It's not exactly choice. I'm well aware there were other social services that were before FB but you have to look at the timeline. The internet NOW is objectively probably still pretty young (it's hard to quantify age with something like this). Back then in 2004-6 even more so. There's a real need to connect with people (even if I have your email, "loose connections" are important. If I have a timeline, I can share my status update to my page and all my loose connections around the world - people I know now, people I lost touch with but have reconnected with, and other groups of people - in a way I wouldn't be doing with email)
Facebook was the thing that came along post Myspace and unfortunately is the product of someone with lacking ethical imagination. People feel forced to use it or else they don't know why it's bad. And I don't think people who use these things are automatically addicts. It's not their fault the company and leadership lies to them (about various things. Privacy and whatever else)
Of course people "can just stop". But that's hard. We shouldn't be punished for involving ourselves in the game of network effects, of wanting to have friends
When Mark Zuckerberg makes a policy like "it's ok to call certain groups mentally ill" (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42651178) it's rug pulling. Even if you didn't know about Dumb Fucks (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1692122) you use these services both out of necessity and because you think it's a way to keep in touch. People don't "willingly choose" this. They had the rug pulled out repeatedly, whether it's censoring links to competitors, shadow profiles, impossible to delete an account, or whatever. It doesn't have to be like this but that doesn't mean people using their products are bad people for using their products
I just don't get this post. I connect with people, and I've never needed Meta products to do it. I have friends, and I've never needed Meta products to do it. You're not describing needs, your describing a specific and intentional choice you and your friends have made to not have a friendship (by your own words) if it's not facilitated by some shitty online tool.
You've chosen to make these products your sole means and way of "connecting" with people because you, they or both are utterly and completely unwilling to even vaguely consider doing anything else. You want to doomscroll Instagram (we can swap "want" for "are addicted to" if you'd prefer - the broader point is the same). If you didn't, you'd stop.
Anyone using Meta products is a bad person, full stop. Are they Zuckerberg/Sandberg/Thiel/Musk bad? Of course not. But you don't get to absolve yourself of the clear and obvious consequences of your own choices just because they make you feel bad about yourself.
Facebook was the thing that came along post Myspace and unfortunately is the product of someone with lacking ethical imagination. People feel forced to use it or else they don't know why it's bad. And I don't think people who use these things are automatically addicts. It's not their fault the company and leadership lies to them (about various things. Privacy and whatever else)
Of course people "can just stop". But that's hard. We shouldn't be punished for involving ourselves in the game of network effects, of wanting to have friends
When Mark Zuckerberg makes a policy like "it's ok to call certain groups mentally ill" (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42651178) it's rug pulling. Even if you didn't know about Dumb Fucks (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1692122) you use these services both out of necessity and because you think it's a way to keep in touch. People don't "willingly choose" this. They had the rug pulled out repeatedly, whether it's censoring links to competitors, shadow profiles, impossible to delete an account, or whatever. It doesn't have to be like this but that doesn't mean people using their products are bad people for using their products