Today not having a Facebook account is kind of like not having TV was (and in some cases, still is) in the past. We state it proudly and often because there are few enough of us that we feel the need to justify ourselves. (I'm firmly in both camps.) The fact is this article doesn't really seem to add anything new, and trots out the same arguments as dozens of other articles I've seen in the last few months.
That's not to say it's wrong, just kind of redundant.
While you are right that the arguments are pre-existing, I think emotionally there is a discrete change with the IPO. It is one thing to feel like you are surrendering your privacy in order to stay in touch with your friends; it is not entirely another thing to surrender your privacy for the geeks providing the platform to make money to support and extend the platform.
Surrendering your privacy so that an institutional shareholder can make money is, emotionally, a different proposition and this is what the OP demonstrates. It's not that people didn't willingly surrender privacy before the Internet; but then, like now, it was done in a two-way transaction. The classic example is building intimacy with, say, your spouse, by telling them something that nobody else knows.
It is entirely possible that with Facebook a public company, some people (who were previously content) will re-evaluate whether they like the other side of the transaction.
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Today not having a Facebook account is kind of like not having TV was (and in some cases, still is) in the past. We state it proudly and often because there are few enough of us that we feel the need to justify ourselves. (I'm firmly in both camps.) The fact is this article doesn't really seem to add anything new, and trots out the same arguments as dozens of other articles I've seen in the last few months.
That's not to say it's wrong, just kind of redundant.
While you are right that the arguments are pre-existing, I think emotionally there is a discrete change with the IPO. It is one thing to feel like you are surrendering your privacy in order to stay in touch with your friends; it is not entirely another thing to surrender your privacy for the geeks providing the platform to make money to support and extend the platform.
Surrendering your privacy so that an institutional shareholder can make money is, emotionally, a different proposition and this is what the OP demonstrates. It's not that people didn't willingly surrender privacy before the Internet; but then, like now, it was done in a two-way transaction. The classic example is building intimacy with, say, your spouse, by telling them something that nobody else knows.
It is entirely possible that with Facebook a public company, some people (who were previously content) will re-evaluate whether they like the other side of the transaction.
This is a good point, and a new nuance on familiar arguments. It's still the same argument, but now with fiduciary responsibility to the shareholders.
Someone should redo the Onion "Area man doesn't own a TV" article to target people like us.