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> Because I know what the motive of TaylorSwift.com is... For what it's worth, I don't disagree with anything in those two paragraphs, but that's not what I me

> Because I know what the motive of TaylorSwift.com is... For what it's worth, I don't disagree with anything in those two paragraphs, but that's not what I meant. To be more clear, does it really matter if taylor swift has to settle for the engagement afforded her by taylorswift.com or should society view it as a problem that somethingpopular.com has the power to prevent her from engaging on that platform? > This actually makes my case against the dominance of a platform or monopoly. It's important to distinguish popularity from "dominance" or "monopoly". If you're using anything akin to MAUs to define dominance then your case is hopeless because you're effectively in opposition to the concept of popularity. Social media users aren't being held at gunpoint, they capriciously engage in any platform that gives them what they want on the internet at a given moment, social media is just one slice of that and is generally regarded as the least productive way to spend your time online. > Why are these people getting zero engagement? Are they bad at SEO? Did they not pay the Google tax? It's just the nature of physics, regardless of the factors involved, there are only so many spots available on the front-page. The overwhelming majority of social media users are less than a rounding error in terms of the engagement they will ever receive except for a minuscule fraction that might end up going viral for some reason. > To answer your last question, I don't know. Maybe we shouldn't. I think these are serious problems though, and they're going to require serious thought. I don't think it's a problem, it's basically a fight over who should get to be in the popular club. Not that I think there aren't other problems, in my view the ad model is the only problem. If companies that collect PII and track users were forbidden from selling ad space and had to take on a subscription model like netflix, suddenly the incentives would shift and all the bad behavior would stop. For people concerned about deplatforming, these companies would actually lose money in the form of subscriptions when they ban people rather than earn money by purging toxic content to please advertisers.

cbozeman 6y ago
Ah, I see your arguments a lot more clearly now, and I agree with many of the points you've made. To address your final points, because I think they're the most salient, yes, we need to move away from "free" services, and the sooner the better I think. Gmail / Hotmail / Whatevermail people are using has perpetuated the idea that email has no real value, but I think that's easily disproven by simply locking someone's account for a month. I guarantee you anyone living in the modern world without email for a month would immediately see the monetary value. This is why I pay for ProtonMail, among other reasons (chiefly privacy). I think people really need to get into the mindset of paying for social media services as well. I don't think anyone can argue that Facebook has real, tangible value. It not only connects you to your friends and family, but the storage of media (videos, pictures, etc.) is also useful. I know some people whose entire family photo albums exist only on Facebook's servers. I don't know what kind of pricing would be reasonable... maybe as little as $1 a month for basic services, and then you pay more to unlock more storage for your photo uploads or something, but its a model that I think a lot of people might be interested in, if Facebook respected your privacy, etc. Once again, I don't claim to know the answers, but I do know that we need to move away from the "free" model. My older brother told me 20 years ago, "If you go to a website, and you can't tell what the product is - you're the product." Seems as true now as it was then.

cbozeman 6y ago

Ah, I see your arguments a lot more clearly now, and I agree with many of the points you've made. To address your final points, because I think they're the most salient, yes, we need to move away from "free" services, and the sooner the better I think. Gmail / Hotmail / Whatevermail people are using has perpetuated the idea that email has no real value, but I think that's easily disproven by simply locking someone's account for a month. I guarantee you anyone living in the modern world without email for a month would immediately see the monetary value. This is why I pay for ProtonMail, among other reasons (chiefly privacy). I think people really need to get into the mindset of paying for social media services as well. I don't think anyone can argue that Facebook has real, tangible value. It not only connects you to your friends and family, but the storage of media (videos, pictures, etc.) is also useful. I know some people whose entire family photo albums exist only on Facebook's servers. I don't know what kind of pricing would be reasonable... maybe as little as $1 a month for basic services, and then you pay more to unlock more storage for your photo uploads or something, but its a model that I think a lot of people might be interested in, if Facebook respected your privacy, etc. Once again, I don't claim to know the answers, but I do know that we need to move away from the "free" model. My older brother told me 20 years ago, "If you go to a website, and you can't tell what the product is - you're the product." Seems as true now as it was then.