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> [TikTok]'s addiction-based advertising machine is probably close to the theoretical maximum of how many advertisements one can pour down somebody’s throat. W

> [TikTok]'s addiction-based advertising machine is probably close to the theoretical maximum of how many advertisements one can pour down somebody’s throat. Well put. It's interesting that we pivoted in my adult lifetime from: 1. Myspace's emphasis on sharing things on your own webpage, essentially a hosted blog 2. Facebook's evolution from "hosted blog" to "friend update aggregator" to "chat client" to "friend update & ad aggregator" 3. Instagram's callback to simple update sharing (with pictures) and a chronological ad-free news feed 4. Snap's emphemeral sharing 5. Facebook's slow agglomeration and bastardization of all of the features that made Instagram and Snap distinct. 6. TikTok's addictive advertising machine that barely includes any friend connections at all. Initially I was concerned that this would mean the death of real social media, just like the article initially suggests. But I really like the conclusion the article ultimately comes to: we basically don't have social media right now, we have advertising engines masquerading as social media. Better that Facebook, Instagram, and Snapchat show their true colors and become disgusting advertising machines just like TikTok. If we're lucky, that means a federated, open, mostly-ad-and-suggestion-free open source social media experience can fill the power vacuum for intimate, interpersonal, high-latency communication over the internet. microblog seems promising, but I think even mastodon could provide the experience I'm looking for.

