Online privacy has gotten some people's panties in a wad lately. Facebook continues to modify its privacy rules and push its users to be more open. In the beginning, Facebook focused on privacy and exclusivity, allowing only college students to join. Then it started opening up to the world, but still defaulted user settings as private. Now, however, public is the new "black" for Facebook, and a lot of people are screaming "It's not fair! It's not right!".
Why not? It's their servers, their software; they're letting you use it for free. Well technically free, it will only cost you YOUR PRIVACY! I know, that's a bit over dramatic.
What's lame is the BS that they're doing this for the users. Spinning it as "that's what the users want". It's definitely not what I want. I joined Facebook to talk to friends, and only friends. I don't feel like I can do that anymore without everyone knowing my business. While I have nothing that necessarily needs to be hidden, I still don't feel the need for my life stream to be searchable by Google, for everyone to see.
Come on. We're not idiots. Just say "Your personal data is how we make money", because it is. Don't pretend to be magnanimous. Sure, some users do want to be public, and good for them. The ability was already there to do that, but Facebook had to have their programmers write completely new code and change basic functionality to get where they are today. This kind of radical shift is not something you can justify with a "Wellllllll we really think users would rather be public and open, but what's stopping them all this time is those couple extra clicks". The move is motivated by money. The more personal information they have, the more they can sell of you. Like I said, If you don't like it, don't use it, and that's part of the reason I haven't really updated my Facebook account in a year.
When I go to a site, I have a purpose. I think of it kinda like this: If you go to Techcrunch.com you're going to a theme party. The theme is the 70's. When you get there you expect to see people dressed from the 70's and music from the 70's. The drink specials will probably be Harvey Wallbangers (vodka, orange juice and galliano. Yeah I had to google to find a 70's drink). The point is your expectations and reality are met. You get advertisements that go along with the site, and more likely what you'd want to be advertised about. So what's Facebook then?
Facebook is a huge warehouse party. It's a great time in the beginning because it's so huge and there's so many possibilities, but what always happens at a huge party? You say "Hi" to some people you rarely see, but you hang out with your normal groups and ignore everything else. This is why click-throughs of banner-ads have been horrendously low. People socialize with their normal people and only pay a little attention to what's happening outside the group. Those low click-throughs is the rare hot girl that walks by.
So how do they keep this poorly planned party going? They try to get everyone on the stage. Some people want to be on stage,and some people don't realize they're being pushed on stage. Soon they've rearranged the party to make it so you have to get on the stage to get in, even if you immediately get off. That's the inherent problem when someone else is throwing the party. Their rules. Their music. Their refreshments. If you want it to change you need to throw your own party.
This is why the only way the social networks can go is towards decentralization. Which is what the internet does well already. Young or old, people in general are just getting more web-savvy. Their presence online affects their presence in real-life, and so we need to take back control of our presence online. Just a couple of years ago privacy was an important issue to Facebook, and now they try and convince you that you don't care about privacy anymore. For now they'll let you keep some things private, but you're forced to open others up. How long before they force everything to be open? If they keep doing it piece by piece it won't seem as bad, and soon you'll realize you have no privacy left.
My hope is that people will be hosting their own party with 6d. It's an online presence that models your real-life presence. You own the site, your content, and your pictures. You can visit other people's 6d sites, and connect with them like you would any other social network. The only difference is you're on your domain and they're on theirs.