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He now made a “comfortable middle-class living,” but sitting there with me in the cabin, fretted that it could go away at any time. “This is me working a little

He now made a “comfortable middle-class living,” but sitting there with me in the cabin, fretted that it could go away at any time. “This is me working a little network I’ve built using someone else’s social media platform,” he said. “If Instagram changes its algorithm slightly, there goes a bit of my business. If Instagram disconnects some of the tools I use to build and monitor my account, there goes a bit of my business. And if Instagram goes away and is replaced by something newer and better, I need to get there first, just like I did with this account. If I don’t, I’m done. I’m totally dependent on a platform that’s completely out-of-control.” I think this man is a bit of a canary in the coalmine for the rest of us. Even for those of us who do not depend on social media for our income, enough of human communication is wrapped up in social media to affect our lives in a significant way, whether we want it to or not.

Waterluvian 8y ago
Can you elaborate? The only social media I do is here and I'm not seeing the connection.
- stcredzero 8y ago
  The only social media I do is here and I'm not seeing the connection. To me, HN is a refuge!
asdff 8y ago
Is it, though? I run through my FB notifications once a month or so to see if my parents tagged me in something, and that's about all my interaction with it since early college. I just got too busy with class and later work to sit there and scroll through the news feed, which takes a lot longer to do these days with all the reposting of advertisement and clickbait. I stay in touch with people by texting/groupchats/calls and email for professional relationships, and I don't feel like I'm missing out on anything at all. I do use snapchat pretty often, but I'm only friends on there with people I actually met and I only really interact with smaller groupchats of my close friends. I never look at the third party content in the app. It is an excellent outlet for when I gotta show my friends how this asshole parked halfway up the curb, or how my cat is bouncing off the walls, or brief highlights from late night shenanigans. All temporary and fleeting, and I'm really just hoping my friends snort a little more air out of their nostril and smirk when they see it, nothing more. Probably not the type of engagement that Snap has in mind, so we will see how long the app is tolerable.

Waterluvian 8y ago

Can you elaborate? The only social media I do is here and I'm not seeing the connection.

stcredzero 8y ago
The only social media I do is here and I'm not seeing the connection. To me, HN is a refuge!

asdff 8y ago

Is it, though? I run through my FB notifications once a month or so to see if my parents tagged me in something, and that's about all my interaction with it since early college. I just got too busy with class and later work to sit there and scroll through the news feed, which takes a lot longer to do these days with all the reposting of advertisement and clickbait. I stay in touch with people by texting/groupchats/calls and email for professional relationships, and I don't feel like I'm missing out on anything at all. I do use snapchat pretty often, but I'm only friends on there with people I actually met and I only really interact with smaller groupchats of my close friends. I never look at the third party content in the app. It is an excellent outlet for when I gotta show my friends how this asshole parked halfway up the curb, or how my cat is bouncing off the walls, or brief highlights from late night shenanigans. All temporary and fleeting, and I'm really just hoping my friends snort a little more air out of their nostril and smirk when they see it, nothing more. Probably not the type of engagement that Snap has in mind, so we will see how long the app is tolerable.