> I am getting a bit annoyed by how shocked people on here are about this.
Exactly. Didn't people know all the proprietary social networks are spyware+adware? That's the way they earn money. BTW Ghostery says it knows 92 trackers in the social media category.
I tried Ghostery twice and didn't understand it - sites seemed to keep breaking so I go with an alternative method (uBlock Origin + DuckDuckGo extension, and Brave on mobile). Based on this experience, Ghostery is not something I would simply throw on "most people's" computer. I would not for a single moment think that most people (as you implied) understand social networks.
I think we become a part of the problem if we simply assume all users are just like us and know all about the negatives of tech. Facebook evidently didn't anticipate/address it early enough despite all that talent - did they really want this Cambridge Analytica situation to happen? What are we doing to fix this?
Ah fair enough; I think DuckDuckGo's extension does a similar thing with regards to trackers and appears to be easier to use (for me). As for a social network that doesn't spy like the current big ones? I'd go with IRC.
I know people have proposed alternatives like Mastodon or Diaspora*, but I don't think they're good alternatives either compared to gradually giving them up to learn old offline alternatives: https://mobile.nytimes.com/2016/11/20/jobs/quit-social-media...
As for Steemit, I think this "feature" is most absurd. I hope it never takes off:
Exactly. Didn't people know all the proprietary social networks are spyware+adware? That's the way they earn money. BTW Ghostery says it knows 92 trackers in the social media category.