That Social-Network Stuff

New York Times article on users abandoning Facebook, several days late.

The disillusionment with Facebook has come in waves. An early faction lost faith in 2008, when Facebook’s beloved Scrabble application, Scrabulous, was pulled amid copyright issues. It was suddenly clear that Facebook was not just a social club but also an expanding force on the Web, beholden to corporate interests. A later group, Harmsen’s crowd, grew frustrated last winter when Facebook seemed to claim perpetual ownership of users’ contributions to the site. (Facebook later adjusted its membership contract, but it continues to integrate advertising, intellectual property and social life.) A third wave of dissenters appears to be bored with it, obscurely sore or just somehow creeped out.

There's a lot to be said for not being cool. For one thing, you don't have to spend a lot of time policing your coolness. For another, you don't have to give a rat's patoot, and that simplifies your life wonderfully.

(Crossposted by hand to Dreamwidth.)