Ian Donnelly
Girl on the NetMy biggest pet peeve is restaurants/gigs/events or venues of any kind which have a social media page instead of a website. I don't have fucking instagram, so I literally can't see your menu/lineup? Even if I had instagram, it's an entirely inaccessible format so would be fucking useless? These platforms are for promotion, not for hosting vital information.
At an absolute minimum, you need a really basic website for location/info/contact. You literally cannot rely on Insta for this, it is not fit for that purpose ARGH.
Do not get me started on PUNK EVENTS that require me to open and interact with FACEBOOK in order to buy tickets. Fucking FACEBOOK. You're meant to be punk, goddammit.
Kevin Karhan 
@girlonthenet #NSAbook is a general "won't use & can't use" to me since their #ToS are just inacceptable!!!
Elias> You're meant to be punk, goddammit
I see your point. I think that being on Facebook may be the least punk thing to be, ever.
Astrid
Chewie@girlonthenet
Yeah, it should be written on Gemini :P
Yeah, it should be written on Gemini :P
We Should Bury This@girlonthenet Spotify once tried to sell me Dead Kennedy's show tickets and that was a real kick in the crotch to see
aethervision@kerouac666 @girlonthenet Out on the road today I saw a DK sticker on an oligarch.
Stefan Rother-Stรผbs@girlonthenet
It's like "talk to the thumbs up because I can't hear you"
It's like "talk to the thumbs up because I can't hear you"
e Riley Casey@girlonthenet Genuinely punk events would have paper posters glued to grimy brick walls under urban rail bridges.
Sue@girlonthenet
So, I gave up being punk a few decades ago, so my perspective maybe really warped, but BACK IN MY DAY, punk events were entirely word of mouth. It would be soul crushing to me to see a punk event set up on Facebook.
So, I gave up being punk a few decades ago, so my perspective maybe really warped, but BACK IN MY DAY, punk events were entirely word of mouth. It would be soul crushing to me to see a punk event set up on Facebook.
Interpipes ๐@girlonthenet especially for when instagram or whoever suddenly goes โhey! No more food places without paying us ยฃ6000 a month!โ or whatever other mad policy change
wakejagrI totally agree. If I can't find your [real world site or event category] via web search, I'm likely going to go to a different [real world site or event category].
Mel
Dr David Mills@girlonthenet I wish I could boost this more than once!
๐ก๐๐๐บ๐๐๐๐บ๐ ๐ฐ๐๐๐๐ฑ
Artemesia@SmartmanApps @Dtl @girlonthenet given mastodon's heinous browser bugs, you'll probably do that unintentionally. (You click to boost, the boost happens, but the web page leaves your cursor focus on the boost icon, so when you then hit up/down arrow keys to scroll the page, instead you're toggling the boost status at keystroke repeat rate)
Clueless by Sam@girlonthenet My band's *only* web presence is this https://rawfunkmaharishi.uk/ but people always ask for our Instagram and seem baffled that we even have a website
Coralie Renรฉe
Lisa Hamilton@girlonthenet Welcome to West Virginia, where the entire and only Internet is Facebook. They're too stupid to comprehend there's more to it than what Zuckerberg gives them
Even our useless public utilities only post on Facebook, so I have missed several important notifications, like being under a boil water order
Those companies don't deserve your business
ginguin (bean)@3x10to8mps @girlonthenet It's the same all over this region (I'm just over the state border from you). Most of the food and shopping in the area only has a facebook page. No menus or hours.
But... Facebook is free. The business owners are tech illiterate and cash poor. I get why they do it, but boy is it frustrating as a consumer.
@ginguin @girlonthenet I agree small businesses use Fb for those reasons, as well as not knowing they should have a website. But there's no excuse for the municipal water company or sewer company or town hall to use Fb. Just none in 2023.
I come from a very rural area in Colorado, also economically depressed, but every home beauty shop or custom meatpacker has a website. So it's not just the cost. It's a willful lack of education around here. It's weird ๐ง
BรถotesVoid@girlonthenet Same and as you said they're both terrible ways of presenting information like menus
Lynn Sacco ๐ณ๏ธโ๐@girlonthenet And sorry, Insta Restaurants, but all the food pics you post look exactly alike - all those swirls on everything. It makes me snort, not hungry.
Vixen Blu@girlonthenet
This has been my pet peeve for years. I feel it from just being another online person, as well as from the perspective as a SWer and (seperately) as a web designer
Lots of things I have to stay on the outside with bc I won't touch Zuck/Meta with a 50 foot barge pole
Dianora (Diane Bruce)@girlonthenet Or on Fecesbook.
Bill the Galactic Hero@girlonthenet Totally. Although I include Facebook in this as well. Iโm not going to join FB to read your menu. I just move on to another place.
๐ฉโ๐ฆฏThe Blind Fraggle@girlonthenet Then there are those restaurants that don't have websites at all, just pages.
coldclimate@girlonthenet *strong agree*
British Tech Guru@girlonthenet I regard businesses with websites as vaguely suspect,
Var@girlonthenet "My biggest pet peeve is restaurants/gigs/events or venues of any kind which have a social media page instead of a website."
