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5-6 years ago, when smartphones were new in India, ShareIt was most popular application for sharing files across phones. It's an ad-ridden piece of spyware. Bec

5-6 years ago, when smartphones were new in India, ShareIt was most popular application for sharing files across phones. It's an ad-ridden piece of spyware. Because everyone were using ShareIt to share music and photos, and I refused to use it out of paranoia and a general dislike of intrusive ads, I got some reputation of being the "weird nerd". Thankfully Google Files got popular later. It's pretty easy to imagine how a bad application like ShareIt or TikTok may be required to be considered socially normal.

HumblyTossed 3y ago
> I got some reputation of being the "weird nerd". So what!? Who cares what other people think? "Oh, gosh, you're the weird one who won't jump off a bridge!" Damn right!
- never_inline 3y ago
  The obvious disadvantage is I couldn't get music and photos from other people, because they were using shareIt and I couldn't ask them to install and use an OSS alternative. Thanks to Google Files / Android NearBy share, today ShareIt has practically disappeared.
- npteljes 3y ago
  People care what other people think, it's how humans work. If this is missing, it usually shows up in behavior where one routinely hurts themselves or others. Another thing to consider is that when people casually leave someone out. For example, they regularly share their experience on a platform, because most of their friends is on that platform. If someone is not on that platform, they get left out of that experience sharing, if someone doesn't proactively reaching out to them, which I'd say is rare. This leads to the non-majority getting more and more isolated from the rest of the society. Another angle is when people in power, businesses, or other significant figures like teachers exclusively use such platform. If the kindergarten instructions are on Whatsapp, the young parent better install that, fast. This is all related to the network effect, whereby the value of a good or service comes not from the intrinsic value of the thing itself, but rather of its users. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_effect

HumblyTossed 3y ago

> I got some reputation of being the "weird nerd". So what!? Who cares what other people think? "Oh, gosh, you're the weird one who won't jump off a bridge!" Damn right!

never_inline 3y ago
The obvious disadvantage is I couldn't get music and photos from other people, because they were using shareIt and I couldn't ask them to install and use an OSS alternative. Thanks to Google Files / Android NearBy share, today ShareIt has practically disappeared.
npteljes 3y ago
People care what other people think, it's how humans work. If this is missing, it usually shows up in behavior where one routinely hurts themselves or others. Another thing to consider is that when people casually leave someone out. For example, they regularly share their experience on a platform, because most of their friends is on that platform. If someone is not on that platform, they get left out of that experience sharing, if someone doesn't proactively reaching out to them, which I'd say is rare. This leads to the non-majority getting more and more isolated from the rest of the society. Another angle is when people in power, businesses, or other significant figures like teachers exclusively use such platform. If the kindergarten instructions are on Whatsapp, the young parent better install that, fast. This is all related to the network effect, whereby the value of a good or service comes not from the intrinsic value of the thing itself, but rather of its users. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_effect