about Facebook.
I was here on the net long before The Facebook, 16 years in fact, and will still be here long after it is gone.
Facebook is just a crappy website full of spyware and adware.
@hhardy01 @ajroach42 If you really didn't care about Facebook it wouldn't bother you that people who rely on it are seeking alternatives
I came here seeking an alternative to Facebook why would it bother me if others do the same?
@hhardy01 @ajroach42 It apparently bothered you enough to post "Nothing should replace Facebook, it's done, stick a fork in it."
RIght I look forward to Facebook failing. I totally don't get how you think that means it bothers me for people to be seeking alternatives to Facebook. Obviously I am for that, right?
What I mean is that I don't hope to see Facebook's deplorable business model replicated.
@hhardy01 @ajroach42 Yet you think that "what should replace Facebook" is a bad question to ask
If every Facebook user goes to Aardwolf and Friendica and whatnot, those have replaced Facebook
Right I do think what should replace Facebook is entirely the wrong way of framing the question.
It implies that Facebook is something we would want to replicate or perpetuate, and it is not.
@hhardy01 @ajroach42 Everyone who can physically operate a computer should be able to communicate effortlessly with their friends
Facebook is that for a lot of people now. That is worth replicating and perpetuating. We should find a way to do so without the exploitative business practices. We should nonetheless learn from the things Facebook has done for people
I don't think Facebook is particularly easy to use. The controls are quite obfuscated and nested and some obvious things one would want such as "opt out of data collection about me" and "opt out of targeted ads" just aren't there.
@hhardy01 @ajroach42 Even if the only thing Facebook did right was getting its app into the stock ROM for a bunch of Android tablets and provide internet for "free," we need to learn from *that*
So why are you here instead of on facebook right now if it is so wonderful?
@hhardy01 Because I don't like Facebook
I also think your rhetoric is harmful to the cause of replacing it
I don't care about 'replacing Facebook.'
I just look forward to facebook joining AOL, geocities, friendster, and myspace on the ashheap of the net.
@hhardy01 those two sentences contradict one another
No.
I was here before Facebook. Before the web. Before any commercial use of the net was allowed. At all.
I feel like you think Facebooks is the Internet essentially and like it is a big deal.
I don't.
I see Facebook as a crappy website laden with spyware and adware.
I hope it dwindles down to almost nothing and becomes irrelevant as myspace, friendster, geocities, AOL have.
If you take Facebook as a model and try to 'replace' it, that's the wrong paradigm.
@hhardy01 The fact that Facebook is the only part of the internet a lot of people use means that it is providing something to them, that they will still need if Facebook goes under
The only way it makes sense to not care about a Facebook replacement, but still want it to die, is if you're OK with those people not getting what they need out of the internet
The internet is a voluntary association of Autonomous Systems. It isn't Facebook.
It's kind of like worrying that if Walmart fails, then people won't be able to buy clothes or appliances or food. Of course they will. If Facecrook is filling a need and it falters, other competing services will pick up the slack.
If you love Facecrook so much why are you here?
@hhardy01 Er, there actually *are* places in the United States where Wal-Mart is the only food vendor in a hundred miles. You don't have to like Wal-Mart to acknowledge that those places need a replacement, and I don't have to like Facebook to acknowledge that it fills a need that will still exist if it fails
@LogicalDash @ajroach42 @hhardy01 Yeah, there's a certain kind of tech hubris that thinks that not wanting to learn how to set up a blog is a failing in other people. I'd rather try to take into account what is good about blogs, and what was good about the golden age of Usenet, when designing something for non-technical users.