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Alternatives
Feb. 22nd, 2011 08:46 amPart of my frustration with Facebook is the whole concept of how they treat their users, how they handle our data, and the fact that the more you add into it (and the more you personalize it) the more is available to be mined and sold or just openly shared with anybody with the ability to read the Facebook cookie. It is a little disconcerting to visit an altogether different website and suddenly have a side window populated with various facebook friends denoting that they've been here too! and any comments they may have.
I'm all for being social. That is my other frustration with leaving Facebook. A lot of people have gotten accustomed to using it to the exclusion of other things they may have used in the past. And on some level, when I finally do pull the plug, it does mean I'll be out of the loop of a lot of things. And that does bum me out a little.
But ultimately, I want to back companies with better ethics. Companies with better ideals. Places with a slight better idea of security and privacy. Places where I don't get my nose rubbed in the fact that to some degree, privacy on the web is a myth. A place where no means no. This is the same reason I won't give money to LiveJournal anymore. I much prefer how dreamwidth does business, and will continue to give them my business as long as they choose not to sell out.
I've been following Diaspora for a bit, and while they aren't ready for primetime, it appears there are alpha-build, functioning unofficial pods out there now. Not that I'm dying to dump tons of information into them just yet (or build my own), but I really appreciate what they stand for. I like the ideals. I like the concept. And once they really get going, I'm going to really enjoy participating.
I'm all for being social. That is my other frustration with leaving Facebook. A lot of people have gotten accustomed to using it to the exclusion of other things they may have used in the past. And on some level, when I finally do pull the plug, it does mean I'll be out of the loop of a lot of things. And that does bum me out a little.
But ultimately, I want to back companies with better ethics. Companies with better ideals. Places with a slight better idea of security and privacy. Places where I don't get my nose rubbed in the fact that to some degree, privacy on the web is a myth. A place where no means no. This is the same reason I won't give money to LiveJournal anymore. I much prefer how dreamwidth does business, and will continue to give them my business as long as they choose not to sell out.
I've been following Diaspora for a bit, and while they aren't ready for primetime, it appears there are alpha-build, functioning unofficial pods out there now. Not that I'm dying to dump tons of information into them just yet (or build my own), but I really appreciate what they stand for. I like the ideals. I like the concept. And once they really get going, I'm going to really enjoy participating.