I find private feeds make it harder for me to interact with people. And from a security standpoint, I'm not going to 'know' someone after reading some of their comments any better than I would by taking a quick look at their feed: both are shoddy ways to initially determine someone's trustworthiness. - FFing Enigma (aka Tina)

Thanks Tina- that is a very good point. (But then I expect smart comments from you :) ) - Abby Martin

I am not sure why you should care who follows you. What is important is who you follow. - Brian Sullivan

Brian- I like that. :) - Abby Martin

I was pretty frank in this thread... http://friendfeed.com/e... - Johnny Worthington

Thanks Johnny - I missed that I guess and there is some very good discussion there! :) I see your side of things too. So now my head hurts. So I am going to sleep. - Abby Martin

I just had my wife turn the private feed off. I think it's harder to get involved. - Eric @ CS Techcast

I find it hard to decide to follow someone if I can not see their feed. Unless I really know them or have been reading their comments for a while and have a good idea of what their interest are, I will not follow someone with a private feed. - Jeff P. Henderson

But V -- I am not subscribed to you nor you to me - but I still have access to your comments on this post so I am not sure what control you are exercising - Brian Sullivan

Just treat it as a public forum and don't say anything or put anything you wouldn't want the world to know. - Eric P

Brian, that's the point I was trying to make: someone's feed might be private but their comments aren't. Ergo, in theory you can gauge someone by the comments they leave and determine whether to request a subscription or not. However, I don't think comments are any better or worse of a gauge than someone's actual feed. - FFing Enigma (aka Tina)

The illusion that anything you say online is private is just that -- an illusion. Anything you say online is by its nature immediately public. - Brian Sullivan

Tina: -- a private feed makes it very difficult to gauge anything about the person at all -- unless you happen to see a comment in passing -- but one or two comments is not very useful either. I just don't bother to even try to subscribe to people with private feeds unless someone else strongly recommends them. Just too much trouble to make any assessment and my general opinion is that people with private feeds are just being to "precious". - Brian Sullivan

Brian, the reason I have a private feed is purely for a time stamp issue. The illusion that anyone who has commented so far is under the illusion of the illusion of privacy is an illusion... - Johnny Worthington

V - maybe but I think most social networking sites and the whole genre is designed to communicate to larger number of generally unknown (on a personal RL basis) and probably geographically dispersed people. If I want to communicate with people I know in RL I don't use online social networking sites. - Brian Sullivan

I tried the private feed on my FF account for a while; there were some safety issues I considered at the time, but, in the end, my interaction with "newer" people also dwindled. I guess in the end, it depends on what is more important to you: privacy or access to newer conversations. - Helen Sventitsky

Again I think that control is a bit of an illusion but if it gives you comfort to think that you are controlling access that is up to you. Certainly it does make people less likely to subscribe so if that is you goal you are probably achieving it. - Brian Sullivan

Actually, the only thing that freaks me out about privacy is Facebook... but other than that, I don't really care. Maybe I'm weird... - Mona Nomura

"Any thoughts?" Yes, your husband is probably cute :-) - Todd Hoff

Woah! I went to sleep and while I slumbered -and worked - this thing grew like crazy. Thanks for the insight guys! And Todd - he *is* cute. That doesn't mean I can ever get him to clean the bathroom but hey, nobody's perfect. - Abby Martin