People keep telling me to join facebook... Here are my reasons for not doing so.
Facebook relies on network effects to expand its user base and lock its users into the service. I.e. people are forced into joining facebook in order to access content published by other people. Historically, the main reason for vendor lock-in is to prevent customers freely switching to another (better) service and generally results in a poor experience for the customer in the long run since there is very little incentive for the vendor to make improvements to their service.
For the most part, the Facebook services are locked-in and often inferior implementations of existing services. For example, photos published on Facebook are only accessible to other registered users whilst services such as Flickr offer similar functionality without the requirement for viewers to register with the service. People use Facebook to exchange private messages rather than using email (email does not require that a user be tied to a specific service provider, allows them to choose an email client which suits them and allows all of their messages to be accessed in the same way).
Facebook has also shown a disregard for the privacy of its users on numerous occasions. For example, it allows relatively unrestricted access to profile information for third party applications and its "Beacon" advertising system submits details back to Facebook of transactions made by the users on third party web sites, in some cases publishing this information.
The terms and conditions have some fairly nasty clauses too...
-
You agree to (a) provide accurate, current and complete
information about you as may be prompted by any
registration forms on the Site ... (c) maintain and
promptly update the Registration Data, and any other
information you provide to Company, to keep it
accurate, current and complete
So you are required to provide (and keep up to date) accurate information - and presumably trust that they are going to keep it safe and not misuse it. -
The Company may, but is not obligated to, review the
Site and may delete or remove (without notice) any Site
Content or User Content in its sole discretion, for any
reason or no reason.
So you might find half of your data missing for no reason one day. -
By posting User Content to any part of the Site, you
automatically grant, and you represent and warrant that
you have the right to grant, to the Company an
irrevocable, perpetual, non-exclusive, transferable,
fully paid, worldwide license (with the right to
sublicense) to use, copy, publicly perform, publicly
display, reformat, translate, excerpt (in whole or in
part) and distribute such User Content for any purpose,
commercial, advertising, or otherwise, on or in
connection with the Site or the promotion thereof, to
prepare derivative works of, or incorporate into other
works, such User Content, and to grant and authorize
sublicenses of the foregoing.
This one's a pretty nasty one - it basically says they can do whatever they want with any of the content you post (such as photos, etc.).
Of course, they also say they can change those terms and conditions without notice and without informing you they have done so. Continuing to use the service after the change you didn't know about constitutes acceptance of the new terms and conditions.
Oh, and any information and content you provide to Facebook can be disclosed to any third party with a court order. Of course you're also not allowed to delete your account either.
So in conclusion, I don't feel that Facebook offers any useful services which aren't already provided by more open technologies and vendors with less onerous terms and conditions. I will continue to use the IETF standard email and instant messaging protocols for communication (both of which are implemented by a number of service providers, such as Google Mail, for people who don't want to run their own services), and will continue to share photos through my web site.
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