On Using Facebook Again

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Recently I reverted to Facebook due to the death of Twitter, but also because of the political bias I see on Mastodon instances. That political bias has encouraged me to take a break from that social network until the conflict is over.

Critical Mass

Yesterday I saw that two people on Facebook discussed leaving Facebook just at the time when I am returning. I am returning for two reasons. The first is that with three billion people you're more likely to find people who think like you do. It's also about being local. I can spend thousands of hours on Mastodon, looking for conversations, and people, only to learn that they live thousands of kilometres away, and that they don't want to meet in person anyway. It's not that I want to meet in person, but that I like for the option to exist.

Groups, Pages and Threading

Another reason to use Facebook is that groups already exist. We don't need to follow primitive hashtags and other sub-standard technologies. We can join a group, or like a page, and we see the discussion threads that are associated with that page or group.

Europeans As Customers

Since the beginning of this month Europeans have become customers of Facebook, if they choose to be. If we want to we can pay 9CHF99 per month. Part of me things that this is disgusting and absurd. Why would we pay to be part of a network that plays with our sense of misery and unhappiness. The reason is that if, and when Facebook misbehaves, if Europeans are paying, then Europeans can destroy their accounts, or withhold payments.

One of the things YoUTube, Facebook, Spotify et all should realise is that if we pay not to see ads, and then stop paying, those ads that we barely tolerated before becoming paying customers will become intolerable if we stop paying. That's when Facebook will lose the most users.

How Does It Compare to Mastodon

For a Mastodon instance you would pay from 5 euros per month for Linode for masto.host and up to 120 CHF per months for a Swiss option. Some Mastodon Instances cost around 25 Euros per month, from several providers. This means that if you're one user Facebook is cheaper, and there are 2.6 billion active users per month. Mastodon and the Fediverse are much smaller, for now.

Point of Friction

I disagree with Facebook's policy that we should pay for Facebook, Instagram and potentially threads as three separate accounts with an additional fee for each account. If and when we need to pay a supplement for Instagram I will deselect that account, or maybe even delete it, rather than pay more. Instagram went from being one of my favourite apps before Facebook bought it, to a worthless pile of waste when Facebook destroyed the sense of community that had once been so pleasant.

Threads

From what I heard and saw Threads sounds awful, with very little control by users. It seems like a text based Instagram, and Instagram in its current form is worthless. Instagram is not worth an extra six CHF per month.

Paradoxically it is not the ads that bother me the most, but the influencer garbage. I don't want to see the idealised lives of influencers. I want to see the real lives of the friends I follow on Instagram. It's because of Influencer noise that I dumped Instagram.

And Finally

My return to Facebook is due to one key reason. Twitter is no longer a community I want to be part of and although the Fediverse is filled with ideals, I am not ready to spend hundreds of days, weeks or months rebuilding a community on a platform where I am trolled and personally attacked for my views or opinions. I have already erased several accounts on instances.

If Glocals was still alive I would use that site to find people to do things with and if Meetup proposed free outdoor events I would join those. In the end Facebook offers a local community with topics I am interested in. As absurd as it feels to return to Facebook, it is the least worse option, for now.