I get your frustration. Why don’t they care? Have you asked people directly what benefits they get from Facebook and why they won’t move?
I expect you’ll get the following, based on my experience:
Exposure - Most people can access Facebook regularly.
External Accessibility - Facebook can be accessed on multiple devices, by people who are not tech-conscious.
Reliability - Facebook outages are rare enough to be newsworthy, so no matter what conditions the school or the org is in, it will stay up and be exposed and accessible.
Internal Accessibility - Everyone in the org, even the people who aren’t regularly involved in marketing or community comms, knows how to post to Facebook.
Cost - Facebook’s non-monetary costs are subtle and mostly apply to private users. To any organization with a tight budget, Facebook and Twitter are godsends, because they don’t need to have a P&L line that can be scrutinized and audited. I’m sure you understand as a volunteer how important it can be to dodge the accountants while getting messaging out.
Of course there’s also experience, knowledge, and negative inertia built up over time. Until you can cover all 5 of those points at least, you don’t have a viable option. Nextcloud is neat, but who will administer it without pay? Facebook runs the platform without being visibly paid by the school or the org. Facebook has widgets prebuilt to integrate with the website (that the org also outsources administration of). Nextcloud doesn’t natively have that. Facebook is hosted on a massive network of data centers, Nextcloud would have to be run on one mistakenly undiscarded computer acting as a server in the basement. And it would have to be that way because the org doesn’t have the budget approval for AWS or added hosting. And yes, everything will always come back to that cost issue. Until you can beat that, you have nothing.
I mean, yes. But I was trying to get at why it works and what would be needed to change the status quo. Tbh if Facebook or Twitter could be prosecuted for their role in harm to children or sex trafficking, schools would very quickly be ready for change.
I’ve recently accepted that the vast majority of people who use technology daily will never question or understand how it works, but will act as if it is indispensable, omniscient, and impenetrable.
I get your frustration. Why don’t they care? Have you asked people directly what benefits they get from Facebook and why they won’t move?
I expect you’ll get the following, based on my experience:
Exposure - Most people can access Facebook regularly.
External Accessibility - Facebook can be accessed on multiple devices, by people who are not tech-conscious.
Reliability - Facebook outages are rare enough to be newsworthy, so no matter what conditions the school or the org is in, it will stay up and be exposed and accessible.
Internal Accessibility - Everyone in the org, even the people who aren’t regularly involved in marketing or community comms, knows how to post to Facebook.
Cost - Facebook’s non-monetary costs are subtle and mostly apply to private users. To any organization with a tight budget, Facebook and Twitter are godsends, because they don’t need to have a P&L line that can be scrutinized and audited. I’m sure you understand as a volunteer how important it can be to dodge the accountants while getting messaging out.
Of course there’s also experience, knowledge, and negative inertia built up over time. Until you can cover all 5 of those points at least, you don’t have a viable option. Nextcloud is neat, but who will administer it without pay? Facebook runs the platform without being visibly paid by the school or the org. Facebook has widgets prebuilt to integrate with the website (that the org also outsources administration of). Nextcloud doesn’t natively have that. Facebook is hosted on a massive network of data centers, Nextcloud would have to be run on one mistakenly undiscarded computer acting as a server in the basement. And it would have to be that way because the org doesn’t have the budget approval for AWS or added hosting. And yes, everything will always come back to that cost issue. Until you can beat that, you have nothing.
Because the status quo works for them. Anything else is a you problem.
This answer applies to a broad swath of topics.
I mean, yes. But I was trying to get at why it works and what would be needed to change the status quo. Tbh if Facebook or Twitter could be prosecuted for their role in harm to children or sex trafficking, schools would very quickly be ready for change.
One of the following:
I’ve recently accepted that the vast majority of people who use technology daily will never question or understand how it works, but will act as if it is indispensable, omniscient, and impenetrable.
If I ask or tell them anything at all, they just get annoyed because they don’t care.