True ๐ This is frustrating to someone who doesn't use (or own) a Facebook account. We can't even get basic info, it's all locked behind account required tracking. Sometimes I'll get the RSS and read that. Other times I'll just never be a patron of that place again. Also, local townships, cities, police, fire, etc follow this horrible practice. #privacy
Marcus Shockley@girlonthenet same for me it's Facebook. Haven't been on it for years, have no intention of using it, and some businesses have FB page as their only presence. I'm not giving business to a company that can't get that one small thing correct. Does their banker only have a Gmail account? How about their doctor? Their lawyer? Unreal.
Hiker Geek ๐ฒ๐ป๐ฒMy peeve is government entities using only Facebook for info. Besides the aspect of forcing people who need the info into using FB they become stuck there. A website can be downloaded and moved to another host. There is no way to export your content from FB and import it to another service. Zuckerberg doesn't need more power over government.
Heather Harvey ๐ณ๏ธโ๐ ๐@girlonthenet Yes!! I hear you!!
Brother Soul@girlonthenet How about the dorks that put on the venue, but no address, no link to the venue...it's just the look at me, on the flyers....
STraight Dorks.
brother
Listerine Lavender Mint@girlonthenet part of the problem is that making a very rudimentary websiteโstatic htmlโis not easy. Youโve gotta get and pay for hosting, youโve gotta learn weird symbols.
For a lot of businesses, theyโre going to take the fastest vector to a web presence, and for them, a Facebook page seems to them to be sufficient.
I agree this is a problem. Thereโs definitely a need for very simple web hosting thatโs easy to use.
FreediverX@thedansimonson @girlonthenet
Itโs never been easier to create a website. No coding skills required. Any business or organization that canโt be bothered with that minimal level of effort and investment doesnโt deserve anyoneโs patronage. Or respect.
Itโs never been easier to create a website. No coding skills required. Any business or organization that canโt be bothered with that minimal level of effort and investment doesnโt deserve anyoneโs patronage. Or respect.
@freediverx @girlonthenet possibly but the results are consistently terrible
@thedansimonson @girlonthenet
A simple website created using a predefined template on SquareSpace or Wordpress is better than expecting prospective customers to submit to surveillance capitalism in order to learn about your product or interact with you.
A simple website created using a predefined template on SquareSpace or Wordpress is better than expecting prospective customers to submit to surveillance capitalism in order to learn about your product or interact with you.
@freediverx @girlonthenet WordPress requires perpetual maintenance because involving a database in something a static website could do is an unending security headache
@thedansimonson @girlonthenet
You do you, but any business or organization that requires me to reach them via Facebook will never see any business or participation from me, even if I were otherwise interested in what they had to offer.
You can make the mental calculation that the pros are worth the cons, but don't be surprised when you and/or your org are dragged through the mud of public discourse as a result.
@freediverx @girlonthenet you seem to think that I'm implicitly defending Facebook in an either-or fallacy. Facebook is trash. I will never defend Facebook.
my original point remains that there is fertile ground for alternatives.
Flo Ti@girlonthenet Apart from being annoying it's extremely unprofessional. Expecting people to pay for your service if you can't even be bothered to make a website makes you look like an epic amateur.
everwake@girlonthenet Every restaurant/store/service is only on Facebook where I live. I have to constantly ask my wife to look things up for me because I don't have a Facebook account.
Conrad@girlonthenet itโs the other way around the be relevant these days ๐
๐ผ
Elias Jachniuk@girlonthenet this aren't even the most outrageous examples, here it's become common practice for schools to give all news through Facebook only, like they don't know when we will come back from winter vacations yet so we're just expected to constantly check Facebook to find out, and it doesn't even matter if they are under 13 who can't even open a page by Facebook's own TOS
Chase Martin 
@girlonthenet so true. I would take a geocity website sent through time over relying on insta or twitter. Did people forget how to use the internet outside of the big social media companies?
raphael@girlonthenet YES!
and, like, neocities and github pages are right there. these are enough to get something off the ground that is, for all intents and purposes, on the actual internet.
and, like, neocities and github pages are right there. these are enough to get something off the ground that is, for all intents and purposes, on the actual internet.
DJ Lightfoot305Seriously
Or, they have a website, but don't update it.
There was a DJ night mentioned at a local bar recently, and I thought, "ooh, I'll advertise it on here", and linked to the venue's specific page for the event, and the DJ (who has an account on here).
A bit later the DJ replied that the night had been cancelled, and he'd told the venue 2 weeks ago.
I felt like a right idiot :(
I bet they'd mentioned the change on FB <sigh>
Edit: better english
A. Rivera@girlonthenet Oh, I hear you on that. Big #fail on those businesses that all they have is a Facebook or Instagram page as their "front" on the net.
Why Not Zoidberg? ๐ฆ@girlonthenet For small business a Facebook page was often the cheapest and most logical step for over a decade; it functioned 95% like a homepage and was free, and since Facebook was THE social media (some weirdos was on something called "Twitter" for some reason) you really wasn't afraid someone would fail to see your stuff.
But these days? Yeah definitely agreeing with you.
robyneatseverything@girlonthenet Yes yes yes yes ๐
Estarriol, Terrorist Dragon@girlonthenet same with facebook
Cymphoni Fantastique@girlonthenet WordPress website. $5. Problem solved.
urien2@girlonthenet My university uses Facebook for all the important informativo, even though it is the worst way of spreading that. When posts are ordered by the algorithm, you can't look for a specific post easily. An RSS feed would be 100x better