Replace facebook

While I appreciate Heather Kelly’s piece, Apps To Use If Leaving Facebook, for her suggestion that it might be possible to find alternatives by transitioning to multiple services, it doesn’t go far enough. It’s a major step forward when a single corporation doesn’t entirely rule one’s online use, but Kelly’s alternatives aren’t appreciably different than Facebook. Each offers free service by progressively converting users into products. The only reason her alternatives don’t receive our disdain is that they’re not popular enough to turn the public’s critical eye.

I propose that Kelly could have improved user’s options, not be finding like-alternatives, but by suggesting unlike alternatives. That may mean equal services with paid tiers (which operate based on subscription income, not user data), or open alternatives which aren’t functionally equal but can be operated by non-corporate entities without a profit motive.

But why would you ditch Facebook at all? Or Twitter, or whatever? Piled On is a great comic about the subject.