Facebook's 'Closed Silos' Pose Challenges To Open Web

An anonymous reader writes: The growing trend of closed content silos -- publishing platforms that require a login in order to view the content is a step away from a more open web. Back in December of last year, Facebook launched its own in-app browser, which is basically a web-view that loads links you tap on using the Facebook app. Although in-app browsers may be convenient for some, such features are primarily designed to keep users inside of the application for a longer duration, which translates to more advertising exposure (and, thus, more money). This kind of feature can be challenging to the goal of keeping the web open, not only because the feature overrides the end user's default mobile browser, but also because it keeps users in a closed ecosystem (versus exploring the web). Additionally, the Instant Articles feature doubles down on siloed content by working with publishers to make articles available nearly instantly within the app, loading much faster than they would through a mobile browser. This sounds good, and it is convenient. But it also sets up a path for monetizing content that would otherwise be viewable outside of the closed silo, and, because you're using the app to browse the web inside this silo, there are privacy concerns. Unlike using a browser such as Firefox or Chrome, which has a private browsing option, a user of Facebook's in-app browser does not have the same privacy control. It's no secret that Facebook has been trying to create what appears to be a closed version of the internet. The social juggernaut's Free Basics initiative, for instance, offers users with free access to select websites. Facebook gets to be the gatekeeper of the platform. This is something that didn't sit well with some privacy advocates in India, who played an instrumental role in banning Facebook's initiative in the country. Facebook is not just a social networking website where people go to talk with their friends and family, Facebook has become a mammoth platform that offers the ability to upload videos (mimic YouTube), and send money to your friends (mimic PayPal) among other things. It is almost scary to see the rate at which Facebook is expanding and trying to absorb everything that comes in its way.

Comments

Facebook = AOL?

[dAzED1]

The "too big to fail" stuff isn't just for banks anymore, I guess. But this didn't work out too well for AOL, in the end - people wised up. Maybe as society starts to care about privacy and security, they'll wise up about facebook too?

Re:Facebook = AOL?

[tnk1]

People really didn't wise up to AOL, AOL failed to bring customers a broadband experience to match what they had been able to provide under dialup. The iPhone walled garden shows that there is nothing dead about a walled garden model... as long as the experience matches the expectations of the users.

Honestly, its good to be able to get out to the Internet, but a lot of people prefer the simplicity and functionality of a curated model. There are certainly "meta-dangers" to having a closed ecosystem, but that sort of model does excel at certain things, like maintaining a consistent experience and level of quality that you won't find on the general Internet (of course).

For my part, I hate the FB browser. Just navigating with it on my phone pisses me off, forget all of the other evil BS that they are doing.

Re:Facebook = AOL?

[Grishnakh]

I disagree. Even if all the younger people abandon FB, it's going to take a very long time for it to die out. The older people aren't dying off that fast.

AOL isn't even really dead yet: there's still tons of people who have AOL email accounts for some odd reason. A lot of them are old-timers who got those accounts in the 90s and just never gave them up. Now of course, AOL doesn't make nearly as much revenue as they used to back then, because their ISP business has mostly dried up due to broadband choices: even the tech-ignorant oldsters couldn't deny that multi-megabit speeds were far preferable to 56k dial-up, so they switched. FB doesn't have this issue, since it's not an ISP, it's a "content delivery platform". Basically, as long as the old peoples' friends are all on Facebook talking about the Bundys or FEMA camps or whatever it is they talk about on there, those people are going to continue to be active FB users and a source of advertising revenue. Obviously, this isn't a great strategy for growth (just look at Cadillac and Lincoln, struggling to stay relevant and appeal to younger crowds but mostly failing, but surviving because they have loyal older customers who are slowly dying off), but worst-case, FB can continue this way for a long time.

Re:Facebook = AOL?

[Bing Tsher E]

Certainly Facebook will not die out.

But they'll reach the level of irrelevance of AOL before much longer. Like you say, AOL isn't even dead yet. Facebook won't be, either.

But kids figure things out, and they don't want to be on Grandma's platform except for those rare occasions when they want to look at pictures of Grandma's new poodle.

Re:If they haven't already

[Piata]

I'd actually be okay with this. It channels all the useless, benign people into a nice padded room filled with ads, articles describing what latest thing they should be outraged over and polls that tell you how unique/great you are because of your tattoo choices.

The less I Use Iit, the More I Like It

[MrKrillls]

As they've become more aggressive about locking one in and monetizing it, I've found it less pleasant and less useful. Log in too often and they fill your "feed" with more and more crap. Frequently I want to get back to a friend's earlier post, but it has become so buried under a mountain of faux posts of others' likes and others' comments that I can't get back to posts I want to refer to. It irks me no end that FB keeps trying to stuff new faux content into my "feed" (I hate that word) to glue me endlessly to FB. The paradoxical result is that I use FB less and less and am on the verge of killing my account.

Facebook is Internet Lite.

[gurps_npc]

Basically, it's the Internet for people not skilled enough to set up a web page, a blog, a mass email system, or find games for themselves.

It will always attract the laziest and stupidest users - which will always outnumber the intelligent and privacy valuing users.

But it will never take over completely, and the rest of the web will continue to exist for everyone that isn't that lazy and foolish.

If by some miracle, Facebook dies, an equivalent will rise up to serve the same lazy, unskilled user base.

Speaking of scary...

[QuietLagoon]

... It is almost scary to see the rate at which Facebook is expanding and trying to absorb everything that comes in its way. ...

Like systemd? ;)

Yeah, but on the upside, Oculus

[NotDrWho]

So you can see your walled garden in 360 degrees.

Re:The thing about technology

[Sax Russell 5449D29A]

This type of thinking comes from business people's side: instead of creating individual products from ground-up, create and control a whole platform. When you control the platform people do business on, you own the market. Google didn't create their own proprietary OS because its markets would've been too narrow; instead they created a platform that extends over numerous manufacturers. When the manufacturer's and app developers succeed, Google succeeds. When the manufacturer's and app developers fail, Google doesn't. It's a one-sided win position they got themselves in.

Amazon isn't selling everything themselves, instead they got a platform that allows sellers to join up and they get a slice of their profits, but don't fail themselves if the sellers go bankrupt. You can hardly be relevant in e-commerce unless you have some kind of presence there, and this is a bit worrying since they can bar a business from utilizing their platform.

Private corporations are people when it suits them best. They get the benefits of being considered "people", but pretty much none of the downsides apply to them. Corporations enjoy freedom of speech, but they don't have to apply this fundamental right to their services. A news platform, like Facebook's, has no obligations to publish a story by a publisher if they don't want to. When all the readers are concentrated to that particular platform, it becomes increasingly difficult to exercise freedom of speech as a publisher. Facebook would effectively control the news we read.

It's the rebirth of online services.

[Qbertino]

A few years back I came to the simple conclusion that this is basically the rebirth of online services at a new level. Google, Facebook, Apple, Amazon (to an extent) - they're all just bascially ye olde mid-90ies Compuserve or T-Online. We've come full circle, with the net-neutrality debate and all that.
So far that I've even considered dropping out as a web professional alltogether.

Once the meta-level is up to speed and the geeks and nerds start using namecoin for DNS and some avantgarde mesh networking it will be another cicle of 20-30 years before it all evens out agian.

I say whatever. We'll live.
First world luxury problems.

Re:The thing about technology

[TapeCutter]

I don't go to the supermarket just to buy bread and milk because the fuckers put it right at the back of the store. Similarly I don't go to FB to browse slashdot. Neither the supermarket or FB are stopping you from going elsewhere.