Interesting article - completely agree that this is the right line of thinking. All for the #DeleteFacebook movement, and encouraging people to move to platforms like Signal etc, but we also need to be realistic about how well Facebook has ingrained itself now as almost being the web for a lot of people; how much personal relationships are built around it; how effective they are at retention, etc. I think you've correctly identified the features of Facebook they've monopolised so well which make it so difficult to quit, also. What you seem to be doing with launching Ethi in giving people more visibility of what services like Facebook (and others, like Google) have about them, and empowering them with tools to have at least some greater degree of control over that data, is very welcome. I'd love to see a service like that be free to maximise the audience it can reach, but also understand your need to fund your work! Aside from looking to educate people about how much data Facebook actually has about them and how it uses this, and giving people the tools to actually opt out partially or fully, the average person who may not be as privacy-first in their priorities (or in fact really anyone who doesn't want to be a social pariah!) also needs realistic alternatives first. Interested to hear about NovaChat for instance - while it appears to be quite early in development this does appear to be a good approach in the messaging space, in being realistic people won't quit Facebook overnight, giving them an alternative way to access their messages which is actually more convenient, and opening them up to communicating with people on other platforms outwith Facebook.
Interesting article - completely agree that this is the right line of thinking. All for the #DeleteFacebook movement, and encouraging people to move to platforms like Signal etc, but we also need to be realistic about how well Facebook has ingrained itself now as almost being the web for a lot of people; how much personal relationships are built around it; how effective they are at retention, etc. I think you've correctly identified the features of Facebook they've monopolised so well which make it so difficult to quit, also. What you seem to be doing with launching Ethi in giving people more visibility of what services like Facebook (and others, like Google) have about them, and empowering them with tools to have at least some greater degree of control over that data, is very welcome. I'd love to see a service like that be free to maximise the audience it can reach, but also understand your need to fund your work! Aside from looking to educate people about how much data Facebook actually has about them and how it uses this, and giving people the tools to actually opt out partially or fully, the average person who may not be as privacy-first in their priorities (or in fact really anyone who doesn't want to be a social pariah!) also needs realistic alternatives first. Interested to hear about NovaChat for instance - while it appears to be quite early in development this does appear to be a good approach in the messaging space, in being realistic people won't quit Facebook overnight, giving them an alternative way to access their messages which is actually more convenient, and opening them up to communicating with people on other platforms outwith Facebook.