daniel-cussen 4y ago
You're answering your own question with your own essay on this-here social network for essays. Yeah there's no pictures, yeah there's no private messages, yeah there's very little of meeting someone and becoming friends. (And in fact, on BookFace which is for YC founders, I divine there are all those things, as options, this is the public-facing everyone's-welcome version of that. They share software.) But I have made some friends, like alisonkisk to some extent, and who else, cercatrova, and recently Cyberdog. And a few others reaching each other over email, there's some people. It's not a totally deserted wasteland, like you'd think from the purity of text. A literally Islamic degree to which it's iconoclastic, just pure text, like not even ASCII art, this is fully compatible with the most extreme forms of literalist Christianity and Islam.
fullshark 4y ago
Social media for most is your phone's contact list + a group chat. It's just not broadcast for everyone to see and as of now, an ad free experience.
- patch_cable 4y ago
  I was just thinking this. Personally I've migrated from sharing things with friends and family on Facebook/Instagram, to a few group chats where friends and family share photos, life moments, etc. Somewhere along the line Facebook and Instagram made me feel like my personal photos and updates were competing against ads and other more engaging content in people's feeds, and I felt like I wasn't communicating with the people that I was on those platforms to communicate with in the first place. Judging by the increase in messages I get through more private channels with casual update content, I don't feel alone. I would be curious if others have had similar experiences.
moreira 4y ago
I think it might just be that that’s not needed anymore. The social networks of the past were useful as a way to keep in touch with people. MySpace, early Facebook, and the countless others from back then. Now everyone’s online 24/7, and accessible on multiple services all at the same time, all the time. You don’t need social networks to keep in touch with anyone anymore, their original raison d'être is gone. What’s sought after now is meeting -other-, new, like-minded people and content. For that we have twitter, Reddit, TikTok, and whatnot. People want their bubbles. We’re all here on HN for that exact purpose.
- beebmam 4y ago
  > People want their bubbles. We’re all here on HN for that exact purpose. 100% disagree. I'm here to find ideas I disagree with and tell people how they're wrong. I'm not looking for an agreeable experience here. I'm also here to learn about new tech.
  - mulmen 4y ago
    Bubbles don't need to be harmful. HN is a bubble. There are ideas that are not allowed here. There are other ideas that are explicitly promoted. This is the value proposition of HN. You are free to go elsewhere to get other perspectives or interactions. This is as it should be.
    - tmaly 4y ago
      I try to shake that up from time to time. It is nice to see the other side of the discussion. Groupthink is not something to strive for.
      - deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
      - mulmen 4y ago
        I’m not striving for groupthink. I’m seeking out a trusted (collective) voice.
mulmen 4y ago
IMHO Social Media is a toxic mutation of the capabilities offered by the Internet and is the opposite of federated, open communication. I don't consider blogs, forums, or IRC to be "Social Media". When you add the idea of followers and audience and attention seeking (both from participants and the platform) that's when you get "Social Media". We live in the Infinite September. Scale is not conducive to valuable or fulfilling communication. Decentralization, variety, and focus are. When I want to read about motorcycles I have a forum for that. When I want to plan a vacation with the family we use email. When I have a question about a software project I get on their IRC channel. At no point is my racist uncle (or yours!) involved. This is the potential of the Internet and it is not social media. When I want to be depressed by all the things that other people have better than me I go to Social Media. I can't think of a single fulfilling experience I ever had on Facebook or any other social media platform. It's just not possible when you put everyone in a room. It's like studying philosophy on a bus. Social Media is by (my) definition the valueless corruption of the Internet. In that sense I am glad it is dead, I hope it stays that way. Facebook and Tik Tok are the inevitable end-state of "Social Media". There's no "good" social media and there never was. Anyone who builds a platform for "everyone" is doomed to die the death of social media.
- wincy 4y ago
  I recently friend requested a bunch of people I went to high school with who all thought I was a weird loser and I am very excited that I am doing much better than all of them. It’s made me like my social media feed a lot more seeing the school bully who loved ICP post about how “he’s ready to find the right girl and settle down (at 35) So I guess I use social media for the exact reason you don’t like social media. Nobody’s supposed to like that stuff, but I mean, why else would you care what everyone else is doing other than to compare status?
  - pasabagi 4y ago
    If you come from a wealthy background, you get the really depressing version: the school bully who loved ICP posts about how they got a new job with McKinsey, the slimy moron who used to spread shit about you is the CEO of a up-and-coming startup, and the guy who was too dumb to understand how truly dumb he was is now at a senior position in a thinktank.
deleted 4y ago
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swatcoder 4y ago
I suspect that that what really ate up personal social networking was very simple: private group messaging finally got good enough. 15 years ago, we’d lost touch with old friends and acquaintances because there are a ton of people in our lives that mean something to us but that don’t warrant much 1-to-1 contact through phone calls or messaging. Myspace and early Facebook reinvigorated those relationships with relaxed, casual networked update blasts, but then iMessage, What’s App, were able to make the same connections more private, more personally shaped, and more collaborative. So social networks drifted towards public feeds and commercialized feeds, which is what TikTok — as a well-funded latecomer — had the luxury of aiming for directly.
- robryan 4y ago
  Yep. I think it is useful to have a list of people you know incase you ever need to connect them, which is basically Facebook Messenger. The blasting life updates at everyone know ever knew part of it though is just so unnatural. It was a novelty for a while but that stage is well over now. Facebook eventually got features to allow people to be more granular about updates but they have never really pushed them. At one point I would use Skype with friends which was terrible. Discord now though is basically everything I could ever want for group messaging.
