FetLife and Chat: Feeling Betrayed

So ever since James announced chat coming to FetLife I’ve felt betrayed. I recall vividly John Baku saying that Chat would not come to FetLife. That there would never be a way to show who is online. This was a different experience than other sites. A fun place to get your kink on. A place to connect with new people.

Now apparently they are rolling out a feature that does both. And it is on by default. I felt betrayed. I got that feeling you get when a company does something sleazy. Let’s call it that “FaceBook Feeling” because that’s how that site makes me fee with the way they change settings and eliminate privacy without much complaint. And I feel even less motivated to donate to support the site. (Actually I feel motivated to not donate, so I that I will not get features I neither want nor need.)

I thought about deleting my account. But really, would that matter? Would anybody else even care? Who would even notice?

In my analysis, it seemed that the only person who would suffer is myself. I gain nothing from killing my account. Staying with a site I now consider to be in the same league as FaceBook when it comes to my trust. I’ll still be there when ASL Search comes. I’ll still be there when they sell my info. Why? Because it is a trade off. I get something. I can control most of what FetLife sees about me.

I’ve come to learn companies lie. They do what makes the most money.

And they lie. When it is convenient they change their story. I had hoped that fetlife would be different. Time has shown me that they aren’t really all that different.

So, I will be turning that feature off. Turning off scripting on that site. I will probably not recommend FetLife to anyone in the future, at least until I am convinced John means what he says. Our reputation and credibility is important. More so in this shadowy world of kink we live in. I feel most disappointed because I have been there from the warily days, my blog started within a month of FetLife’s start. It felt like family.

And now, it feels more like FaceBook.

If you have any thoughts or feelings about this, or FetLife in general please feel free to post in the comments. ( And if you feel like I am full of it, let me know that too. )