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Steve Wozniak Drops Facebook: 'The Profits Are All Based On the User's Info' (arstechnica.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the business-decisions dept.

Apple cofounder Steve Wozniak has formally deactivated his Facebook account. In an email interview with USA Today, Wozniak wrote that he was no longer satisfied with Facebook, knowing that it makes money off of user data. "The profits are all based on the user's info, but the users get none of the profits back," he wrote. "Apple makes its money off of good products, not off of you. As they say, with Facebook, you are the product." Ars Technica reports: His Sunday announcement to his Facebook followers came just ahead of Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg's scheduled testimony before Congress on Tuesday. The CEO is also reportedly set to meet with members of Congress privately on Monday. Wozniak wrote that Facebook had "brought me more negatives than positives." Still, when Wozniak tried to change some of his privacy settings in the aftermath of Cambridge Analytica, he said he was "surprised" to find out how many categories for ads he had to remove. "I did not feel that this is what people want done to them," added Wozniak. "Ads and spam are bad things these days and there are no controls over them. Or transparency."

36 of 246 comments (clear)

  1. Hey Steve by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Welcome to 2007!

    1. Re: Hey Steve by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      Says the guy who has never been relevant.

    2. Re: Hey Steve by Tough+Love · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Says the guy who has never been relevant.

      Facebook employed detected.

      --
      When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
    3. Re:Hey Steve by TheFakeTimCook · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Apple was biggest FB client for years, apple phone add on every second FB page. FU Wozniak

      Before all this recent FB Kerfluffel, Apple REMOVED both FB and Twitter integration from iOS 11.

      So they do put their money where their mouth is.

    4. Re: Hey Steve by TheFakeTimCook · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Says the guy who has never been relevant.

      Sez the guy too Cowardly to even LOG IN...

  2. good luck with that, comrade by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    My facebook page is under a ficticious name and I was born in 1901 and I work at Initech. Have fun scraping useful data from me.

    1. Re:good luck with that, comrade by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

      One time I got an unsolicited Facebook IM to go chat on Skype (ie. sex cam) because "she" thought I looked so handsome. Except my Facebook photo is that of a cartoon character.

      That spam experience led me to make my privacy settings stricter since I don't want to be contacted by people I don't know. I have always used the strictest settings, though, but somehow they seem to loosen up over time. My guess is that Facebook introduces new/redesigned settings once in a while and defaults them to wide open.

    2. Re:good luck with that, comrade by Tough+Love · · Score: 2

      My facebook page is under a ficticious name and I was born in 1901 and I work at Initech. Have fun scraping useful data from me.

      Roughly the same as me, plus I haven't used even the fake account in years. Can't say my life is enormously worse for missing all those vacation stories and cat videos.

      Anybody who has the facebook app on their phone should remove or disable it immediately (don't forget the force kill) unless of course you are ok with Zuck snooping your calls, texts, contacts, and who knows what else.

      --
      When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
  3. Um ... by fahrbot-bot · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Wozniak wrote that he was no longer satisfied with Facebook, knowing that it makes money off of user data.

    Are you just figuring that out Steve or were you once okay with that arrangement and have since soured on it?

    --
    It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
    1. Re: Um ... by Type44Q · · Score: 2

      Damn; good question.

    2. Re:Um ... by ranton · · Score: 2

      Is he also going to stop using Google and Bing and any other search engine which isn't funded with a paid subscription?

      --
      -- All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. -- Edmund Burke
    3. Re:Um ... by goose-incarnated · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Wozniak wrote that he was no longer satisfied with Facebook, knowing that it makes money off of user data.

      Are you just figuring that out Steve or were you once okay with that arrangement and have since soured on it?

      You think he's sour now, wait till all the celebrities and newscorps figure out that they have even less influence than they thought when people ignore their hysterical cries and continue using facebook.

      The MSM got taught just how little influence they had during the 2016 election when their darling didn't get voted into office. This is payback for that. They want to show facebook who's really the boss by flooding the news with how evil facebook is.

      My money is on facebook in this fight. Hell, I don't even like facebook, and refuse to use them, but I still think that the MSM is mad if they think that facebook users care more about MSM than they do about facebook.