- bilsbie 4y ago
  I didn’t know I was supposed to be using iMessage like that. Maybe that’s where everyone went.
- circuit8 4y ago
  I completely agree. In my view group chats on apps like WhatsApp much more accurately mirror how humans actually communicate in real life. That is to say it's more like a spontaneous conversation rather than social media which is more like a narcissistic advertising board for your life.
  - ricardobeat 4y ago
    I don’t remember my extended family sharing jokes and memes non-stop in real life…
1337biz 4y ago
At least Tiktok doesn't force me to watch their stupid ads like YouTube does. I am too lazy to install adbockers on my mobile and tablet. But the force-watching of Youtube ads is one of the worst ideas in advertising.
- robryan 4y ago
  At least they provide a premium ad free service.
  - s1artibartfast 4y ago
    And they told me about it every damn time I log on to YouTube
allenu 4y ago
> If we're lucky, that means a federated, open, mostly-ad-and-suggestion-free open source social media experience can fill the power vacuum for intimate, interpersonal, high-latency communication over the internet. I don't have as much hope for such a thing. To me, this trend is also a reflection of perhaps the societal devaluing of IRL social connections. In a world where encountering "new people" was novel, and typically done only In Real Life, maintaining that connection using an online component had value. You may not encounter that person again, and good connections are rare, so you want to keep in touch. However, over time, the internet has made it trivial to encounter new people, even if the encounters themselves are more trivial than the previous In Real Life meetings were. Perhaps there was a two-way conversation before. Well now, you just read their tweets or watch their videos and click a button to follow. Tracking real-life encounters isn't as valuable as it once was, especially when you can find an online substitute who is actively creating "content" to keep you engaged. The newer connections are also way more transactional than they used to be. Just about everyone is selling something or trying to use their channels to promote themselves somehow. I think there's an interesting overall trend in here between the fall of social networks and societal devaluing of real life connections (as well as a trend of them being more transactional), but I'm not an academic, so these are all just hunches.
- jasonladuke0311 4y ago
  > The newer connections are also way more transactional than they used to be. Just about everyone is selling something or trying to use their channels to promote themselves somehow. Boy is this off-putting. Even amateur athletes and nobodies in hobbies I follow on Instagram are pimping anything and everything. I can't hate someone for trying to make a buck, especially as full-time athletes in non-lucrative sports, but it really leaves a bad taste in my mouth. But not as bad as the taste of protein from anywhere other than Mega Protein Source! Use code THISSHTSUX for 10% off of your next purchase!
  - greyhair 4y ago
    Instagram has spiraled down a hole with the introduction of reels. I was an early adopter of Instagram, and where it has headed, sucks. I deleted my Facebook account pre-COVID, and I don't miss it at all. And my Instagram account is next. It brings me no joy anymore. It has not for several months now. My only online 'social' activity now doesn't involve any IRL friends at all. About three or four really pleasant Reddit groups that actually help people learning new skills, or trading ideas they have tried. So little snark, it is refreshing as can be.
AndrewUnmuted 4y ago
mc32 4y ago
Where does classmates fit into the picture? I don't think too people actively use them, but some people do. I'm actually unsure how Classmates actually works --is it a subscription model, what's it's business model and could it end up morphing into the TheFB of old but subscription based? Maybe the draw of advertising money is too strong to resist.
rphv 4y ago
> If we're lucky, that means a federated, open, mostly-ad-and-suggestion-free open source social media experience can fill the power vacuum for intimate, interpersonal, high-latency communication over the internet. Worth mentioning is Jimmy Wales' effort in this vein: https://wt.social/ https://wt.social/
- tekknik 4y ago
  Imo this depends on your definition of open. Others being allowed to edit your content opens the door for abuse from opposite political parties.
14 4y ago
From my experience TikTok has nothing compared to Snapchat. Snapchat videos have so many adds I was getting too frustrated and finally vowed never to return. I don’t get that feeling with TikTok
jollybean 4y ago
TikTok is an entertainment platform, not really social media.
- tenebrisalietum 4y ago
  Therefore, social media is not entertaining. Hence the downfall of social media.
cwkoss 4y ago
Seems like Tiktok has far fewer ads than other social media platforms. Less than 10% of things are ads. Instagram is like 30+% ads for me.
- blocko 4y ago
  I've seen people claim that they show a variable amount of ads depending on the user, which I imagine would be based on your clickthrough rate or other metrics. The ratio between ads and content also seems to vary over time for me so I feel there's some form of optimization happening
- stingraycharles 4y ago
  Yeah I was also surprised at that comment, TikTok has significantly less ads than FB/IG, so I don’t understand why it’s being criticized for that.
  - dont__panic 4y ago
    I suspect there's a lot more subversive ad content on TikTok -- influencers who are paid or gifted by advertisers to namedrop or show a product in a post that TikTok recommends to millions. The "ad" label feels inherently dirty, and people tend to tune out. But if an influencer sips a coke in a video, without even an explicit mention of the brand, I'm sure a lot of people start craving coke.
    - cwkoss 4y ago
      I'm sure subversive ads happen, but in my experience people are pretty straightforward about marking posts as paid. Then, there's also a lot of small and medium sized manufacturers/artists where their whole channel is showing off their stuff. Kind of ad-like, but quality tends to be good and it doesn't feel sneaky like subtle product placement. Ex. there's a chinese factory that manufactures polycarbonate dome houses, they'll post montages of their domes, nicely decorated in beautiful locations. I think the product is cool, so I intentionally follow and consume their 'ad' content.
hbarka 4y ago
Not just social media. Look at news sites. Evolution from news aggregator to news plus well-placed ads to now where half the page is the Outbrain ads embedment. You could see a well-written story and then scroll down your struck with cognitive dissonance wondering how reputable organizations still put the Outbrain junk at the bottom.
