Facebook hated as much as airlines, cable companies
msnbc.msn.com
msnbc.msn.com
Consumer opinion isn't often about root causes, but the most visible issues.
The average person might not know much about how privacy leaks happen and they might be willing to assume this or that thing they do is private, even without any evidence. But the average person is mortified at the prospect of their private business going out to the world at large. "The Internet" is a bugaboo to many, many people with privacy violation being a part of that bugaboo. This same dark, nameless fear is starting to rub-off on Facebook.
That said, I would agree that the other compulsive aspects of Facebook you mention probably also are factors. And the two factors work together rather than being dichotomies. A person may feel a need to have "friends" but simultaneous fear of sharing their information given the possibilities that it could go "anywhere".
Twenty years or more, I saw a Sci-Fi which described a future in which people had to pay not to be connected to the net.
I'd agree that the ads probably aren't a big factor though.
To be more specific: what the hell makes it onto my news feed, and how? If I click this button, will it be broadcast to the world? I (and a few friends) were concerned when their use of the "Find a Friend" feature was openly touted on Facebook on my feed (e.g. "Mike found Bob through Friend Finder!") - where no notice was given.
People realize that whatever they post on their status, Walls, etc, are essentially public knowledge. But they do not expect simple clicks to be broadcast to the world (potential e.g., "Mike viewed Jane's profile 20 times this week!")... and while we'd like to think Facebook is smart enough to tiptoe around these use cases, evidence suggests they are not.
Where Twitter is public by nature, Facebook is really inconsistent and doesn't give a clear message.
I don't like phones, and I hate that I have to pay to have a phone to maintain a large chunk of social interaction (there are alternatives, but they suck). This means I am far more demanding of what I want from the phone company, and far less tolerant when they do things I dislike. Yet I keep giving them money.
Facebook reaching this point means that facebook will be harder to unseat, due to it having "but whatcha gonna do about it" status, not easier because people hate them.
So in a way it's due to societal expectations, but not directly. I don't think people would hate an insurance company that they thought treated them fairly.
Exactly. USAA is awesome.
You are giving undeserved credit to Facebook by equating it to infrastructure. If facebook disappears tomorrow, people may miss it but they are not going to stop functioning well in society.
Facebook is the thing that everyone has to use to stay in touch with people - that is overwhelmed by crap like farmville spam. Twitter is that weird thing that makes no sense.
Facebook is different because they are locking you in (perhaps inadvertently) by having all of your real life friends already in the network. People feel forced because it's the only network that is nearly ubiquitous.
This is a bigger picture summary of how other industries fare to give some perspective: http://www.theacsi.org/images/stories/ACSI_TREE_07_10.pdf
It's hard to tell if these findings really mean anything, since this is social media's first year on the survey. And without more information, it's hard to say if a direct comparison across industries even makes sense.
I would take this data with a grain of salt.
Traditional questions like "How much value would you say Facebook brings you?", "How valuable is FB to you?", "If Facebook were to stop existing, how bad would that be for you?" etc..
Those are the kind of questions even your average airliner or insurance company would have at least somewhat positive responses from, but since people feel like they're possibly wasting their time, the score might seem low.
btw. more info and stats: http://www.theacsi.org/index.php?option=com_content&task...
What, do they not talk to people? 9/10ths of the people I encounter / talk to / overhear (friends or not) on campus & otherwise house quite a bit of dislike for Facebook, "but all [their] friends are on there", so they feel obligated to stay. About 9/10ths of the remaining people have no strong feelings either way, and the left-over 1/10th actually like it.
edit: And yes, I do actually mean those ratios. In the past year or two, I have heard only a couple people say they like FB, and quite literally hundreds of dislikes. Nearly everyone on campus has an account, and that means you can sometimes catch a dozen or two (or more) remarks daily out of several thousand students if you listen for it.
It's not that people are using Facebook "because everybody else uses it" (that is, because of peer pressure), but because people have come to need a service that "everybody else uses."
Or maybe an addiction? One can dislike what they're addicted to, and still be strongly pressured to use it.
Except this group A is the biggest & most connected group the world has ever seen => potentially the biggest & most powerful peer pressure the world has ever seen (depends on what value you assign to those connections, and what value they assign, and the availability of other options (i.e.: none, for most people, however incorrect that belief is)).
What people want is something like Facebook. Clearly. But that doesn't mean they have to like Facebook to keep using it; it's just the only real option.
That said, Facebook has aimed 180 degrees away from productivity. The whole site is designed to be addictive and encourage more pages / more time. (I mean, duh. That's how they make their money. It just ends up sucking for users.)
I don't have an opinion on airlines that I've never flown or cable companies that only exist on the west coast. It would be more interesting to take a sample who use both Facebook and, say, Comcast, and see which was more hated.