<story><title>Facebook is redesigning its core app</title><url>https://www.theverge.com/2019/4/30/18523265/facebook-events-groups-redesign-news-feed-features-f8-2019</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>manmal</author><text>I find it frustrating that communities are using FB. Notifications and mentions go missing left and right, and its UI is not (yet?) ideal for proper discussions - I much prefer the plain forums that have always existed. I get that FB is convenient because most people have an account already, but a FB login button would also do the trick for most communities. We surely don’t need a multi-billion company to host events and groups for us. Lock-in (social graph etc) is actually quite low for these features, so I think this is a bit of a desperate move from them.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>hombre_fatal</author><text>Forums are nerdy and almost nobody wants to check N number of different forums to keep up with any groups they want to be part of.&lt;p&gt;FB isn&amp;#x27;t convenient because people have an account that works with &amp;quot;Login with Facebook.&amp;quot; It&amp;#x27;s convenient because it&amp;#x27;s a one stop shop for your members.&lt;p&gt;Whether FB is ideal is going to vary per community though.</text></comment>
<story><title>Facebook is redesigning its core app</title><url>https://www.theverge.com/2019/4/30/18523265/facebook-events-groups-redesign-news-feed-features-f8-2019</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>manmal</author><text>I find it frustrating that communities are using FB. Notifications and mentions go missing left and right, and its UI is not (yet?) ideal for proper discussions - I much prefer the plain forums that have always existed. I get that FB is convenient because most people have an account already, but a FB login button would also do the trick for most communities. We surely don’t need a multi-billion company to host events and groups for us. Lock-in (social graph etc) is actually quite low for these features, so I think this is a bit of a desperate move from them.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>gambler</author><text>&lt;i&gt;&amp;gt;I get that FB is convenient&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;i&gt;&amp;gt;We surely don’t need a multi-billion company to host events and groups for us&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;This is the crazy part about most &amp;quot;cloud&amp;quot; and &amp;quot;social&amp;quot; things today. Instead of spending money on making core technologies easy to use and accessible to all people we (collectively) fund middlemen who provide usability as a centralized, temporary service. This is exactly like TurboTax, except it&amp;#x27;s happening with all kinds of IT products and &lt;i&gt;almost nobody cares&lt;/i&gt;.&lt;p&gt;For example, there is no fundamental reason why creating your own forum should be significantly more complicated than creating a Facebook account and installing their app on your phone. The only essential pieces of information you need for a forum are universal name&amp;#x2F;id of some sort (e.g. a domain name), administrative login and administrative password. Maybe not even that. Really, you don&amp;#x27;t even need login&amp;#x2F;password if you&amp;#x27;re okay with using email for authentication. Everything else is made-up bullshit that IT industry refuses to optimize (and, in fact, makes more complicated as years go by).&lt;p&gt;This isn&amp;#x27;t just about being annoyed by Facebook&amp;#x27;s bloated UI and glitches. We live in an increasingly information-driven society, so the ability of &lt;i&gt;normal people&lt;/i&gt; to own and control their online information is increasingly important.</text></comment>