I stopped on the street yesterday to talk with a couple of neighbors. The question of whether they should use Facebook came up. They read the NY Times and hear how bad FB is, they don't want to use it. They say the same phrases the NYT uses. Educated thoughtful people, want to do what's right, but they're getting their truth from a conflicted organization, imho. I thought about it, and here's a follow-up email I wrote.

Nice to meet you X, and see you Y! ;-)

I thought some more about Facebook, of course it's a choice whether to use it or not, and they are the worst most greedy people in the world, they took from the web and refuse to give back, and there's very little nice I can say about the company.

But I think the news pubs are doing a disservice by trashing FB so thoroughly without offering an alternative that works the way it should. What they really want is the rest of us to be quiet and listen to them. That is not going to happen because what goes on on the net is too valuable and people won't give it up.

I would love to see a world where we could use these great tools without giving up anything. We knew how to make that and it existed before FB, but they made it easier and figured out how to give it away free, and people didn't care to know about the cost...

Anyway -- I've decided this isn't my battle. I'm going to get the benefit, and not worry about the cost. Nothing I can do about it anyway. ;-)

Dave

PS: I should probably make this a blog post.