Ten Reasons You Will Never Quit Facebook, but Five Reasons You Should
May 10, 2010 18 Comments
by Kamran Abdi
Over 400 million of us are on the social networking site, Facebook with a mixed feeling about the hell we are doing on it. I hope the list below helps you to make up your mind whether to spend anymore of your time on the site or quitting it for good.
Ten Reasons You’ll Never Quit Facebook
1. You’re not going to go back to waiting an hour to send an email to 30 people with 40 photos attached.
2. How will you remember anybody’s birthday?
3. How will you stalk your college boyfriend’s new fiance?
4. Without Facebook what are you going to do when you don’t have a friend’s email address or phone number? Facebook messaging blows. But at least you know you can reach anybody who has a Facebook account.
5. Forget Facebook. 80 million of you are addicted to Zygna’s Facebook game, FarmVille.
6. It takes 2 seconds to “join” a new site through Facebook Connect. It can take a good 10 minutes doing it the old way. (Care to subscribe to these magazines?)
7. How will you hear about parties? How will you remember where and when those parties are? Evite?
8. You don’t care about Facebook and Mark Zuckerberg’s sometimes sketchy past
9. Sure, Facebook has privacy issues, but you don’t care about privacy anymore. Remember when you wouldn’t use your real name on the Internet?
10. You’ve never quit before. Remember News Feed? Beacon? You didn’t quit then and won’t now, either. Not even if you want to.
And, here are five reasons you may consider quitting Facebook for good:
1. Facebook’s Terms Of Service are completely one-sided.
2. Facebook’s CEO has a documented history of unethical behavior.
3. Facebook has flat out declared war on privacy.
4. Facebook is a bully.
5. Even your private data is shared with applications.
Not to mention majority of us are unaware of how our online data is stored and who secures it.
According to the new survey by the Business Software Alliance (BSA), approximately one in five respondents said they were unaware of whether their data was being held “in the cloud,” and 60% said they did not know what “in the cloud” even meant. When asked who’s responsibility it was to secure that data, opinions were split between businesses, the government and individuals.
As more information is stored in the cloud, coordination between the public and private sectors is more important than ever to protect personal and corporate data. What this survey tells us is that there is a lag in the general public’s understanding of the emerging cloud environment and how it impacts their data — and a lack of consensus on who is responsible for securing the cloud.
So, will you consider quitting facebook or continue sharing your life with the world?
About Elias Shams
Elias Shams
Kamran Abdi
Tatiana Sorabi
awesomedc.wordpress.com 
Nicely summed up.
So far, for me, the ten (well, 9, I hate Farmville!) are outweighing the 5, but, the scale is no longer completely tipped all to one side. I’m not a fan of allowing anyone else to determine what should and should not be publicly shared. I want to be the one to determine who sees what I ‘Like’. I feel like I need to reign myself in, and I don’t ‘Like’ that.
My determination to stay the course is waning…..
Thanks for the input. Feel free to add whatever I am missing here
Once you work out what is really important in life, you will figure out how often you need to use Facebook.
The challenge is most of us are not capable of getting our priorities straight which means can’t tell what’s more important
I am on Facebook and probably will not quit, although I am aware of the very serious privacy concerns. I do find others’ reaction to Facebook puzzling, though. Facebook definitely provides its users with valuable services, as the article identifies, and it does not charge for them. In fact, people seem to get irate at even the rumor that Facebook might beginning charging its users. I agree that Facebook should not charge users because we are not their customers. The customers are businesses who pay for access to very individual and sometimes very personal information about the “users”. You get the services “free” but you pay with your privacy. Understand that, and make your choice whether or not to participate.
charging the customer thing is new to me. Facebook will be dead in no time if they decide to charge their users. Not to mention the economy
Patricia, I do agree with your point, however, keep in mind that 4 years ago, when I signed up, I HAD privacy choices and there were no worries about my information being shared.
I realize I can quit at any time, but, after 4 years and building a significant personal community, simply walking away is not such an easy choice.
