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

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

Posted by BeauHD on Monday April 9, 2018 @08:38AM 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."

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Hey Steve by Anonymous Coward · 2018-04-09 08:41 · Score: 5, Funny

Welcome to 2007!
1. Re: Hey Steve by Anonymous Coward · 2018-04-09 09:31 · Score: 5, Funny
  
  Says the guy who has never been relevant.
2. Re: Hey Steve by Tough+Love · 2018-04-09 10:09 · 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.
Um ... by fahrbot-bot · 2018-04-09 08:43 · 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?

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It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
1. Re:Um ... by goose-incarnated · 2018-04-09 09:41 · 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.
Ob by Hognoxious · 2018-04-09 08:46 · Score: 4, Funny

Did he announce this via twitter?

--
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Old man yells at cloud (data) by Lynchenstein · 2018-04-09 08:48 · Score: 5, Funny

That is all.
Fake out article again? by SeaFox · 2018-04-09 08:50 · 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?
Re:Really? by Anonymous Coward · 2018-04-09 08:56 · 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!!!
Steve, I don't know which is worse... by imperious_rex · 2018-04-09 08:58 · 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.
As someone who doesn't use facebook by cdsparrow · 2018-04-09 09:03 · 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?
AOL by sycodon · 2018-04-09 09:16 · 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 · 2018-04-09 09:43 · 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.
Re:Really? by CaptainDork · 2018-04-09 10:06 · Score: 5, Funny

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

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It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.