Is Facebook an unnecessary trend or a valuable tool in today's world?

[Patters]

As someone who quit Facebook a couple of years ago, I think it has good and bad points. I think the core idea of linking digital activity to specific people will stick around. It was with us before Facebook. Facebook just brought it to the mass market.

I think it will die off, but only when something new comes along that has the good parts without the bad parts and hopefully with some new good parts thrown in for good measure.

I think it has become expected that everyone has Facebook, but I don't think it has reached the point where you're excluded if you don't have one. Some people might see it as a good thing for you not to have one, and some people might see it as a bad thing. On balance, it probably doesn't make much difference.

I think for a Facebook-like thing to really take off and become pretty much impossible to live without, it will have to break free from the shackles of being run by a single, private company. Businesses in particular must be uncomfortable about giving too much power to Facebook the company. I would like to see an open standard for doing the sorts of things that are good about Facebook. That way, we can have lots of providers in a competitive market.