redditmigrant 4y ago
This internet kid of 90s fever dream of an internet thats free and federated is just not gona happen. All evidence we have so far suggests that the scale at which internet is at, the larges opportunities will be in solving for the "non-technical" user. In my view this non technical user now understands that if something is free then that means ads. Thus the next age of social media should be about exploring what business models can work that align themselves with user's own interests.
- alsargent 4y ago
  Here are some trends that could drive a fundamental shift in social media: 1) Trust is the scarcest element in social media today. Any social media company that is built on advertising will never have the trust of a subscription-based social media company. Companies that address scarcity tend to be successful. 2) What's no longer scarce: the underpinning technologies of social media: capturing and displaying photos and videos on multiple types of devices, recommending new social connections and posts. What was cutting-edge in 2004 is now well-known. 3) Meanwhile, users are getting increasing used to paying for subscriptions: app stores, streaming services, SaaS applications, cloud services, etc. 4) Connecting socially with others is a basic human need. This only increases as some kinds of jobs can be done from anywhere, and friends relocate far away. 5) As Facebook/Meta and others pursue the novelty-driven user experience of TikTok -- "show me what's interesting from people I don't know" -- it creates room for companies that want to get back to meeting the need for keeping in touch with friends and family, even when remote. 6) Large tech fortunes have created a donor class focused on legacy, not profit. Example: MacKenzie Scott, the ex-wife of Jeff Bezos. Or Craig Newmark, of Craigslist. -- Put all these together, and it seems like new social media companies could be created along the following lines: 1) Mission-focused. Focus on social connection first, not whatever drives the most revenue. In other words, don't get pulled into the latest fads, as Facebook is doing with TikTok. 2) Subscription business model. This eliminates the conflicts of interest that drives Facebook's trust-eroding privacy practices. Again -- trust is the scarcest element. 3) Subscriber-owned business. Each subscriber owns a portion of the company, and thus the company has a fiduciary, legal obligation to protect their interests. This is similar to what Vanguard does -- investors each own a portion of the company -- which forces Vanguard to act in their interests. It's the opposite of Facebook/Meta's ownership structure, where Mark Zuckerberg controls 90% of class B shares, giving him control over the company. [1] 4) To fix the cold-start problem [2] inherent in building a business with network effects, make the service free until it gets to a critical mass of subscribers. We can debate if critical mass is 10 million users, 100M, 1B, or some other measure. But be transparent about the threshold, and the subscription price once its hit. Speaking of price... 5) Keep entry level prices low to be point of being negligible for the vast majority of users. Maybe one dollar a month. Whatever it is, keep it lower than most other subscription services in order to encourage adoption, but not to shift back to the problematic ad-driven model. 6) A very low subscription price, at scale, can fund innovation. 100M users at $1/month is $1.2 billion per year. That's enough to pay cloud infrastructure and the engineers to build and run apps. Back-of-the-envelope path: suppose for argument's sake that half of that, $600M, goes towards cloud service providers. That's approaching the $1B/year that Netflix spends. The other $600M could fund 2000 engineers at $300k/year/engineer. That's enough to build a great deal of capabilities and bring them to emerging platforms (like AR glasses, cars, IoT/smart home...). 7) A business like this probably might not attract traditional venture capital funding. Even if every one of Facebook's 3 billion users all switched to this business and paid 1 USD/month, that would be $36B per year. That's well short of Facebook's $120B/year [5]. Who might fund it? A set of mission-driven investors, who wants their legacy to include a trusted, self-sustaining organization that socially connects the world. Craig Newmark could be one such investor (at least advisor), having built one such Internet institution (Craigslist) that facilitates community and commerce in an economically-sustaining manner. But there could be many other investors as well. Again, the technologic acumen and capital required aren't what's scarce; trust is. [1] https://www.morningstar.com/articles/1061237/how-facebook-silences-its-investors https://www.morningstar.com/articles/1061237/how-facebook-si... [2] https://www.amazon.com/Cold-Start-Problem-Andrew-Chen/dp/0062969749 https://www.amazon.com/Cold-Start-Problem-Andrew-Chen/dp/006... [3] https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/netflix-pays-1-billionyear-amazon-faraz-ali https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/netflix-pays-1-billionyear-am... [4] https://datareportal.com/essential-facebook-stats https://datareportal.com/essential-facebook-stats [5] https://www.statista.com/statistics/268604/annual-revenue-of-facebook/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/268604/annual-revenue-of...
jmyeet 4y ago
> If we're lucky, that means a federated, open, mostly-ad-and-suggestion-free open source social media ... It's never going to happen. Federation is a solution to a problem no one actually cares about. Obviously "no one" here is somewhat hyperbolic but so few people actaully care about this you may as well round it to zero. We haven't had an at-scale federated network since POTS (and, by extension, SMS). That's a historical artifact. And look at all the problems POTS/SMS has with spam, caller impersonation, robocalls, etc. Now part of that is due to these being open addressable networks rather than the opt-in networking that has become dominant now. But to say that's th eonly reason would be to miss the point that any federated systems will always have bad actors. In the 2000s we had XMPP as an effort to make IM services interoperable. Remember how Google got flak for removing the ability to talk to non-Google services? That was mostly misplaced because the reason it was removed was that Microsoft allowed its IM users to talk to Google Chat but not the reverse. Spam exists on POTS/SMS largely because smaller exchanges "launder" bad traffic with good traffic (and charge higher rates for it) to make it harder to filter or even identify who the bad actors are. As for open? There's really no incentive for this except from the "losers" (in the market).
- cal85 4y ago
