Chateau Lloyd

Today I put a notice on my Facebook page that I'll be leaving the platform soon.  I haven't posted there in what seems like forever, so a few of my friends replied that they thought I'd already left.

The reasons for leaving are many:

• The interface keeps changing and it hasn't worked well on any of my computers for years.
• My feed was erratic at best and people would drop in and out of it.
• Friends would disappear and have to be re-added.  This may have been a deliberate experiment.
• The constant political debates and virtue-signalling caused people to go crazy.

But the biggest reason was that I was the product, and I was giving me away for free.

As an author, I took particular umbrage that everything I did and posted was immediately being turned around and sold without a penny of it going to me.

So I'm done.  I'll leave the notice up for a bit so everyone who still wants to talk to me knows where I can be found, but I'm outta there.

When Facebook first emerged, it seemed like a good thing.  It was easy to track down old friends and distant family.  In retrospect, it would have been better if there was a straight-up fee and then total privacy.  Instead the "free" side of it came at the total commodification of everything you shared.

We also know that the feeds are manipulated.  Facebook's ownership has strong political views and isn't shy about shutting down people who disagree with them.  In a magazine or newspaper, I'm fine with that, but Facebook has too much control over information for me to be comfortable with that arrangement. 

I've always been able to look past someone's politics, but social media is increasingly making that the only thing that count.  So I'm leaving.

I'll continue to post things here and welcome any and all to leave comments or email.

It's kind of funny, but having a blog is now almost retro.  I'm cool with that.