"self-XSS" (the thing this malfeature is purportedly protecting people from) is a made-up concept. It's basically "don't run your own scripts to interfere with our site, and we'll use scary-sounding security words in an attempt to discourage you from doing it." I don't believe for a second this is about helping the user - more likely is that FB and Netflix want to prevent users running scripts that add features or do functions they find inconvenient, like exporting your address book or movie rating info.
I get to run code just as much as you do - it's MY computer, MY browser, and MY bandwidth. Making up a scare word (that just means "users running code I don't like") in an attempt to legitimize disabling access to development and exploration tools is beyond the pale. There is absolutely no reason to permit this kind of behavior, and I'm frankly a little appalled a community of startup founders and hackers would ever defend this kind of behavior, as some of the comments here have done. If you want to protect users from themselves and limit and restrict what they can do, write a mobile app. Don't try and put your shit on the web if you want it to be a walled garden.
I get to run code just as much as you do - it's MY computer, MY browser, and MY bandwidth. Making up a scare word (that just means "users running code I don't like") in an attempt to legitimize disabling access to development and exploration tools is beyond the pale. There is absolutely no reason to permit this kind of behavior, and I'm frankly a little appalled a community of startup founders and hackers would ever defend this kind of behavior, as some of the comments here have done. If you want to protect users from themselves and limit and restrict what they can do, write a mobile app. Don't try and put your shit on the web if you want it to be a walled garden.