  > Federation is a solution to a problem no one actually cares about. Obviously "no one" here is somewhat hyperbolic but so few people actaully care about this you may as well round it to zero. I think this conflates two things: the number of people who are familiar with a problem as a discussion topic (yes, that’s very niche in this case), and the number of people who are affected by a problem and might be receptive to a solution to it if one was available and understandable to them.
  - dont__panic 4y ago
    I see it like Internet Explorer in the 00's. Did my friends and family hate IE enough to switch away themselves? Nope. Did I care enough to find out about Firefox? Yup. Did my friends and family hate IE enough to switch to Firefox when I suggested it? Yup. Social media could be the same situation.
nstart 4y ago
Didn’t have time to read other comments, but based on anecdotal experience I’d say the interpersonal connections have migrated into the private corners of chat via WhatsApp, Meta apps’ chat, or snap (highly dependent on age and location). I’d add on to the idea of social media is over by saying the age of social networking in public is going through a rethink (or is just over for a while). And as much as one wants to take it as a turn towards the networks becoming an ad machine and blame it on networks themselves, I’d also say it’s a human thing. The moment a platform gains escape velocity and starts growing, we immediately see the influencers, hustlers, and businesses approach it with a “grow your brand and audience” mentality. This eventually skews the network towards serving them because they actually bring money and shortly after, tadaaaa. It’s an ad machine laid on top of a content network rather than a social network. Chats don’t suffer from this so in my experience, that’s where “social” networks are going for now. I’ll hold my breath on federated networks being the next step.
wardedVibe 4y ago
Discord is picking up steam, and doesn't seem to be relying on advertising. They're also way more explicit about making communities rather than friend networks.
- ew6082 4y ago
  The scary part is how much real interpersonal communication data they have on users and what could be done with it in the wrong hands. What is their real business model? It can't just be selling Nitro.
  - tekknik 4y ago
    Discord watches what apps you launch, primarily games, and sells this data to others to determine what games to make, or what games people are playing. It’s the same purpose of all the game launchers out there that run even when you’re not playing a game from that company.
xwdv 4y ago
We don’t really need social media because we’ve discovered we actually hate a lot of people once we see their opinions on full display. Just stick to good content please. Most people though aren’t great content creators anyway.
- dont__panic 4y ago
  A lot of people do post uninteresting, cringey, or downright embarrassing content when given the opportunity. I've done so myself plenty of times. But I think social media brings out the worst in people right now. By constantly "recommending" content that radicalizes people into tiny niche opinions and conspiracy theories and incentivizing "sharing" links and video spam, we're amplifying the worst opinions that people have. But I'm sure those same people have interesting thoughts too -- something as simple as a cute picture of their dog, or a nice sunset, or information about a hobby they enjoy like woodworking or bike riding. Maybe I'm just an optimist who wants to believe the best in people. When I look at Facebook these days, I don't assume that my relatives are actually JUST hateful, conservative, xenophobic conspiracy theorists. I assume that's what Facebook brings out of them -- it's what it suggests to them, it's what it suggests to their friends, it's what they see in their feed so it's ultimately what they share and what they end up thinking about more often as a result. But it isn't who they are. I know these people: they love kayaking, and gin & tonics by the ocean, and their pets, and their kids, and fireworks, and campfires, and boating, and books, and gardening, and a million other things. But you'll never see posts about those other things on Facebook because they aren't "engaging."
kornhole 4y ago
I think Mastodon or the other Fediverse projects do provide all we need, but the problems with getting there are awareness, intransigence, and excitement which the advertising networks provide. Most people are unaware of this free alternative because it doesn't advertise itself. Effort to change and migrate is too much for many people. Entertainment creation does not provide much if any revenue on free platforms. So we have this divide of advertising products and the rest of us who do not participate in advertising networks. The trend toward the latter is growing but slowly.
- ragnarel 4y ago
  Jabber failed versus MSN Messenger and that was not because advertising. Propietary products are usually more curated in features and stability than the free options, and those reach the market quickly. Big companies have money, free comunities do not.
grecy 4y ago
> we basically don't have social media right now, we have advertising engines masquerading as social media And that's been true of mainstream media for a long time also.
- dont__panic 4y ago
  Have you ever read Neil Postman's Amusing ourselves to Death? It doesn't quite hone in on the advertising engine piece of this, but I think it hits the nail right on the head about mainstream media's longtime masquerade as "news."
gibsonf1 4y ago
https://solidproject.org/ https://solidproject.org/
safety1st 4y ago
I think the market simply came to the conclusion that "real social media" (friend-centric) was not a thing that many people needed or wanted. People moved friend-to-friend communication to private messaging apps: FB Messenger, Whatsapp, Signal, Discord, etc. and that space is very alive and well. There is no great unfulfilled demand for a version of that which is also semi-public because then you get your public and private spheres mixed up. Younger users appear to have looked at the mistakes of older users and figured out that this is not the right move - they know that Tiktok/IG/etc. is fake and not friend based, the fakeness is sort of the point, they're there to watch the 2022 version of TV, and participate in a popularity contest and stroke the ego/receive affirmation from a Like count.
dizzystar 4y ago
I'm curious how you can to this conclusion. Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter were always vehicles for advertisers. I suppose it was more acceptable because it was from "influencer marketing," which was taken so far that the FTC had to step in and start fining influencers for dishonest marketing. I guess it is different than "we are interrupting your current show for this important topic," but to be honest, I think the new style of marketing is more sinister. We can expect a TV or radio station to show ads and understand it doesn't exactly reflect the thoughts of the stations. In "influencer marketing," we are led to believe that some 16 year old really knows more about the stock market and crypto than those Wall Street guys.