Had I known this was going to be the eventual model, I’m quite certain I would have resisted to begin with. And I’m willing to bet I would not have been the only one.
So, I feel just a little like there was a bait and switch. Even ‘crack’ addicts know the deal going in. But Facebook changed the rules over time, AFTER we were all hooked.
Frankly, I would rather pay a small monthly fee to have my privacy back. I may be in the minority, but, I see enough value in FB to pay for it, so long as I am back in control of my information and my profile…..
Just one man’s opinion of course……
I have abandoned Facebook for a number of reasons, the least of which was the amount of time I wasted on the site. Certainly the privacy issues are important and there are so many misconfigured security settings that even someone who thinks they understand them is probably fooling themselves.
There seems to be a lot of skepticism in general about Social Media FB etc. I must say that I have a high tech background and this all feels like De ja Vu. Remember how skeptical we were about the Internet and how nobody was convinced that you could actually make $$ on the net? Look where we are now. Well here we are again with social media. I am keeping an open mind and constantly trying new approaches. So far I have had some amazingly positive things happen using Facebook for business. For example, Facebook Meet up events are a great way to increase brand recognition and you don’t even have to pay for advertising these are well attended events. The other thing I keep hearing is that we waste a lot of time talking to each other instead of our customers.Check where your customers are and what they are saying about you online!
For the record, I don’t believe Facebook has any plans to charge users. Again, I don’t know why they would do so, as the users’ information is the product they are selling to their real customers and free membership is what garners them that information to sell. From time to time, though, rumors surface to the effect that Facebook may/will start charging, and users get (understandably) upset. However, I feel that users are entitled to either “free” service or to privacy, but I don’t know why they feel entitled to both. Facebook has to make money some way, and they do it by selling the information that users would prefer to keep private.
The only reason I can think of that people may feel entitled to both is because FB started out that way, the rules were changed only recently and users were not given any heads up, much less a choice. (other than to cancel their account)
All that said, I am a business man and I completely agree that FB has to generate revenue in SOME way.
It will be interesting to watch what happens, if people will continue to stay, even with compromised privacy or will FB’s network begin to take a hit. Or will some new entity see this an an opportunity to attack FB….
I make no predictions, but, I am watching. 🙂
Funny article, just like I expected it will be, kind of “I know what you feel and thinking and I do feel and do thinking like you”, meaning i know you, my reader, better than fingers on my hand:-)
But given the fact that it is about 400 million users, it’s impossible to come up with such Average Facebook User to address these issues to, plus I have a feeling that this article was written, having an average American Facebook User, right? What about Europe, Asia, other countries, those cultural differences from an average American folk is a dark matter for the article author.
I am afraid you have a good point here. 400 million users, it is hell of a lot of users
Thanks for sharing – good points to think about.
Despite enabling FB’s privacy features over and over again I have had my personal information hacked and then sold to 3rd parties from FB. To this day I have to argue with offshore bottom feeder companies like http://www.Intelius.com to remove my personal info. they acquired from FB feeds. Advise: don’t use your real name on FB if you decide to stay.
Am in the process of deleting my FB account as I have found that they are selling my personal information to different companies from which I have been receiving ads lately. the #1 problem and reason people aren’t leaving FB in larger numbers is because there is no clear cut alternative — Google fumbled the launch of its Wave service (on far LESS privacy concerns) and none of the other social networks are as extensive as FB (with the exception of linkedin ;-)).
Just need a viable alternative and watch how fast the backlash begins.
I dont agree that facebooks terms of use are completely one sided.
I have just read through the entire “terms of use” section, including every subsection, and it seems to me that the person who wrote this article has not even looked at the “terms of use”.
So many people are afraid to walk away from Facebook, but so what of you lose the pretend community it gives? It has its benefits but in summary it is evil. Even with the privacy in check, it is designed to use your habits to better market products and services. Facebook doesn’t care about your community, it cares about its marketing research. Before Facebook, consumer research panels might have paid you for the amount of information we willingly post on Facebook. It’s sad really. I have a Facebook account, but I have stopped posting on it. I only read everyone else’s posts and write messages with non private information.