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U.S. users are leaving Facebook by the millions, Edison Research says

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1293 points rmason | 4 comments | 06 Mar 19 20:30 UTC | HN request time: 0.639s | source
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peteretep ◴[07 Mar 19 05:44 UTC] No.19325816[source]▶
By far the biggest factor that had me stopping checking Facebook, and indeed LinkedIn, is number of utterly fictitious notifications they generate. There was a time a few years back when that red dot made me drop everything to check FB, but these days it’ll be some completely bullshit message they’ve made a notification out of. Feels like they got greedy for my attention and killed the golden goose there. I check it about once a day now, and in the browser not the app. If the notifications were still meaningful I’d probably still have the app and all the metadata that sent them.
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j1elo ◴[07 Mar 19 08:32 UTC] No.19326460[source]▶
I started like you, last year... then a couple days ago realized I hadn't checked it since mid January. And we're on March, that's a new record.

I'm not in the "I'm leaving Facebook once and for all", actually I don't have that intention whatsoever, I am (was) a normal, active user. But it stopped being interesting. The kind of interaction Fb promotes is similar to twitter; in the first years I could see my friends showing off their breakfast or sharing their thoughts about something, now everything is 3rd-party articles, photos, videos, and complaining... LOTS of complaining (via sharing a relevant article they just read).

Ironically I still write to share my thoughts on something, without photos or shocking videos, and it catcyes my friend's attention because of the "novelty" of writing something of my own instead of just sharing some link.

Btw I've NEVER wanted to install Fb apps, especially since they forced everyone to have the Messenger app if you want to chat. Always used m.facebook.com for checking out, and mbasic. for chat (with the added benefit of the crappy UI pushing me out from using it...). Similarly, Twitter is another service I use, and never wanted their app installed, instead I use their website. The same reason frequent use of Reddit is out of the question for me.

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1. Tepix ◴[07 Mar 19 09:17 UTC] No.19326635[source]▶
I didn't know about mbasic and chat working. Thanks.

I'm also deleting as many apps as possible. Even Instagram works quite well without the app. Less uncontrollable spying, less battery usage, no annoying notifications, more free memory, more blocked ads and trackers.

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2. macleginn ◴[07 Mar 19 10:28 UTC] No.19326959[source]▶
But no replying on the comments to your posts, it seems, which is quite annoying.
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3. firmgently ◴[07 Mar 19 11:42 UTC] No.19327271[source]▶
I use mbasic and can reply to comments on posts.

I just checked the details and (for example) I click under the post: "2 scratches 'pon wood" (sorry I have language set to Pirate but it's the equivalent of "2 comments").

This takes me to a page showing the post, comments beneath, and a text field for me to reply into.

So it's there, just check the various links under each post to see what's available. Actually I've yet to find anything that I can't do on mbasic. I've thought something was missing several times (turning off notifications for specific groups springs to mind) but always found a way to do it eventually. It's often a hideous UX but I like how ugly mbasic is, it's FB without the sugar so you can taste how bitter it really is :) (for anybody wanting to say something like "if it's so horrible why do you still use it", it's something I do reluctantly because I have a few geographically distant friends who I like to keep in contact with and who always message me through FB)

4. Tepix ◴[07 Mar 19 13:18 UTC] No.19327757[source]▶
Well, i will probably see the comment on my post after a week or two and respond then.