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I don’t know what we had hoped to get from social media, but for a brief period of time, 15 years ago, it was fun. The stopped when ads once again was called u

I don’t know what we had hoped to get from social media, but for a brief period of time, 15 years ago, it was fun. The stopped when ads once again was called upon to save a business that failed to make a sales pitch directly to its end-users. It not the fault of the ads as such. It is a reasonable solution, if you can accept that it will never make you insanely wealthy. Sadly that not what happens. Companies keep pushing and pushing to make as much money as possible, forcing their platforms into attention hoarding machines. Platforms, such as Facebook, Instagram or TikTok, no longer serve any purpose other than sell attention and killing other platforms that would stand in the way of them making a few extra dollars. For a brief time in history social media provide us with a bit more fun. It allowed us to be a bit more social. Then corporate greed took it away, almost as fast.

neilalexander 4y ago
I'm not really convinced that _anyone_ ever really had an up-front vision for what social media could bring to the table, either good or bad. To me, it always seemed more like a solution in search of a problem, which in turn just ended up creating more problems.
- mrweasel 4y ago
  Take Facebook, for a brief few years it did bring your closer to old friends and family, if you let it. In the quest for profit, that feature seemed to be the first to die off. Maybe it wasn't a vision, but it could have been.
- slfnflctd 4y ago
  It's pretty simple to me. It started out as a way to remove the barrier to creating a personal website. Why would someone want a personal website? So you don't have to explain everything about yourself to every new person you meet. They can see what your interests are, what kind of ideas or projects you promote, and learn more about your quirks. This helps filter out those who would clash with you, as well as giving potential friends or colleagues a much smoother on-ramp to future interactions. That was in the MySpace days. At some point, Facebook took over because it was a more standardized interface with more bells & whistles, and eliminated the issue of really ugly page designs made by amateurs with auto-playing audio of music you might hate. For a little while, FB was a superior product. Then, they started messing with The Feed so it was more likely to do things that benefited the company. There was some uproar, but it was ignored and those voices turned out to be an inconsequential minority. Other platforms followed suit. This was the turning point which soured the whole experiment. I still think it can be quite useful when you're hyper-focused on using it to enhance offline interactions and/or certain collaborative efforts. But if you're just idly bouncing around, The Feed will hijack your brain and start pushing you toward things the company thinks will make it more money. The problem is that social media became an end unto itself, rather than a tool to facilitate other things. Apparently there were hundreds of millions of people with a bunch of idle time who didn't want to do anything challenging with that time other than occasionally be enticed to spend money in an attempt to make themselves feel better about their lives. Their eyeballs were ripe for the harvest. And now we have to reckon with all the unforseen ways this has changed our culture, including the whole 'influencer' plague. It takes a lot of discipline to avoid the siren's call of FOMO, and most people are not sufficiently equipped to do it. It's inextricably intertwined with our failures to adequately address the mental health needs of the wider population as well. All those of us who are better off can do is lead by example.
fullshark 4y ago
Ads make sense for social media, because the value is in the network, and putting a paywall would limit user access -> fewer members in the network. Ultimately the problem with social media is no one wants to talk to everyone they've ever met or know of them all the time except for public figures, and then they want to share only watered down PR messages. I guess also people desperately convinced of some political point they want to convince others of. The early days were naive and fun because everyone was oversharing and we were taking on larger risks in terms of public perception in search of fun connections but we wised up, and now only young kids on tiktok still have that naivety.

neilalexander 4y ago

I'm not really convinced that _anyone_ ever really had an up-front vision for what social media could bring to the table, either good or bad. To me, it always seemed more like a solution in search of a problem, which in turn just ended up creating more problems.

mrweasel 4y ago
Take Facebook, for a brief few years it did bring your closer to old friends and family, if you let it. In the quest for profit, that feature seemed to be the first to die off. Maybe it wasn't a vision, but it could have been.
slfnflctd 4y ago
It's pretty simple to me. It started out as a way to remove the barrier to creating a personal website. Why would someone want a personal website? So you don't have to explain everything about yourself to every new person you meet. They can see what your interests are, what kind of ideas or projects you promote, and learn more about your quirks. This helps filter out those who would clash with you, as well as giving potential friends or colleagues a much smoother on-ramp to future interactions. That was in the MySpace days. At some point, Facebook took over because it was a more standardized interface with more bells & whistles, and eliminated the issue of really ugly page designs made by amateurs with auto-playing audio of music you might hate. For a little while, FB was a superior product. Then, they started messing with The Feed so it was more likely to do things that benefited the company. There was some uproar, but it was ignored and those voices turned out to be an inconsequential minority. Other platforms followed suit. This was the turning point which soured the whole experiment. I still think it can be quite useful when you're hyper-focused on using it to enhance offline interactions and/or certain collaborative efforts. But if you're just idly bouncing around, The Feed will hijack your brain and start pushing you toward things the company thinks will make it more money. The problem is that social media became an end unto itself, rather than a tool to facilitate other things. Apparently there were hundreds of millions of people with a bunch of idle time who didn't want to do anything challenging with that time other than occasionally be enticed to spend money in an attempt to make themselves feel better about their lives. Their eyeballs were ripe for the harvest. And now we have to reckon with all the unforseen ways this has changed our culture, including the whole 'influencer' plague. It takes a lot of discipline to avoid the siren's call of FOMO, and most people are not sufficiently equipped to do it. It's inextricably intertwined with our failures to adequately address the mental health needs of the wider population as well. All those of us who are better off can do is lead by example.

fullshark 4y ago

Ads make sense for social media, because the value is in the network, and putting a paywall would limit user access -> fewer members in the network. Ultimately the problem with social media is no one wants to talk to everyone they've ever met or know of them all the time except for public figures, and then they want to share only watered down PR messages. I guess also people desperately convinced of some political point they want to convince others of. The early days were naive and fun because everyone was oversharing and we were taking on larger risks in terms of public perception in search of fun connections but we wised up, and now only young kids on tiktok still have that naivety.