Integration or Isolation? That's the question

I happened to stumble upon this blog post written by a friend of mine who is also my group mate for the FBOA module I am taking in NUS this semester. The background of the post is actually that he deactivated his Facebook account sometime last year because he feels that Facebook is rather pointless and not the best choice out there as a platform to find information, share his thoughts, or to keep in touch with friends.

I agree with him that Facebook is one of the worst options out there to find information and share your thought. I mean, it is filled with people from all walks of life, and not everyone is as educated as you are, and not everyone is as thoughtful as you are by not sharing pictures of every cat or corgi they saw on the Internet, borderline explicit videos, and those "X things that only YYY understand; number N will make you shocked!" kind of posts. It can be toxic too, seeing the highlights of your friends' lives going for exchange, going on dates, outings, getaway to some exotic place etc etc, while you were there in front of your laptop in your room, living a boring life.

But those are not the main reason I am writing this post (maybe we can discuss about it another day). The post I am talking about is the first one I hyperlinked (or alternatively, here). It was about how one service is tightly integrated to another such that if one service for some reason, God forbid, is down, it will trigger a chain reaction and render us unable to access many of other services. The personal example he mentioned in the post was that he was then unable to use his Spotify because he used Facebook to sign up for his Spotify account.

That brings the question: should different services be isolated from one another? Or should they be integrated with as many others as possible? An argument for isolation is already mentioned above. An argument for integration is that it frees user from filling in the registration/sign-up form and verification hassle that is just way too common. Also, users do not need to remember yet another login ID, nickname, password, or PIN for the new platform he/she is signing up for.

There is no right or wrong answer to this question just yet. This friend of mine seems to be more inclined towards the isolation side, judging from that post. Me, I actually more inclined isolation too, but there are benefits of integration that I do not want to lose (such as no need to remember yet another password).

So what about you? You can just take my (and my friend's) post as fruit for thought, or alternatively you can express your opinion on the comment section! But then again this is just a personal blog that happens to be maintained as I am currently using it for one of my course in university, so don't expect too much discussion except perhaps with me :p.