I quit Facebook last week. For a while I enjoyed it. It was fun to find out how people I knew from High School and Grad School were doing (College was already covered because of my involvement in the alumni association). However, I soon got tired of “Mafia Wars”, “Farmville”, and their like. I could block them one by one, but there was always another one coming.

Furthermore, I got tired of the privacy issues. Facebook is always trying to market your personal information. mdlbear has mentioned these problems several times, as have some people on Facebook itself. There are ways to alter your settings, but Facebook keeps changing the rules of the game, and I got tired of playing defense.

Also, it was a time sink. There are better things to do, on-line and off.

LJ has some similar problems, but not nearly on such a scale. I have a paid account, which frees me from ads (except on RSS feeds), although there are other issues. The problem, fundamentally, is that all of these vendors are for-profit corporations. They may offer a “free” account, but TANSTAAFL.