Perhaps it's the productization of death?

I received this news as a retweet in my Twitter feed. Next to it was a bit.ly link about Configuration Management tools, the announcement of a speaker at a conference, and a famous quote from Einstein.

Right now on HN it's #4. Next to it is a blog post about tools and frameworks and a post about a PostgreSQL extension. The response to Pieter's tweet is lengthy and very kind. It would be a privilege to hear those thoughts in my own life before I leave. But the thoughts will still keep coming, probably long after he's gone.

I met a nice lady three years ago. She was a "social media consultant" in the local area, which basically consisted of teaching small business owners how to navigate the web. We met for lunch several times when I was in town.

Soon, though, she learned she had stage 4 lung cancer. I had lunch with her one more time. I'll never forget how weary she looked.

She held on for almost a year, then she passed.

For many weeks after that, however, Facebook was full of her many friends offering their condolences. Facebook would remind me that she liked certain things as a way to sell me on things. Every so often people would think of her and post on her wall. These posts appeared in my feed.

Last week I finally had to unfriend her. She was dead. But it didn't stop the computerized social network that Facebook to stop trying to monetize as much of her presence as they could. Even if somebody had set her account to deceased, Facebook will always own some part of her existence.

It feels like turning a tender, emotional, precious thing into a bucket of bits. I find that repugnant.