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Comment by lukev | Hacker News Reader

How sad is it that the "protest" they come up with is to deactivate their accounts for a day?.

Facebook is terrible. Ditch it entirely. Or do like I do and leave up a bare bones page with a bit of contact information for old friends and never visit.

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I'd really like for everyone to construct elaborate arbitrary but consistent identities.

It would make Facebook enormously fun as opposed to a large interconnected network of corporate brands and homogenized identities.

A communal reflection of the minds eye. The current perpetual thanksgiving dinner is fun but I'd rather talk about dreams. Exploration over documentation.

>Facebook is terrible. Ditch it entirely

And then...? What? Try to get people to invite you to events on Google Hangouts or whatever Google has?

I just stopped caring about being invited to "events". If the event is so impersonal that it needs to be broadcast rather than two or three people organizing and then blasting a simple text message like "Hey beers at 5PM at <Insert Restaurant or Bar Here>. Come if you can!" I just don't care.

I definitely disagree with this. Facebook's utility for inviting people (even close friends) is huge to me. The messenger system is way better than text messaging, integrates well with its calendar and reminders, allows people to see who else is coming, doesn't cross platforms poorly (like group texts to Iphones + Android, in my experience), includes a map and permanent details, can be accessed online, ... etc, the list goes on a long way.

Or you could, say, call, text, and e-mail people you want to be in contact with. The idea that someone can be completely cut off from all their contacts just because they lose their Facebook account is absurd and reckless on the part of the user.

I didn't say anything about being completely cut off from all your contacts. I said, how will people remember to invite you to events, other than by your 5 closest friends who would jump through the hoops of - sending you an email? Or text message.

I don't mean as some theoretical exercise, I mean practically speaking. In fact, a lot of totally public events are only listed on Facebook anyway. The easiest thing to do is to invite people via FB. The bar is raised dramatically by making people send an unsolicited text message or email, if they even have your email address.

I just coordinated a meetup via email. Unbelievably awkward and high-friction.

It may be absurd, but it's not at all uncommon. Sending group invites via SMS is an incredibly kludgy experience, and following the path of least resistance, is so unrealistic when you have Facebook events at your fingertips. All of your friends are already there, and you merely need to change the details, and Facebook handles all the communication.

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