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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."

21 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.

  2. 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 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.
  3. 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. Ob by Hognoxious · · Score: 4, Funny

    Did he announce this via twitter?

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

    That is all.

  6. 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?

  7. 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.

  8. 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.

  9. 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?

  10. 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.
  11. 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.