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Selena Larson writes at ReadWrite that Facebook has a perception problem, which is largely driven by the fact it controls huge amounts of data and uses people as fodder for advertising and just can't shake its ultimately flawed nature and gain the trust of consumers.
"Perhaps the largest driver of skepticism towards Facebook is the level of control it gives users-which is arguably limited. Sure, you can edit your profile so other people can't see your personal information, but Facebook can, and it uses your data to serve advertisers says Larson. "Keep in mind: This is information you provided just once in the last 10 years-for instance, when you first registered your account and offered up your favorite movies, TV shows and books-is now given tangentially to advertisers or companies wanting a piece of your pocketbook."
Another thing people hate about Facebook is that when the time comes for someone to abandon the social network, whether over privacy concerns or frustration with the company, Facebook intentionally makes it hard to leave. "Even if you delete your account, your ghost remains. Your email address is still tied to a Facebook account and your face is still recognizably tagged as you, even if the account it's associated with has vanished." Even when you die, Facebook continues to make money off you.
Facebook has many exciting projects, but it won't have an audience left unless it addresses its perception problem says Larson. "Trust is paramount, especially on the Internet, and people need to know that Facebook is making things to improve the human experience, not just spending billions to make even more billions off our personal information," concludes Larson. "Prove to us you don't just care about money, Facebook, and perhaps we'll all realize how much you really have grown in the last 10 years."
(Score: 5, Insightful) by edIII on Sunday April 06 2014, @07:50PM
It sucks to be part of an audience and most people are slowly figuring that out. There is no worse audience to be a part of than that of Facebook. We can throw Google and some other companies into that. Of course, let's not forget DICE.
I pay $10 and go to a movie to become an audience member. Marvel spent hundreds of millions on me. It was all about whether or not they could entertain me and convince me with trailers to part with my $10. Marvel can convince me, and I bet they will do it again.
The $10 and a little time is about the only thing I lost. Sometimes I feel I had value, other times like the ill advised trip to see Your Highness it turned out to have not so much value.
An audience member with Facebook and their ilk is fantastically different. I would even argue that using the term "audience" is incorrect.
Calling Facebook users an audience is like calling the chickens with KFC audience members
Audience in those terms means that you have very little control over the outcome, practically no control over what happens with your participation, you didn't have to pay money hence the allure, but the long term costs turned out to pretty steep indeed.
You don't want to be an audience member. It blows. We want to be customers, since the customer is always right.
That's what Facebook is . A large MegaCorp taking their customers, giving them a movie, and collecting the audience members for their customers. Being a Facebook customer has infinitely more positive potential than being a simple audience member.
Fuck audiences. I'm a customer, and I think that sentiment runs pretty damn deep around here.
We can do a little experiment to test my theory. Let's find a chicken inside KFC and offer it the chance to be a customer instead. I'll posit that the chicken would be far happier buying some corn on the cob and then just leaving.
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 2) by Tork on Sunday April 06 2014, @09:31PM
Hmmm... When the chicken leaves the establishment and hits the crosswalk signal, we should interview it and find out its intentions.
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 1) by jayjay.br on Sunday April 06 2014, @10:34PM
While you're at it, I'm really curious about its motives!!
(Score: 3, Informative) by Nerdfest on Sunday April 06 2014, @10:57PM
Customers generally pay. In this case you pay with your information. If you don't like how the information is used, you should generally not frequent the site. The problem with FaceBook is that they've changed what they do with the information and how they share it and list trust. When you collect personal information instead of money, trust is one of the most important things to have.
(Score: 2) by pe1rxq on Sunday April 06 2014, @11:58PM
No customers pay with money. But facebook users are not the customer.
The free stuff is them feeding the users. They then produce the product they sell, to the advertisers.
Facebook users are livestock.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 07 2014, @07:32AM
If only it was that simple... I never ever in a million years visit the site, yet however, they're pretty well informed about what I do and when. How come? Because there are a lot of people who I interact with who do use the godawful site and who rat on me. Most of the people know quite little about me but when you combine all the things the silly people know and cross relate them, you get a pretty complete picture.
Of course the site abuses those much more who actively participate but at least they kinda sorta give their consent to do so. (But because they have no idea what they consent to so it's pretty questionable whether we can call this giving ones consent.) I guess that "services" like these are among the best evidence that evolution is very much an ongoing process...