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Comment by jfb | Hacker News Reader

I've always been skeeved out by the location sharing services; why do I want everybody to know where I am and what I'm doing? Perhaps this is generational (I'm almost 40) as almost everybody I know younger than myself happily checks in via Foursquare or Facebook, but the comment I had upon seeing the initial Loopt demo ("so now my boss can follow me around wherever I go?") retains.

It could be generational, or it could be incipient crazy-person behavior (always a possibility with me). I'm not going to try and unpack that myself; until it causes me drama, I'll just steer clear of anything that broadcasts my location.

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> why do I want everybody to know where I am and what I'm doing?

Why do you want people to know how much you weigh?(http://twitter.com/jamesfelixblack/status/28034592562)

Why do you want people to know that you prefer an immutable style of programming? (http://twitter.com/jamesfelixblack/status/27850952929)

Why do you want people what indie rock bands you are into right now (http://twitter.com/jamesfelixblack/status/27713440042)

The answer (at least as I see it) is that in isolation each of these particular items don't carry much meaning. But in aggregate, if I'm a friend of yours I can get a lot of value out of your twitter stream. It's a quick and easy way to keep up with the random comings & goings of your life. It's an easy way for you to share these things with your circle of friends.

It's the same thing with where you are and what you're doing. Maybe you check in at a fancy restaurant and then someone sends you a quick text telling you that a particular dish is a must order. Maybe you check in at the movies saying you're seeing the new James Bond and then someone asks you about it the next day. Maybe you check in at a bar after work and a friend you haven't seen in a while stops by to say hello. Each checkin (like a tweet) is a small look into your life that you've chosen to share with your friends. Individually, they aren't so useful, but in aggregate it adds up.

And it gets even bigger if you are part of a medium to large sized community of people all using foursquare. I like to tell people it's a little bit like telepathy. Foursquare lets me know that when my buddies get tired and go home, I can pop over the the place a couple blocks over and meet up with another crew over there. Foursquare gives me a snapshot of nearly everything going on in my "social universe" right now. It makes it easier to connect, more often, with all of my friends.

-harryh, foursquare

Everybody has a different threshold at which sharing information becomes uncomfortable, and I posit that this threshold is partly a function of what their social network is doing. My social network, as I said, largely doesn't use Foursquare, so it sits on the "creepy oversharing" side of the threshold for me.

I don't think it's evil, but I'm not interested in joining up.

I don't think it's generational, you're old enough to be my father (sorry!) and I too share the same indifference towards them. I think it's a personal thing or maybe it's based on a persons social circle. For some people where socialising is their life it makes sense for them to share where they are when they're there, it allows friends (assuming they "follow" these people) to know "oh hey, they're at x I can join them!"

I'm not a social person who wants people to come join me when I'm buying stuff in real life and I'm sure you're not either, but there are people from every generation who are.

I don't believe it's just generational, but culture plays an important role in it. If a person's friends are over-sharers, chances are they themselves might be, too.

Personally, I never saw the advantage of location sharing. I like to know what my friends are up to and I like telling them what I'm doing, and there are many tools and sites for doing that. Why do people have to give their geo coordinates to some creepy service when they could just post "hey, i'm at pizza hut, everybody" on Twitter if the need arises?

I think you're right about culture; also, there is a strong network effect to these services. The more your social circle uses them, the more benefit you will see from them. It's safe to say that my crowd just doesn't run with the over-sharing.

Why do people have to give their geo coordinates to some creepy service when they could just post "hey, i'm at pizza hut, everybody" on Twitter if the need arises?

Because there is more than one Pizza Hut?

actually that is a benefit. your friends know which Pizza Hut you are referring to. no one else necessarily knows what country/state/city you're in (this may be pieceable together from other things you say, but that's quite different than easy lng/lat)

Foursquare should not define location sharing. Foursquare is simple one example of it and probably not even the most popular one since Facebook came out with Places. Places for the most part is pretty private. I'm on Places but not on Facebook. I love sharing my location!

My 50+ Mom LOVES that she can keep tabs on where her sons and daughter are even as they are spread out across the country!

Location-based stuff is exactly why my mom got on facebook. It's actually useful to her and makes us all feel more connected.

Of course there are privacy issues when anything revolutionary comes around. Overtime they are taken care of--partly with technology and partly with best-use practices.

I wouldn't derive any particular benefit from FourSquare if I used it, as my movement from place to place is fairly routine and predictable. However, I don't think there would really be any drawbacks if you, me, or anyone else was simply GPS-tagged and stuck in a public-queriable database.

Think about this: whenever you go out in public, there are people you don't know all around you watching everything you do, and any of them could choose to stalk you in the literal, physical sense, following you from place to place without your knowledge. Putting your location online just helps people that already care about you to find you; it doesn't increase the probability that someone who doesn't care will arbitrarily start caring (in either a beneficial or malicious sense.)

Internet location publishing just makes getting information more convenient. Nothing that was previously impossible is now possible; the barrier to entry for some things (like stalking) has just been lowered, so that people can do it without investing their whole day in casually hiding in a crowd nearby you.

So you think we should lower the barrier for all discomforting and potentially infringing activities? Your movements today might be fairly routine and predictable, but would you be comfortable in a database flagging every single day where you broke that routine for whatever reason? What if your reasons for doing that were very personal--say you needed to see a therapist, or a doctor, or a lawyer, or a friend in a crisis, etc.

Keeping barriers up for potential mass infringements of privacy may be a good thing. In a digital age, isn't the anonymity of a crowd the only privacy we have left?

That something is possible at great effort is no argument to lower the amount of effort to do it. Do you have locks on your front door?

I'm a 40 year old who concurs. I tend to think the gap is generational -or- personality type (oversharers).

I do like the find my iPhone feature, however. It could come in handy with family members in an emergency.

i've convinced 40 year old adults to use foursquare and loopt because of the money they can save by redeeming the in-game coupons (these people are now #1 on my leader boards). it's actually fun if you try it out, although i didn't get truly hooked until i started traveling around a bit more.

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