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Comment by selmnoo | Hacker News Reader

> Facebook adds extreme value to your social life

But you fail to catch a crucial part of this: it adds value to your social life at the expense of so many other things. It may add some social value to your life, but corrupts and molds society at large. I think the tradeoff is absolutely not worth it. I touched on this in a comment below as well.

Social networking is a task that should probably be left for a 'Public Benefit Corp.' to do, as Ello seems to be trying to do. I'm hoping and praying that these sorts of companies start to take off, that pay-for-service becomes cool and commonplace again.

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I think society is molding Facebook more than Facebook is molding society. I'm not trying to detract from your complaint, but I do feel it's too convenient to point it at Facebook alone when what you're really upset with is the emergent properties of your society at large.

Most people don't see a threat in a lack of online privacy. Since the beginning of mass commercial internet use our online usage has been tracked. It is sort of absurd to think what you do online is private.

Your computer might in your bedroom, but the internet certainly isn't.

You might prefer using sites and apps that guarantee your privacy, but most people simply don't care.

"Most people don't see a threat in a lack of online privacy."

That they don't see it does not mean there is no threat (to both their privacy and to their lives in general as secondary effects of the global loss of privacy).

"It is sort of absurd to think what you do online is private."

I find it absurd that you say that. I chat with friends via our own jabber server, for example, via TLS connections - how is it absurd that that is in fact perfectly private? I find neither the expectation of privacy absurd, nor the fact that that is in fact private.

"Your computer might in your bedroom, but the internet certainly isn't."

I don't get what you are trying to say here. Are you just stating the obvious fact that those people who do transport your data technically can look at it, or are you implying that therefore they have the right, they should have the right, that you should have no expectation of them not looking, ...?

Before you answer, please consider: Do you think the same applies to letters? To phone conversations on analog phone lines?

It's worse than 'can technically look at it'.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third-party_doctrine

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stored_Communications_Act

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communications_Assistance_for_...

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