4 ms·

You make an interesting point: what would a social network of limited range look like? Something where you couldn't have more than a set number of connections,

by kace91 6y ago

You make an interesting point: what would a social network of limited range look like? Something where you couldn't have more than a set number of connections, things didn't spread more than two nodes in the graph, and resharing wasn't an option. I think it would be ideal to fill in the mainstream need for facebook ( keeping in touch with people)

bmarquez 6y ago
Social networks could just disable the Share or Retweet button and I think the problem will solve itself. I miss the old Facebook circa 2007 -- no likes and no shares made it a better experience for me.
- SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
  Agreed. Facebook and Twitter really ought to have thought about the long history of chain emails, and realized what they were doing when they added an "all my friends have gotta see this!" button.
  - Zak 6y ago
    They knew exactly what they were building.
  - inglor_cz 6y ago
    I do not think they were oblivious. The ultimate goal of such systems is to gain hours and hours of your attention daily. What works better than outrage? Not even cute kittens.
- pjc50 6y ago
  I'm old enough to remember "manual retweet", and people still do it on Instagram which has no re-share functionality.
  - Zak 6y ago
    People do it less on Instagram than on most social networking platforms though, and that's one of the reasons a greater fraction of the content on Instagram is original. A bit of UI friction has a big influence on user behavior.
Barrin92 6y ago
>what would a social network of limited range look like? healthy is what it would look like. because then it would operate on a human scale, be decentralised, robust, instead of being hyper-connected like sort of giant overstimulated brain. Obviously it violates just about every financial incentive social media companies have, as well as people's increasing need for attention, so it will never happen.
baby 6y ago
I’ve been thinking of something like that. One person has what? Perhaps 100 people tops that they want to keep track of in their lives? Make it less, and now you are forcing someone to actively manage who they want to keep close with. On top of that prevent re-sharing or sharing of links and pictures and you have a more personal experience. No public profiles.
wastedhours 6y ago
The "problem" (and I use the term "problem" from the perspective of the network, I don't believe it actually is a net problem for the world) - is that limited the reach of content would potentially reduce the amount of content to interact with exponentially. Lack of content, lack of engagement, lack of reason to keep returning. Healthier for the world, but, potentially a very hard problem to solve from the platform provider side to keep it going long term. There will be models that get it right, but would require quite large shifts in user behaviour. It'd definitely be nice though.
enkid 6y ago
Make it less like to show something if the further the connection is from the individual. By default don't show every like or retweet, only do it if you are relatively close to the original source? Dampen the viralness if the post by having diminishing returns for each "like?" I don't have an answer, but I feel like these are things that could be explored.

by kace91 6y ago

bmarquez 6y ago

Social networks could just disable the Share or Retweet button and I think the problem will solve itself. I miss the old Facebook circa 2007 -- no likes and no shares made it a better experience for me.

SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
Agreed. Facebook and Twitter really ought to have thought about the long history of chain emails, and realized what they were doing when they added an "all my friends have gotta see this!" button.
- Zak 6y ago
  They knew exactly what they were building.
- inglor_cz 6y ago
  I do not think they were oblivious. The ultimate goal of such systems is to gain hours and hours of your attention daily. What works better than outrage? Not even cute kittens.
pjc50 6y ago
I'm old enough to remember "manual retweet", and people still do it on Instagram which has no re-share functionality.
- Zak 6y ago
  People do it less on Instagram than on most social networking platforms though, and that's one of the reasons a greater fraction of the content on Instagram is original. A bit of UI friction has a big influence on user behavior.

Barrin92 6y ago

>what would a social network of limited range look like? healthy is what it would look like. because then it would operate on a human scale, be decentralised, robust, instead of being hyper-connected like sort of giant overstimulated brain. Obviously it violates just about every financial incentive social media companies have, as well as people's increasing need for attention, so it will never happen.

baby 6y ago

I’ve been thinking of something like that. One person has what? Perhaps 100 people tops that they want to keep track of in their lives? Make it less, and now you are forcing someone to actively manage who they want to keep close with. On top of that prevent re-sharing or sharing of links and pictures and you have a more personal experience. No public profiles.

wastedhours 6y ago

The "problem" (and I use the term "problem" from the perspective of the network, I don't believe it actually is a net problem for the world) - is that limited the reach of content would potentially reduce the amount of content to interact with exponentially. Lack of content, lack of engagement, lack of reason to keep returning. Healthier for the world, but, potentially a very hard problem to solve from the platform provider side to keep it going long term. There will be models that get it right, but would require quite large shifts in user behaviour. It'd definitely be nice though.

enkid 6y ago

Make it less like to show something if the further the connection is from the individual. By default don't show every like or retweet, only do it if you are relatively close to the original source? Dampen the viralness if the post by having diminishing returns for each "like?" I don't have an answer, but I feel like these are things that could be explored.