Anti-social

I finally got tired of moving from social network to social network, without actually being "social" at all -- to me, it seems like just doing a bunch of work to give some stranger my address book, while getting no value whatsoever out of it.

So, I decided to cancel my accounts on Facebook, LinkedIn, and MySpace.

Facebook was easy to cancel; no problems at all, just hit some buttons and done.  LinkedIn made me wait for a human to process the cancellation, which took about a day.  I've tried three times to cancel MySpace, but it keeps saying it will send me an email with further instructions, and the mail never comes.

All three of these sites are just completely worthless to me: Facebook's main point seems to be to let me know the status of people whose only true status is "I'm using Facebook"; LinkedIn is good for job networking but I don't need a job and if I did, I have a real, human network to contact (plus actual experience and reputation); MySpace isn't good for anything but as an example of 1997 web design.

The sad thing is that I think there is some potential end-user value to "social networking" (or rather, "computer-aided contact linking"; real "social networking" has nothing to do with computers) but no one has provided this value yet -- instead, you're just being entertained with shiny objects while you hand someone your entire address book and list of interests, which is why they are worth billions and you are worth nothing.

So, hey, if I'm so smart and know what value there is to provide, why don't I go do it and be worth billions myself?  Eh, like I need that kind of hassle.