r0ckh0und 

I am subscribed to well over 100 FB groups. It is a good information resource for buying and selling vintage and antique "stuff". I have also had some success buying on Marketplace.

TricycleTom

Facebonk destroyed the listservs. There isn't much free education out there any more.

Hudson308 

RohloffRoller

I find LinkedIn better for finding old classmates.

Mike

madpogue 

Congratulations; you are a human once again, and no longer a product.

themp

I have a Facebook account only for the game Candy Crush. All my devices are synced for Candy Crush using Facebook, and there is no other way to do that.

Bikerider007

The only downside to me for FB is that you cant do build threads. Everything comes and goes.

I am signed up with so many bike related pages that I rarely see actual friends and family posts. I dont post much public, primarily in closed groups. Although I do comment on some other cyclists feeds that regularly post different things. I'm there way more than here.

Clyde1820

FB? Not necessary, I'd say.

Email is about the only generic mode of communication I know of, aside from the telephone.

FB is a private, proprietary system. (Though, clearly it's "a thing" and is used by hundreds of millions of people.)

FB treats your personal history and participation as though it were theirs ... to the point of allowing others to abscond with it and abuse it. (Think: Cambridge Analytica, though that's only the best-known egregious example.) As with any system containing so many juicy tidbits about folks, it can be hacked. IMO, the fewer such systems we use, with fewer tidbits all in one spot, the better. Just from a security standpoint.

FB = meh. For me, I can see how some people would benefit by the basic tools and functions. But, from where I sit, those aren't functions that cannot be done elsewhere via more-traditional means. Without all the threats to our privacy.

As for folks whining that they weren't getting notified during estate dealings ... well, that's on them. If they want to not get notified, let them not get notified. And not participate. If that's what they prefer. Your estate, your process.

JMO

madpogue 

^^^^ There's no "as though" about it -- FB members' participation _IS_ FB's property. When you participate on FB, you're not a customer, client, or even a consumer. YOU are the product. To that end, it's not a "threat" to one's privacy as much as it is a wholesale dismantling of it. On FB, you have no privacy to have threatened. Your "privacy settings" only apply to other members (i.e. other products). IOW, the cow next to you in the pasture can't milk you. But the farmer always can.

Fahrenheit531 

Deleted my FB about five years ago, never looked back. Eff 'em. The more you learn, the worse they are.
I've got better things to do and I'll not volunteer to be Zuckerberg's product.

Clyde1820

Depends on one's POV, I suppose.

From FB's standpoint, given the nature of contract law, I suppose that trumps everything.

But the fact remains that one's very presence, every click, every mouse-over, every thing read, how long one spends at/on a spot ... all of it is tracked, evaluated and then sold.

Try doing that, tracking/tracing/selling detailed documented movements in our daily lives elsewhere, such as while driving on "the king's road" (streets), and you're arrested as a felon stalker and who knows what else. Let alone selling it to the highest bidders without folks' knowledge. But, do much the same thing as a corporation, and you get a pass.

People will see it as they see it. We've been conditioned, that way.

BigChief 

You mean you guys don't want to know what I'm cooking for dinner? Darn, I just finished taking pictures.

Last ride 76 

Ooh, ooh, what's OfferUP...(facepalm) Just what I need, a new source.

tmh657

It will start again soon with the election cycle coming up. FB brings out the "I am right and you are wrong" debate among people I am friends with and I don't think I want to see that again. Last election my aunt told me that my wife posts some pretty far out stuff on there. I told her to take it up with my wife if she needed to as I would not respond AT ALL regarding her thoughts.

xroadcharlie

I have never been on Facebook, and for the most part have 0 interest.

But here's the thing, Many years ago when it was safe to publish our Names, Addresses, and Phone numbers in the white pages of a phone book, And someone wanted or needed to contact us, Perhaps an old friend or family member we hadn't seen in years they could.

So at the very least, Facebook might be the next best thing to phonebook white pages if we take every precaution to protect our identity and privacy.

madpogue 

But the phone company doesn't have, as its primary mission, gathering information about us and selling it to anyone willing to pay. The phone company may sell our information, or allow us to opt out if it, but that's a "side business". Once again, you can attempt to protect your privacy all you want on FB, but that's only relative to other free users. To FB's REAL customers (i.e. the buyers of the information they gather), nothing you enter/store on FB is private. They wouldn't bother to let you enter/store it there if they couldn't make money from it.

In short - your lack of privacy on FB, etc. is at the very core of their business model.

SpinClassSara

I like it but I get how nothing is private anymore.

The Golden Boy 

I wasn't on it until a class reunion a couple of years ago.

It is a horrible time waster with a lot of interaction with people I don't know or don't care about or haven't cared about in 30 or so years...