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I agree that free products like Twitter or Facebook create this problem since advertisers, politicians, and media become the customers, and user attention and e

I agree that free products like Twitter or Facebook create this problem since advertisers, politicians, and media become the customers, and user attention and engagement becomes the product. I still think the underlying problem is profit though, since these companies offer free product in order to get the largest user base (since social networks benefit from this scale). Maximizing user base size leads to more profit since they have more and larger media, politician, and advertising customers. Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram would not be anywhere near as successful if all the users were required to pay a subscription fee. It's an inherent contradiction between social networks and profit that cannot, in my view at least, be resolved.

zepto 6y ago
They wouldn’t be as successful, but maybe that is just a transient stage. It’s possible that as people come to experience and understand how painful they are, there may be more willingness to pay for alternatives.
deeperthinker 6y ago
Do you realize broadcast TV is free, and it is profit oriented. In Britain, bbc is funded by direct tv taxes from people who own television sets and for years no private broadcast company was allowed because they wished to prevent the spread of commercial propaganda through the airwaves. The American model of advertisement funded broadcast proved them wrong and American broadcast industry grew by bounds and leaps while the British were stunted despite the television set being invented in Britain.
- lefrenchy 6y ago
  It can't be directly compared to social media since it is not a social network, but a broadcasting platform. Not everyone can get on cable TV, there is a barrier to entry. Now they have YouTube, their own websites, and plenty of other revenue streams to generate money for them. Also, I never implied that broadcast TV doesn't have it's own subset of issues. I actually think broadcast TV has a few big problems. It moves from manufactured panic to panic, limits the acceptable discourse in order to be subservient to its donors and funding sources (people with certain political opinions never get a platform), and it benefits in a similar way to social media from social division and disfunction. Media manufactures moral panic and plays in a similar way on human emotion in order to keep viewers watching so that they can make more money. > The American model of advertisement funded broadcast proved them wrong and American broadcast industry grew by bounds and leaps while the British were stunted despite the television set being invented in Britain. I mean maybe we should be asking ourselves "at what cost?" and "who benefited from that?". A bunch of media execs got rich, but did broader society really benefit? It's easy to always defer to "growth" as good and completely ignore the costs.

zepto 6y ago

They wouldn’t be as successful, but maybe that is just a transient stage. It’s possible that as people come to experience and understand how painful they are, there may be more willingness to pay for alternatives.

deeperthinker 6y ago

Do you realize broadcast TV is free, and it is profit oriented. In Britain, bbc is funded by direct tv taxes from people who own television sets and for years no private broadcast company was allowed because they wished to prevent the spread of commercial propaganda through the airwaves. The American model of advertisement funded broadcast proved them wrong and American broadcast industry grew by bounds and leaps while the British were stunted despite the television set being invented in Britain.

lefrenchy 6y ago
It can't be directly compared to social media since it is not a social network, but a broadcasting platform. Not everyone can get on cable TV, there is a barrier to entry. Now they have YouTube, their own websites, and plenty of other revenue streams to generate money for them. Also, I never implied that broadcast TV doesn't have it's own subset of issues. I actually think broadcast TV has a few big problems. It moves from manufactured panic to panic, limits the acceptable discourse in order to be subservient to its donors and funding sources (people with certain political opinions never get a platform), and it benefits in a similar way to social media from social division and disfunction. Media manufactures moral panic and plays in a similar way on human emotion in order to keep viewers watching so that they can make more money. > The American model of advertisement funded broadcast proved them wrong and American broadcast industry grew by bounds and leaps while the British were stunted despite the television set being invented in Britain. I mean maybe we should be asking ourselves "at what cost?" and "who benefited from that?". A bunch of media execs got rich, but did broader society really benefit? It's easy to always defer to "growth" as good and completely ignore the costs.