Quitting Facebook

I’ve decided to quit Facebook. I signed up for a service that marketed itself as a place to interact with friends in a semi-walled garden. Since that time, the wall has come down, and the company seems to have settled pretty firmly on being evil.

I would be totally happy with a service like the one Facebook is becoming (minus the evil parts). I have a blog, and I’m on twitter, so it’s not like I’m afraid of having a public online presence. The issue isn’t with where they’re going, it’s with how they’ve decided to go about getting there. They roll out new features with no explanations of the privacy implications, and make them opt-out rather than opt-in. They don’t provide any means of pulling out your data and sue companies that do it for you. They provide a ton of information to 3rd parties unless you wade through lengthy and confusing privacy settings. They ask for access to your email address books and then store and use that information for more than just finding friends with Facebook accounts. They change their privacy policy on a whim. In short, they demonstrate zero respect for their users. As useful a service as it is, I just don’t want to be a part of it anymore.

While I’m complaining, I’ve also always been annoyed that they were never able to figure out how to make money without resorting to these kinds of tactics. They have one of the largest user bases in the world, many from highly desirable demographics, with ridiculous engagement, and the best they could ever seem to come up with on their own was “sidebar ads”? Zynga had to show them the potential of the virtual currency play, they never figured out how to monetize birthdays and events, and they never seemed to notice Amazon making fistfuls of cash off a crappy ad-hoc social network built from user reviews, wish lists, and recommendations. I really need a much sharper business mind behind my world-dominating evil corporate overlord, so I’ll stick with Apple to fill that role for now.

I spent this evening clearing out my profile, and after getting everyone’s alternate contact info, I’ll hit the deactivate button sometime next week. Catch me here, on twitter, or by email if you need me.

4 May 2010