Seeing people freak about this is one of the saddest things in this thread. There are more options available to them for communication than at any point in history – with extremely minimal UX changes from FB, I'll add – and the idea of threatening just one is enough to cause panic.
It's like watching millennials turn into oldfolk before your eyes. "What is this newfangled social?? I'll never adjust! I'm cold and scared!"
It isn't so much about new technology that causes alarm - its when you attempt to get your friends to move to a different social network because of <reasons> (e.g., the silliness going on with Facebook, various UI changes that are not good, app becoming more of a resource hog, etc.) and you're told that they're not budging. It's a circular logic. To move away from Facebook and continue to speak to those who exclusively use Facebook as their primary point of contact, you have to convince them of the value propositions that come along with your suggested social media alternative to Facebook. Once you sell them, they have to sell those who they remain in contact with who also uses Facebook as their primary point of contact.....
eventually, you run into someone who cannot be sold on this idea and it causes the foundation to break down.
So that leaves the original person who began the foundation of this "social media switch pyramid" informed that all of those who were sold on the idea is no longer interested. You can either stop speaking to the individuals that refuse to use anything
but Facebook (only accept messages on Facebook Messenger, only accept calls through Facebook Messenger) or you stick around on Facebook because it's not
that much of a pain in the ass to have Facebook installed; considering you have 20-30 other apps installed that are social media or messenger driven. For example, just on my personal mobile phone I have:
- Facebook
- Facebook Messenger
- Twitter
- Telegram
- WhatsApp
- Skype
- Reddit
- Swarm
- LinkedIn
- NextDoor
- Flickr
- Signal
- Musical.ly
- Snapchat
- Instagram
- LINE
- Google+
- Hangouts
- Allo
- Slack
- Discord
- Zello
- Viber
- Vero
- Steam
I'm sure there's one or two more that I've forgotten and can't be bothered to go downstairs to grab my phone. Each messenger app has people who only use that app (no duplicates), each social media network has people who only posts/responds from those networks. I'm more than willing to move away from Facebook but others have to do so as well. And as I said, even if I were to (personally) move from Facebook - I'm still locked into "Workplace by Facebook" when working. At the same time, I think that some people are taking too much investment into the whole idea that "Facebook ruined democracy" - when, really, we also have to blame ourselves as a society/country. We cannot expect private companies to protect our liberty and democracy, that's just not how this works. We're all influenced by things we see/read, watch/listen, and experience on the Internet (in some capacity or another). Without taking the step to understanding our own personal bias, we're just falling into the hands of private companies who make it their business to construct personality profiles and sell off our data.