- tekknik 4y ago
  TV created influencer marketing. Since before social networks existed products would make appearances in shows. See Sheldon drink a coke in big bang theory, that was paid for. See someone shopping at a particular store in a mall, paid for.
- randomsearch 4y ago
  That’s odd, I don’t remember there being any advertising at all on those platforms in the early days.
glenngillen 4y ago
This is an interesting perspective and evolution I’d not considered before. And it makes me wonder if the trend of LinkedIn showing ever more personal and less professional content is because it’s the place people have turned to fill the void. It being the main remaining place where people have connections they are least have a somewhat passing personal acquaintance with rather than just a collection of performing strangers.
napolux 4y ago
> If we're lucky, that means a federated, open, mostly-ad-and-suggestion-free open source social media experience can fill the power vacuum for intimate, interpersonal, high-latency communication over the internet. microblog seems promising, but I think even mastodon could provide the experience I'm looking for. might be true for people like us. the other 7 billions out there won’t care
- dont__panic 4y ago
  That's OK by me. I'd very much enjoy a small community of passionate people like us. My family and friends are fed up with Facebook enough that I could probably persuade them to switch. I don't need everyone on there -- just the people I care about and respect. Of course I think the whole world would benefit if everyone switched away from Facebook, but no need to rush anything.
_nalply 4y ago
This article filled me with hope, but I already see a danger: A threadmill of products to "bring the world together" under different names and mottos but all sooner or later devolving into advertisement machines. Maybe next: WhatsApp, then Signal then Mastodon? For this to happen, founders just need to sell out, for example to Meta. WhatsApp already sold out but did not yet pivot.
- XorNot 4y ago
  Signal very obviously has a finite lifespan, but in the moment it's best in class for privacy.
  - cal85 4y ago
    Very obviously - not to me. Why?
  - dont__panic 4y ago
    Very obviously? Am I missing something? That being said, I'm strongly considering switching to a Matrix client these days, since I like the idea of encrypted chat that works across whatever client I prefer. If you're knowledgeable in the encrypted chat space I'd love to hear your thoughts on the pros and cons.
    - XorNot 4y ago
      Signal is anti-federation, so it's limited to the quality that moxie can enforce so long as he can enforce it. Realistically, if he steps down for any reason and someone decides they need to layer in ads to support it...that'll be the end. I would desperately like Signal to have a commercial service offering you can pay for which would of offer the possibility of sustainment.
      - tekknik 4y ago
        > I would desperately like Signal to have a commercial service offering you can pay for which would of offer the possibility of sustainment. That will kill it even quicker. What does this look like? All users have to pay to have an account? Now you’ll have less users and miss out on network effects. If only some users have to pay, what do they get besides feel goods? Ad removal? They’re stuck, Signal must continue being free. So agreed, Signal has a finite lifespan
hnbad 4y ago
This reminds me of a video I watched the other day about how nobody asks you to "share" anymore. In the early days of social networks every site and app had front page ad copy asking you to "share". Nowadays most don't even tell you what they are because it's assumed that you already know. And even those that try to explain themselves no longer talk about "sharing".
deleted 4y ago
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marcus_holmes 4y ago
The problem of "who pays for this?" still remains. If it's free to the user, it has to be ad-supported (or I guess donation-driven; the Wikipedia/Guardian model, but I don't see that working so well for social media). If it's ad-supported that means the advertiser becomes the customer and the point of the thing gets subverted to maximise ad revenue. If it's not free to the user, then we have to educate everyone that they need to pay for their social media. Not an easy task.
- dont__panic 4y ago
  That's easy, honestly. Give people an option: - host your own instance, no limits on usage because you're paying your own way, hosting your own images and content, running your own server - use someone else's instance, they can show you whatever ads they like (though preferably in a sidebar, not integrated into your main feed) and subject you to space limitations. In a truly federated environment where users can easily switch between instances, those instances can compete based on ad and space efficiency. Some folks, like myself, might shell out for their own instance and host friends and family with no ads and ample space just to be nice. Facebook as of 2009 was damn near "feature complete" social media. Messaging, photos, videos, comments, chronological feed. It's not that complicated. You could run the whole thing as an open source + donation based project, like Wikipedia or Mozilla. You don't need tens of thousands of engineers and venture capital that forces you to employ dark patterns and inject more and more ads and growth. Hell, I think that governments could even donate to a project like this since it's essentially a public service and (compared to Facebook/Twitter/Instagram/TikTok) an investment in public mental health.
  - marcus_holmes 4y ago
    yeah, those are the options. And I agree, FB in 2009 was great. But that's my point: companies have to keep moving, and optimising, and growing (because shareholders). If the revenue is supplied by advertisers, then they're the customers, and any optimisation is aimed to increase lock-in/revenues/etc based on their experience. The actual users get a worse experience as time goes on because their needs are secondary to the advertisers. Eventually the whole thing ends up where we are with FB: the user experience is shitty and people start leaving. If this is really going to work properly, then we have to persuade people to pay for their social media service.
Yizahi 4y ago
Mastodon is anything but high-latency. If you missed a post in the stream of other posts it is gone forever, unless you were glued to the screen in hopes of not missing anything. I don't think it is better than Tiktok really, same basic principle of keeping people in the app. Forums and blogs with comment sections are the only high-latency mediums, and I guess we will keep reinventing them every five years.

