I used Facebook just for one community that would not move elsewhere. So I had to check it once a month. But then Facebook started recommending me other interesting groups and communities I joined. In my experience Facebook 6 months ago just recommended random old memes and ads. And I was hoping enshitification would finally eat Facebook for good. (I mean tiktok like reels however still shows enshitification is their top priority)
But now I am member of groups with active and helpful people. Niche groups you will not be able to find on lemmy or even reddit.
For me to really start liking it again after 10 years into enshitification they would probably have to become really open. Like joining a fediverse and offer messenger interoperability with other apps. Probably even becomming opensource.
Is it true that facebook feed is becomming more interesting or is this just my feeling because I joined those groups that existed there probably for a long time? Is Facebook making a comeback?
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Everyone has Facebook so there’s a lot of local groups for everything. For a lot of things in my city the best place to buy smth is not an online store but a Facebook group (I don’t have Facebook). It won’t make a comeback as the cool thing but it will continue to have a lot if active users as if does. Especially older ones. Plus there are countries where there is a bigger Facebook culture than others
Facebook Dating is unironically miles beyond any other free dating service. That and Buy Nothing keeps me using the site.
My one huge issue with Facebook Dating is that awful character limit. It should be 1,000 characters or 750 at least. 500 isn’t enough and people resort to just emotes, abbreviations and snippets of info that isn’t enough to grasp on.
I had a similar experience. Some niche local groups only exist on facebook and that’s why I had an account that I never deletes since making it like 15 years ago.
My feed was filled with sketchy ads and recommendations so I didn’t use it. Kept in contact with some old friends via messenger and only used groups pretty much.
That all changed few months ago when facebook locked my account for “suspicious activity” and showed me a prompt after logging in stating I need to upload a government issued ID to unlock my account. I checked and made sure this is actual facebook and not some fake site I accidentally would have somehow entered.
“Suspicious activity” was me logging via the web browser on my phone using another teleoperator while traveling.
When I returned from traveling I suddenly was able to unlock my account with just my email. Took the chance and deleted my account.
Facebooks groups are amazing, but yeah, the price is your privacy. And I don’t mean just email and your personal preferences, shits wild what they know about you and what/how they gather information about you.
If you are interested in reading about it:
The book “The Four” from Scott Galloway. I personally didn’t like the authors bias on the matter but he summarizes it pretty well how/what facebook knows about you.
Edit: why would people downvote OP’s question? It’s a good question imo.
That is a good book.
Re: downvoting; I think it’s just knee jerk reaction to any suggestion Facebook can do anything good. I have the same reaction but, like you, there’s a specific group I belong to that doesn’t exist elsewhere and it’s one of the few groups that isn’t toxic or hysterical.
Agreed, it’s a good book.
My personal criticism is just that the author, at times, fails to look at the topic objectively due to his own personal grudge with the four from the time he had his own company.
But it doesn’t ruin the book, the book is indeed good.
E: And good point about the downvotes
Probably not, but it doesn’t have the issues that Reddit has regarding moderation. Facebook communities are a lot more isolated than Reddit’s are and are generally filled with older people going to the groups for more targeted reasons.
You’re probably now experiencing a thing of Facebook that makes it really valuable to others.
Been using facebook groups for a long time. It’s generally better than many online groups because people often use their real accounts, business accounts, or other identifiable information that helps keep bad behavior to a minimum. Also the groups I participate in tend to be heavily moderated so bad behavior and spam are near zero.
With a couple firefox plugins and some vicious “x”-ing of every ad FB puts in front of me, FB is pretty enjoyable and useful. Always the caveat - my use and participation is the product, it isn’t “free”, and I’m always aware of that.
Maybe I should log in there to see if anything has changed, been a year or two at this point.
Facebook’s time has long expired, because Instagram and Threads have come up as just simply alternatives. Yet they’re from the same company.
Tech support people don’t exist, you have to rely on a dumb hub system that likely will not answer everything.
There’s still features that people have been demanding for years and years that are never coming, like being able to remove likes and reactions from people you’ve removed and blocked.
Facebook is basically where your privacy goes to die, because, why else are they recommending you the same people to re-add when you re-register on an entirely new e-mail, entirely new profile .etc? It’s because they’re stashing your data in their servers just to re-use on you.
I do think it’s shifted from people to groups. Still has ‘my cousin’s new baby’ but also much more hobbies, cities, marketplace, and political groups.