      --
      I'm a minority race. Save your vitriol for white people.
    4. Re:Um ... by h4ck7h3p14n37 · · Score: 2

      I suspect he's just now figuring it out. He doesn't seem to be very tech-savvy these days which is kind of ironic. He fell for a simple credit card scam back in February. Apparently didn't know about chargebacks.

    5. Re:Um ... by youngone · · Score: 2

      I don't know where you're from, but in my town the MSM love your Mr. Trump.
      No-one gets them clicks and views quite like the slightly odd bloke you elected.

    6. Re:Um ... by dryeo · · Score: 2

      Huh? MSM gave Trump billions in free coverage, leading him to be elected, because it was good for business, generating clicks and page views like crazy. They don't care about things like the good of the country, just making money. MSM know how to make sure someone doesn't get elected, ignore them. Think Ron Paul the other election and MSM media reporting 1st, 2nd and 4th places in the primary when Ron Paul came in third.
      Probably helped that there may have been promises made like getting rid of that pesky net neutrality, rules on how many media companies a business can own and less oversight by the monopoly busters.

      --
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
  4. Really? by YuppieScum · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I've been a fan of Woz's ever since I bought my first Apple ][, but, really? Only now are you realising that FB makes its money from your data?

    For a super-bright guy, he seems a bit slow on the up-take...

    --
    This sig left unintentionally blank.
    1. Re:Really? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      You realize that Woz has done basically nothing since the Apple ][ was released. Nearly 40 decades. I don't know why they keep dragging him out to make quotes.

      Apple computers in the 1600s were the best!!!

    2. Re:Really? by CaptainDork · · Score: 5, Funny

      Isaac Newton used one and Wozniak named a device in honour of it.

      --
      It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
    3. Re:Really? by Tough+Love · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I've been a fan of Woz's ever since I bought my first Apple ][, but, really? Only now are you realising that FB makes its money from your data?

      Obviously this has been no secret for a long time, he was likely motivated to take a public position on it by revelations of Facebook's involvement in the election hacking.

      --
      When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
    4. Re:Really? by danomac · · Score: 2

      Wow, you could get an abacus with apples in them?

  5. Ob by Hognoxious · · Score: 4, Funny

    Did he announce this via twitter?

    --
    Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
  6. Old man yells at cloud (data) by Lynchenstein · · Score: 5, Funny

    That is all.

  7. Fake out article again? by SeaFox · · Score: 5, Informative

    is this the same click-bait article I saw posted on Reddit where it was titled Woz "leaving Facebook" (like he was an employee there), only to have the article explain they meant closing his account, and then at the end of the article reveal he didn't even delete the profile in the end, because he didn't want someone else taking his username?

  8. Courage by nwaack · · Score: 2

    First he was going to use "courage" as the reason for dropping his account but...oh...wait...

  9. No shit Sherlock. What do you think Facebook does? by SensitiveMale · · Score: 2

    Facebook sells data. That's how it makes money. That's their business. Facebook gives people an easy way to blog and then they monetize the shit out of your data.

    Did people think Facebook did this out of the goodness of their hearts?

  10. Steve, I don't know which is worse... by imperious_rex · · Score: 5, Informative

    Dropping Facebook because you've *finally* clued in to their business model and it bothers you, or being just another grandstander whose virtue signalling his moral indignation with Facebook. Either way, you've just shot yourself in the foot. As the old saying goes: it's better to remain silent and have others think you are a fool than to open your mouth and remove all doubt.

    1. Re:Steve, I don't know which is worse... by drinkypoo · · Score: 2

      Steve Wozniak has a bigger megaphone that you do and is unlikely to be concerned about your indignation about his indignation.

      Nobody ever went broke jerking off the masses, but it is a total wanker move, and it will be brought up every time he feels he needs to comment on propriety in the future.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
  11. Payment in Kind by Marc_Hawke · · Score: 2, Insightful

    The Facebook users don't get financial compensation, but they do get value from the service that Facebook provides.