daniel-cussen 4y ago

You're answering your own question with your own essay on this-here social network for essays. Yeah there's no pictures, yeah there's no private messages, yeah there's very little of meeting someone and becoming friends. (And in fact, on BookFace which is for YC founders, I divine there are all those things, as options, this is the public-facing everyone's-welcome version of that. They share software.) But I have made some friends, like alisonkisk to some extent, and who else, cercatrova, and recently Cyberdog. And a few others reaching each other over email, there's some people. It's not a totally deserted wasteland, like you'd think from the purity of text. A literally Islamic degree to which it's iconoclastic, just pure text, like not even ASCII art, this is fully compatible with the most extreme forms of literalist Christianity and Islam.

fullshark 4y ago

Social media for most is your phone's contact list + a group chat. It's just not broadcast for everyone to see and as of now, an ad free experience.

patch_cable 4y ago
I was just thinking this. Personally I've migrated from sharing things with friends and family on Facebook/Instagram, to a few group chats where friends and family share photos, life moments, etc. Somewhere along the line Facebook and Instagram made me feel like my personal photos and updates were competing against ads and other more engaging content in people's feeds, and I felt like I wasn't communicating with the people that I was on those platforms to communicate with in the first place. Judging by the increase in messages I get through more private channels with casual update content, I don't feel alone. I would be curious if others have had similar experiences.

moreira 4y ago

I think it might just be that that’s not needed anymore. The social networks of the past were useful as a way to keep in touch with people. MySpace, early Facebook, and the countless others from back then. Now everyone’s online 24/7, and accessible on multiple services all at the same time, all the time. You don’t need social networks to keep in touch with anyone anymore, their original raison d'être is gone. What’s sought after now is meeting -other-, new, like-minded people and content. For that we have twitter, Reddit, TikTok, and whatnot. People want their bubbles. We’re all here on HN for that exact purpose.

beebmam 4y ago
> People want their bubbles. We’re all here on HN for that exact purpose. 100% disagree. I'm here to find ideas I disagree with and tell people how they're wrong. I'm not looking for an agreeable experience here. I'm also here to learn about new tech.
- mulmen 4y ago
  Bubbles don't need to be harmful. HN is a bubble. There are ideas that are not allowed here. There are other ideas that are explicitly promoted. This is the value proposition of HN. You are free to go elsewhere to get other perspectives or interactions. This is as it should be.
  - tmaly 4y ago
    I try to shake that up from time to time. It is nice to see the other side of the discussion. Groupthink is not something to strive for.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
    - mulmen 4y ago
      I’m not striving for groupthink. I’m seeking out a trusted (collective) voice.

