I don't think you are in effect buying something by joining Facebook. Nor do I see why it should be illegal for a company to require a Facebook account to use their service, unless that service is a necessity (no Facebook requirement to access a hospital website, for example) or provided by the government. If USMB wants to require people log in through a Facebook account, that should be entirely up to the owners. It would be a poor decision, but their decision to make.
I've only had a social media requirement to use a site on a couple of occasions. It almost never happens, and I don't remember it ever being limited to Facebook.
I like your last line.
I know it was a stretch, but it's just frickin' wrong to get immersed in some controversial story, to have something to say about it, and then suddenly find that oh no, in order to comment on OUR site, unlike myriad other sites, you've gotta go sign up with this intrusive bullshit narcissism site that mines your data and follows you around to sell shit. To paraphrase Gracie, FUCK that. So in terms of having to 'expend' something, in this case one's privacy, yeah it's like being forced to buy something or if you like "buy into" something.
On another level it's also insulting, as it looks like that site is just ass-uming "oh well, everybody's on Nosebook, so it's no trouble" -- as if we're all freaking obedient robots. That's really insulting, and damn scary that anybody exists that thinks a world like that is OK.
I don't mind a site that wants me to register with them. I usually pass as too much trouble, but at least it's not forcing me to go patronize some completely outside entity I never asked for and want no part of That pisses me off, and sites that make you jump through those hoops, to put it simply, must die.
Nosebook-only requirements are actually pretty common. I can opine all I want on the MLB site, since I'm signed up with it. But if I read a story on their "Cut4" section about funny baseball stuff --- can't do it. You have to sign up with Nosebook first. Wankers.
It doesn't seem very common to me for a social media account to be a requirement for another site, but meh, if some site does have that, it's nothing more than a minor annoyance to me. While I do have a Facebook account, I don't have any other social media account; no Twitter, or Vine, or whatever other places people use. I won't go join one of those to get into a site, barring some unusual exception. If a site does have that kind of requirement, I'll just find an alternate site that doesn't.
I'm not entirely sure why sites would require an outside subscription, unless they make money off of it.
Without knowing all the nuts and bolts I would assume it's the easy way out for them to just hook up a Nosebook connection so they don't have to actively manage their own commentary flow. In other words they're lazy assholes. And yeah I'm sure there's some kind of sleazy kickback going on.
