I am baffled any time I’m on facebook how horrid it is. Loads insanely slowly, won’t accept picture uploads at random, randomly doesn’t let you share to people in your friends group (it will just hide people for no reason). Such a terrible website. Sadly I have to stay on it for friends and music reasons (there is nothing else anyone I know uses) but man, it’s crazy how badly they want you to install their spyware app so you don’t use the browser version.
I kept telling myself the same bad excuses for why I wouldnt leave FB. Friends, Family, etc. In reality, I barely used the site, so it acted more as an easy connection to others that I didnt even really have connections with anymore because I didnt use the site.
Once it became abundantly clear they were willing to be a surveillance tool for fascist govts, I deleted my profile. I reached out to everyone to find alternative means of connecting, and the irony of that process was I connected with people I hadnt spoken to in literal years, and still talk to them now.
If you think you dont have other ways to stay in contact, you are probably incorrect. Sharing phone numbers is the easiest way to stay in contact, nearly everyone has one. I also connected on signal and discord with a variety of them.
Facebook has convinced people it is essential, but it isnt. You do not need social media to maintain social connections. You just need to be social with the connections you value.
Im glad it worked out for you but I highly doubt that’d be the case for me. Of 10 people ive asked, I’ve convinced 1 to talk to me on signal. The rest are tired and don’t want yet another app just to talk to me.
Plus, for events or music, there is nothing else. People only find events on Facebook (me included).
Thats why I suggest phone number exchanfe for texting. Its not the most secure but RCS is at least a security boost.
Events is definitely harder, so I understand that. My wife still uses facebook and tracks that stuff. Ive actually resorted to finding events in local news sources that I put into an RSS feed. If anything Ill make a burner fb account so I can access that kind of stuff, but thus far I have not needed it. Hopefully events become less of a problem as FB becomes more of a problem