Who cares about the police using the data. Facebook itself is 100 times scarier than any police force.

I'm going to cross respond with my reply to someone who used this same kinda concept.. his example was an optional photo app extension.

I find your idea appealing in general, and would love to see a social network that worked like that, I'm not sure how it could work. Doesn't that mean that the pictures app developer would have their own privacy settings (and maybe "backup" pictures on a server they control)? And wouldn't app interoperabiility would probably make your privacy "the weakest in the chain"/"the weakest installed"? Also, doesn't that make it where every single feature needs to hit critical mass independently... after all, how do I see your pictures if I need to install an app to do so? What about dueling options fragmenting the market?

I meant FB and Orkut did so out of scaling concerns, not for any other reason. Yes, it was stupid how G+ did it.

Probably should have just bought Twitter and WhatsApp and Instagram.

Links take you to learn more info about something.

Except that SN's are trying to host that data within themselves, and FB is using it's monopoly power and it's algorithims to prioritize stuff in the newsfeed hosted on FB.

Social networks already have you so profiled that they know where you want to go and take you there.

They know the intersection of where you will spend time and where they will serve ads. This is not the same.

t. Back then, not much thought was spent on the more sinister intelligence-gathering capabilities.

Huh? It was obvious when it launched that was their direction.

Google's name is too tarnished with regards to privacy and will never be able to launch a social media site again.

I don't know if it was really a privacy issue. After all, FaceBook is probably the only site more devoted to mining your data than Google is.

No privacy issues. If I don't want my plus profile to have pictures, I just never download a picture app.

I find your idea appealing in general, and would love to see a social network that worked like that, I'm not sure how it could work. Doesn't that mean that the pictures app developer would have their own privacy settings (and maybe "backup" pictures on a server they control)? And wouldn't app interoperabiility would probably make your privacy "the weakest in the chain"/"the weakest installed"? Also, doesn't that make it where every single feature needs to hit critical mass independently... after all, how do I see your pictures if I need to install an app to do so? What about dueling options fragmenting the market?

I actually think a big part of the failure of Google+ was something that, in hindsight, looks so small that a lot of people forget about it: When Google+ launched, it was a limited invite-only service.

You mean like Facebook and Orkut did?

But seriously, those were due to scaling concerns. Google could have flipped a switch. I think they're problem was they went backwards... feature complete to a limited number of people, as opposed to a slow feature rollout to everyone.

One also doesn't have to use facebook. I don't even have a facebook account,

Sure you do. Even if you don't register for the site, they create shadow accounts based on the contact numbers in people's phones, based on ID'ing the same person showing up in pictures, etc. They, I think, even allow your friends to tag you in pictures using the shadow account.

Google's attempts to foist Plus on us felt a lot like how Microsoft forced Internet Explorer on us by bundling it with Windows 95 OSR2 and later versions of Windows.

Nonsense. Microsoft was successful.

Article:

Windows is spying on us

Parent:

setup Chrome for the browser

Google: Because apparently someone needs tp be spying on you.

Siri didn't come with ToS that grant Apple full right to read and share all of your personal files with anyone it wants.

That was the Windows 10 preview. It makes a ton of sense that tech previews are loaded with spyware.

It is. Fridges desiigned for RVs and such are (often) dual input.

. The end user doesn't know what they want, but you do. Make the decisions for them.

Unlike the rest of your snarky post, this part is most certainly true. An end user rarely knows what they want.

Of course, if you ignore what they say they want, you have to actually be able to deliver something that scratches that itch. Basically "fulfilling the exact spec from the user" is just the least culpable way of failing.

there was a time when there was no such thing as Facebook. Believe it or not, people still managed to have social lives.

Yeah, there was. And people had social lives with other people not on facebook. But facebook exists now. And too many people allow it to gatekeep their entire social life. So there is no social life with those people without facebook.

Depending on where you live, how old you are, etc, excising those people may be acceptable or not.

A perfectly reasonable assumption, if it was in a locked room secured by armed guards. Which is really where it should have been.

Would you want it to work on Verizon? I mean, they're advertiser-friendly unique-id headers alone should make you swear them off.