On Why Milind Alvares Left Facebook [but then came back]
ramymajouji puts me in the spotlight, as he quits Facebook:
Editor-in-chief of Smoking Apples (and all-around vulgar Internet clown) Milind Alvares wrote his own piece — in a form of an open letter to his Facebook fellows — on why he decided to leave the “world’s most popular social network”. […]
For some reason — he doesn’t really explain — Alvares came back to Facebook and decided to write a Safari and Chrome extension to make his (and everyone’s) experience more enjoyable—from a strictly visual point of view, that is. Facebook Neue is free to download and works pretty damn well. Thanks for that one, Milind.
[…]
I’ll tell you why I came back. It wasn’t because I couldn’t take it anymore and I had to have my wall back. It wasn’t that at all. I quit it, and while it was weird for the first two weeks, I survived quite well for around four months. Facebook was out of my workflow and I was quite comfortable with it.
But.
There came a point where I realised that a social network for local friends really is required. Sure many of them are uncultured buffoons who wrte lk dis and upload every picture their camera shoots, but they’re still my friends. Friends who I like. I’m not in college anymore, so meeting them all regularly would be near impossible; many are busy with their jobs, gone abroad. I know I’m supposed to move on in life and make new friends, but considering most of my new friendships are established over an internet connection, I didn’t want to lose contact with the people I knew were real. If this was the only way I could keep in contact, so be it.
I decided to dive back in, but remain primarily in spectator mode. I unfriended over 400 people, keeping just 80 of the closest ones (and a few hot girls) in my list. I ‘facebook around’ sometimes, look through photo albums, and comment on statuses. I’m not addicted, but as of right now it adds value to my life.
And that’s why I created Facebook Neue.
(Source: majouji)
