That's cool. I'm glad to hear Dvorak's opinion. Here's mine:
Quit whining about Facebook. It's opt-in. People like it, so they opt in. Believe it or not, AOL was actually relevant and somewhat useful to people over a decade ago. Was it the best? No. Did it help people? Yes.
I hate to say this, but people do need training wheels with tech. Facebook makes things simple. I no longer have to sign up for 20 different accounts, figure out which friends use which services, remember different passwords, or have to learn 20 different interfaces -- I can now message, chat, organize, collaborate, send pictures, share links, and do a bunch of stuff at once. It's called having a broad set of features. Facebook is "training wheels" the same way something like the Windows OS is "training wheels." Internet Explorer is bundled, but you are free to download Firefox, Chrome, Safari, Flock, Opera, Seamonkey, etc. It bundles Windows Media Player, but you can download VLC, Miro, iTunes, Foobar2000, MediaMonkey, WinAmp, or hundreds of other things.
Facebook didn't magically kill Wikipedia, Craigslist, Hacker News, Instapaper, or the thousands of other companies and products available. It's called choice. People have choices. They have a lot of choices. Let them decide. If a product is easier to use, by all means use it.
People had the same choice a decade ago, and chose against AOL.
I think Dvorak is simply pointing out the fact that Facebook is being praised like the second coming of Jesus, while AOL is regarded as an internet backwater and failure, where they both provide/provided very similar functions.
One huge divide between people in the tech community and those outside of it is the meaning of free. Facebook's a walled garden to people who want APIs and generously licensed (or public domain) data, but, to most of everyone else, the only cost with Facebook is creating an account -- something many people want to do anyway for the other features of the site. This is in sharp contrast to AOL, which was very expensive and only offered its data to paid subscribers.
AOL's cost was money. Facebook's cost is your personal privacy. Yes, you don't have to shell out a dollar, but you lose all control over the information you associate with Facebook. In some ways, I'd rather pay real money.
Right, I'm not trying to make a claim either way about what the superior thing is; I'm just saying that your average person would rather get the service for free at the cost of their own privacy, which is one plausible explanation for the difference.
Quit whining about Facebook. It's opt-in. People like it, so they opt in. Believe it or not, AOL was actually relevant and somewhat useful to people over a decade ago. Was it the best? No. Did it help people? Yes.
I hate to say this, but people do need training wheels with tech. Facebook makes things simple. I no longer have to sign up for 20 different accounts, figure out which friends use which services, remember different passwords, or have to learn 20 different interfaces -- I can now message, chat, organize, collaborate, send pictures, share links, and do a bunch of stuff at once. It's called having a broad set of features. Facebook is "training wheels" the same way something like the Windows OS is "training wheels." Internet Explorer is bundled, but you are free to download Firefox, Chrome, Safari, Flock, Opera, Seamonkey, etc. It bundles Windows Media Player, but you can download VLC, Miro, iTunes, Foobar2000, MediaMonkey, WinAmp, or hundreds of other things.
Facebook didn't magically kill Wikipedia, Craigslist, Hacker News, Instapaper, or the thousands of other companies and products available. It's called choice. People have choices. They have a lot of choices. Let them decide. If a product is easier to use, by all means use it.
(end of rant)