Dr. Facebook Or How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Give Up On Facebook

A few weeks ago, Facebook decided to institute new “privacy” policies.  Basically, privacy is now a violation of Facebook’s policy.  So, I got rid of my account.  So I thought.  I selected the good ole “Deactivate My Account” and, with the click of a button, was told that my account was inactive but, if I logged in again, it would become active again.  I didn’t think much of it.  Until a guest at my home accidentally reactivated my Facebook when using my computer.

So then I went in search of “How To Delete Your Facebook Account”.  It’s really not hard.  The howto link is here.  And once again, you can’t log into your Facebook account at all for two weeks.  No sharing on the Facebook.  No programs that use Facebook APIs.  No Facebook nothing.  Fine.

But what this reminded me off was one of the worst practices of the Nineties.  I am, of course, talking about “How To Cancel An AOL Account”.

AOL was notorious for its nigh-impossible cancellation process.  Way back in the day, to cancel, one would type in the keyword “Cancel” and the user would be shepherded through the process and would call in to verify.  It wasn’t that big of a deal.  Then, things got worse.  And worse.  And worse.

Ultimately, New York investigated AOL’s customer service policies, revealing a reward program for employees of the retention department.  Ordinarily, that’s not a problem.  Lots of subscriber services reward the best in their retention departments.  However with AOL, such retention was done against subscribers’ wishes, or without their consent. Under the scheme, consumer service personnel received bonuses worth tens of thousands of dollars if they could successfully dissuade or “save” half of the people who called to cancel service. For several years, AOL had instituted minimum retention or “save” percentages, which consumer representatives were expected to meet. These bonuses, and the minimum “save” rates accompanying them, had the effect of employees not honoring cancellations, or otherwise making cancellation unduly difficult for consumers.  Many customers complained that AOL personnel ignored their demands to cancel service and stop billing.  AOL settled with New York and paid a modest fine of $1.25 million.

That was five years ago.  Look at where AOL is now.

I’m not saying that Facebook’s cancellation process is nearly as bad.  I’m saying that Facebook needs to look at those who came before it.  In spite of its size, it’s not even anything approaching indispensable.  Nor is it the only game out there.  I still have my MySpace and, believe it or not, think it may see a little upsurge.

One of the changes that pissed me and those I know off is the abolishment of Fan pages in favor of Liking everything.  This pissed off a variety of pages of content creators.  MySpace was always a band-oriented social networking site.  Yes the pages look horrible.  But bands can put a player on their page and stream their music to visitors.  And it is still a fantastic way to find out where bands are playing.

If Facebook wants to get rid of Fan pages, that’s their decision.  In doing so, they got rid of me because I can follow the bands I like just as easily on MySpace.  I can post my photos on my own damn blog and Flickr account and Picasa account and .me account.  I can goof around with random chatter on Twitter.  I can chat in Pidgin or GAIM or iChat or BeeJive.  I can do all of this without giving Facebook rights to my content in perpetuity.  Facebook does these changes on a “take it or leave it” basis.

And I chose to leave it.

From where I’m standing – as a user – Facebook appears to be going down the AOL Highway.  And I just took the off-ramp.