Very true ... when I read that I started thinking about the sorts of other things an "Evil Zuckerberg"[0] could do. Maybe apply some of that research to tweaking the news feed in a manner to manipulate the prosecution of the case (I can think of a few general and specific ways that would be fun to expand on, but it's late).

> How much pull does FB still have ...

I've wondered that, myself. I quit 2 years ago. The funny thing is that a few days after I quit Facebook, when people would ask me why I unfriended them/other strange problem related to my quitting Facebook[1], I would say "I quit Facebook". Somewhere between person five and ten, I got a snicker and I looked back, confused. She explained that my tone was humorous because it was more appropriate for quitting smoking or drinking. When I played back in my head, I realized that she was right.

I didn't, though, have very strong feelings about Facebook. I had an experience I can only describe as an apathetic-rage-quit -- I was talking to a family member about something unrelated and mid-sentence, they say "Hey, what was up with you not liking that [adorable picture of personal family event] that I posted?" The next time I was behind a keyboard, I quit. I was, at one point, a very happy Facebook user. Not customer, as in business-buying-advertising, but user as in "the target demographic". It was a life-saver for a service group that I ran, prior to this incident, twice a month[3].

The second that a member of my family invented a new obligation out of it -- and one, mind you, that I was at no fault for having failed on ... I had left a long comment on a post by another, slightly more distant (but beloved) family member, and my spurned family member was offended that the other post came at almost the same time, therefore I had to have seen it and ignored it in favor of the other. We had a legitimate, albeit small and unimportant argument. It made me realize that a lot of the reason I scrolled Facebook was habit mixed with obligation.

The thing is, I've told that story more times than I care to remember. Lately, more people respond with "Oh yeah, me too", and if not that almost everyone expresses some strongly negative opinion about Facebook -- normal, non-tech/dev folks and geeks alike. Most of them have deactivated for extended periods of time. It's crazy, but it sounds like cigarettes before the average person knew about the lung-cancer risk -- lots of people who know it's bad for them (plenty of symptoms), but can't fully articulate the reasons. And then those who quit go on and on (like I am) about how nice it is to have the freedom to "not be aware of crazy important event 4 miles across the state that I should have known about because it was sent out to everyone on Facebook" -- "I don't subscribe to Facebook". Blank stare.

It'd be interesting to see a breakdown of who's leaving by all of those incredibly detailed categories that Facebook knows about its users. It wouldn't surprise me if quitting is higher among tech/dev (especially older) and teenagers in general. My oldest is getting to that age and I have never heard him talk nor have I been asked about Facebook. My kids friends don't ask them to sign up and the vast majority of them do not have accounts[4]. Some of the things their friends do want them to have accounts on are owned by Facebook, so figuring that out without Facebook's internal data would be difficult.

[0] Lest this devolve into an "attack the billionaire-CEO", that was not my intent. I have no opinion on Zuckerberg as a person; I just liked the way it sounded (I was going to say that I thought it was more efficient, but that was before the footnote with parenthesis...!)

[1] I've heard that my name or picture or both are missing from comments; honestly not sure. After I quit, I haven't bothered to look.

[2] Reading it, now, it reads more like I quit working at Facebook. I do not work at Facebook nor am I seeking to do so. :)

[3] A ~130 member church group, almost all retired people when "feature phones" would be more likely to be offered over smart phones for people who are unable to understand how they are going to dial a phone with no number buttons (but dialing with buttons makes sense?). Everybody had e-mail but almost nobody checked it; why would they? And not a damn one of them is reading or sending text messages on the nightmare phone that they rarely have turned on, anyway. They had Facebook - and they were on that at least twice a day. If I had to communicate something on short-notice, it worked so perfectly that I stopped being concerned about following up that everyone received the information.

[4] None of them are over 13; no parents know about that law and every kid figures out how to solve that problem when it arises. Around 2012-2013 this wasn't the case -- many parents allowed their children to have accounts and many children wanted them.

-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-

EDIT: I was writing this comment, sitting next to my wife in bed. I finish posting it and she protests. She'd started reading it while I was finishing it up and hadn't finished before I submitted. So I read it to her.

In what will now become my new favorite anecdote while participating in a group-bitch-session about first-world-problems, my wife, who knows the details behind this story, indicated that it looked very obvious that it was her. It was, in fact, not her or any member of my immediate family.

I think this is about as close as I can come on Hacker News to being shamed for failing to comment on a cute family photo. And part of me wonders if my wife will troll my comment history in fear that I have made similar blunders (she will now!).

Prior to today, I couldn't imagine a world where my wife might actually want a Hacker News account. After she reads this ... ?

:P