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The vast majority of the actual content of the internet is provided by people for free to the internet in general. Even your post right now that I disagree with
by TrueDuality 5y ago
The vast majority of the actual content of the internet is provided by people for free to the internet in general. Even your post right now that I disagree with, you likely didn't get paid to post.
That content on Facebook that keeps people coming back? It's not the ads or deals; What keeps people coming back is what their friends, families, and idols post. They're effectively generating content for Facebook which they are then profiting off of "for free".
The straw man argument here is that Facebook is providing the platform and that is how people are compensated for their content. It's kind of fair, but it's been wildly abused. There are competitors, but it's the lock in and invasion that has given Facebook it's value not choice.
There is no informed opt-in, discussion or debate about the value you provide to Facebook in exchange for the value they get out of you. That is the cash-cow Facebook has been milking and when given an informed choice people are now saying, "No, I'm worth more than this garbage."
I'm tearing into Facebook because that's the target of this post but that content is provided on every platform. The value is in what the users are providing not the platform. Reddit, Hacker News, TikTok, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, Google Everything. The content is provided by the users for free to the platforms. The marketing content is noise that people complain about and do not want.
- kaczordon 5y agoIdk I find myself scrolling on Instagram and being more interested in the ads they show then some of the content I see. People want to see ads for cool things, there’s a reason places like Pinterest are big.
- Jordrok 5y agoI honestly cannot fathom this opinion. I literally cannot think of a single instance where I've ever seen an ad and thought "Yes, I'm glad that I'm seeing this instead of the content I came here for." If that's true, why bother even going on Instagram at all? I'll admit that I don't use Pinterest, but from what I understand, it's main feature is being a place for user-curated image collections, yes? That's very different than algorithmically distributed, paid-for ads.
- judge2020 5y agoWell, if ads were never relevant, people would never click them and purchase the products they link to, and CPMs would be $0. The vast majority of people I know either run an ad blocker or don’t click ads - but a lot of people do, especially if the ad provides some discount on an item they viewed last week. I even got a free Nest Mini one time from clicking an official Google store ad.
- rdiddly 5y agoOn Instagram the content itself resembles ads. It's not hard for me to imagine that an ad for something you could actually buy might be more interesting than an ad for some dork's fake online persona you can buy into.
- yunohn 5y ago> The value is in what the users are providing not the platform. Reddit, Hacker News, TikTok, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, Google Everything. The content is provided by the users for free to the platforms. What is missing from your rant is, why would any platform exist then? Nobody is building them without expecting to profit off the mutual relationship. I never understand the POV that everything should somehow magically be provided for free. You want a BBForum, go right ahead. But every platform you listed is significantly more complex than that.
- nwienert 5y agoThere’s plenty of room between the current vig (0%) and profits. Which is how I’ve come around to blockchains for social. Not just for equity, but trust: you can see the governance contracts / how equitable / how easy to change the deal is.
- yunohn 5y ago> Which is how I’ve come around to blockchains for social. I’m speechless. If you’re actually serious, could you give some examples of the social networking apps/features you are using via the blockchain?
- nwienert 5y agoThere's a ton of small DAOs, I don't think anyone has scaled up yet. But given you're speechless, hard to assume you're even open to the idea.
- darkmatterrat 5y ago> The vast majority of the actual content of the internet is provided by people for free to the internet in general. That maybe provided for free. However the hosting infrastructure is paid typically by advertising.
- yunohn 5y agoThis is absolutely true. Someone needs to pay for the development and infrastructure. Even if open source, real people and machines need to exist for actual value. NB: I vouched for your comment - not sure why people flagged it.