    I wonder though, is Google in a different category? Is it fine to make all your money off of advertising, which is selling your users' eyeballs? If Facebook had ads on every page, would it still count as 'the users being the product?' Oh wait, it says in the Summary that he doesn't like ads or spam. (Not a Facebook user...didn't know how many ads were there.)

    So that means Google is exactly the same? They provide a free service, (or dozens of free services) as they sell your eyeballs and clicks to various advertisers. Is he dropping Google as well? Or are Google services worth it while Facebook isn't?

    --
    --Welcome to the Realm of the Hawke--
  12. As someone who doesn't use facebook by cdsparrow · · Score: 4, Interesting

    What I'd really like to know is how much of the ghost profile they have built on me was made available through these wonderful API's? I would hope they mostly use that internally, but really what is the hope that's true?

  13. And go to where, exactly? by mark-t · · Score: 3, Insightful

    For all of its faults, facebook has merit in being an all-in-one solution for keeping in touch with people you know and following people and groups that serve particular interests.

    Of course one alternative is to go outside and meet real people, but the point of using facebook was, at least in my view, to connect with people that you wouldn't otherwise ever meet in real life. As people who I have genuine interests in are leaving facebook, I see no obvious alternative to it anywhere on the horizon.

    So.... serious question. Deactivate facebook and go where, exactly?

    --
    File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
    1. Re:And go to where, exactly? by psergiu · · Score: 3, Insightful

      So.... serious question. Deactivate facebook and go where, exactly?

      ... outside and meet real people

      --
      1% APY, No fees, Online Bank https://captl1.co/2uIErYq Don't let your $$$ sit in a no-interest acct.
    2. Re:And go to where, exactly? by thegarbz · · Score: 2

      Trading 'likes' on what you ate for breakfast, or that killer workout you didn't actually do?

      What you think people do on Facebook and what most people actually do seems to be very different. Not everyone is a 14 year old teenage girl.

      there's other solutions that are less invasive (like.. email)

      No. Just No. Email is not an alternative to keeping in contact with an extended group on a social media platform. If it were, then people wouldn't have started using Facebook in the first place. Email is an alternative to Facebook Messenger, but beyond that (and the horrible limits of email sizes) there are fundamentally different communications mediums with fundamentally different use cases.

      And while you seem to think that Facebook is a messaging service specialising in kittens there's far more to it. Hell I barely use it for anything other than the Event section which highlights a whole host of real things that are happening in your local area. Whole lines of business now exist only on Facebook. My local Japanese Korean fusion restaurant no longer has a website, they have a Facebook business listing, and recently my own house has a business listing and I managed to rent it out on Facebook faster than the realestate agent was able to find a tenant (and then quite amusingly one of my friends made a "suggested edit" to my business listing to change the business type to a gay bar).

      99% of what I see on facebook could be replaced by imgur/r/dawww or just googling "cute animal pictures".

      Okay I'll relent a little. Not everyone on facebook is a 14 year old teenage girl ... and her mom.

    3. Re:And go to where, exactly? by Peter+P+Peters · · Score: 2

      For all of its faults, facebook has merit in being an all-in-one solution for keeping in touch with people you know and following people and groups that serve particular interests.

      Which is wonder why someone else didn't copy it. The value is connecting acquaintances and sharing a newsfeed, how hard can that be? And since half the world is already looking for an alternative any prospective competitor would have hundreds of millions of customers from day one.

      So.... serious question. Deactivate facebook and go where, exactly?

      I deleted my account a couple of years ago and didn't miss it. I'm old enough that most of the shit on there is irrelevant to me anyway,and for contacts, email still works (along with Skype/Viber or other Chat service) As above I'm sure if Apple or someone big released a privacy focused clone of FB, it would kill FB almost overnight.

  14. AOL by sycodon · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I figured Facebook would go the way of AOL eventually. But not this way.

    AOL suffered a long, painful, pathetic death. Looks like FaceBook will be put down pretty soon compared to AOL.

    --
    When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
    1. Re: AOL by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Thats sarcasm, right? Most people either dont know about the scandal or dont care.

    2. Re: AOL by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      AOL failed because its core service was obsolete. FB sucks, and everyone here wants them to fall, but their core service is still valuable and relevant for a ton of people.