mulmen 4y ago

IMHO Social Media is a toxic mutation of the capabilities offered by the Internet and is the opposite of federated, open communication. I don't consider blogs, forums, or IRC to be "Social Media". When you add the idea of followers and audience and attention seeking (both from participants and the platform) that's when you get "Social Media". We live in the Infinite September. Scale is not conducive to valuable or fulfilling communication. Decentralization, variety, and focus are. When I want to read about motorcycles I have a forum for that. When I want to plan a vacation with the family we use email. When I have a question about a software project I get on their IRC channel. At no point is my racist uncle (or yours!) involved. This is the potential of the Internet and it is not social media. When I want to be depressed by all the things that other people have better than me I go to Social Media. I can't think of a single fulfilling experience I ever had on Facebook or any other social media platform. It's just not possible when you put everyone in a room. It's like studying philosophy on a bus. Social Media is by (my) definition the valueless corruption of the Internet. In that sense I am glad it is dead, I hope it stays that way. Facebook and Tik Tok are the inevitable end-state of "Social Media". There's no "good" social media and there never was. Anyone who builds a platform for "everyone" is doomed to die the death of social media.

wincy 4y ago
I recently friend requested a bunch of people I went to high school with who all thought I was a weird loser and I am very excited that I am doing much better than all of them. It’s made me like my social media feed a lot more seeing the school bully who loved ICP post about how “he’s ready to find the right girl and settle down (at 35) So I guess I use social media for the exact reason you don’t like social media. Nobody’s supposed to like that stuff, but I mean, why else would you care what everyone else is doing other than to compare status?
- pasabagi 4y ago
  If you come from a wealthy background, you get the really depressing version: the school bully who loved ICP posts about how they got a new job with McKinsey, the slimy moron who used to spread shit about you is the CEO of a up-and-coming startup, and the guy who was too dumb to understand how truly dumb he was is now at a senior position in a thinktank.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

swatcoder 4y ago

I suspect that that what really ate up personal social networking was very simple: private group messaging finally got good enough. 15 years ago, we’d lost touch with old friends and acquaintances because there are a ton of people in our lives that mean something to us but that don’t warrant much 1-to-1 contact through phone calls or messaging. Myspace and early Facebook reinvigorated those relationships with relaxed, casual networked update blasts, but then iMessage, What’s App, were able to make the same connections more private, more personally shaped, and more collaborative. So social networks drifted towards public feeds and commercialized feeds, which is what TikTok — as a well-funded latecomer — had the luxury of aiming for directly.

robryan 4y ago
Yep. I think it is useful to have a list of people you know incase you ever need to connect them, which is basically Facebook Messenger. The blasting life updates at everyone know ever knew part of it though is just so unnatural. It was a novelty for a while but that stage is well over now. Facebook eventually got features to allow people to be more granular about updates but they have never really pushed them. At one point I would use Skype with friends which was terrible. Discord now though is basically everything I could ever want for group messaging.
bilsbie 4y ago
I didn’t know I was supposed to be using iMessage like that. Maybe that’s where everyone went.
circuit8 4y ago
I completely agree. In my view group chats on apps like WhatsApp much more accurately mirror how humans actually communicate in real life. That is to say it's more like a spontaneous conversation rather than social media which is more like a narcissistic advertising board for your life.
- ricardobeat 4y ago
  I don’t remember my extended family sharing jokes and memes non-stop in real life…

1337biz 4y ago

At least Tiktok doesn't force me to watch their stupid ads like YouTube does. I am too lazy to install adbockers on my mobile and tablet. But the force-watching of Youtube ads is one of the worst ideas in advertising.

robryan 4y ago
At least they provide a premium ad free service.
- s1artibartfast 4y ago
  And they told me about it every damn time I log on to YouTube

allenu 4y ago

> If we're lucky, that means a federated, open, mostly-ad-and-suggestion-free open source social media experience can fill the power vacuum for intimate, interpersonal, high-latency communication over the internet. I don't have as much hope for such a thing. To me, this trend is also a reflection of perhaps the societal devaluing of IRL social connections. In a world where encountering "new people" was novel, and typically done only In Real Life, maintaining that connection using an online component had value. You may not encounter that person again, and good connections are rare, so you want to keep in touch. However, over time, the internet has made it trivial to encounter new people, even if the encounters themselves are more trivial than the previous In Real Life meetings were. Perhaps there was a two-way conversation before. Well now, you just read their tweets or watch their videos and click a button to follow. Tracking real-life encounters isn't as valuable as it once was, especially when you can find an online substitute who is actively creating "content" to keep you engaged. The newer connections are also way more transactional than they used to be. Just about everyone is selling something or trying to use their channels to promote themselves somehow. I think there's an interesting overall trend in here between the fall of social networks and societal devaluing of real life connections (as well as a trend of them being more transactional), but I'm not an academic, so these are all just hunches.

jasonladuke0311 4y ago
> The newer connections are also way more transactional than they used to be. Just about everyone is selling something or trying to use their channels to promote themselves somehow. Boy is this off-putting. Even amateur athletes and nobodies in hobbies I follow on Instagram are pimping anything and everything. I can't hate someone for trying to make a buck, especially as full-time athletes in non-lucrative sports, but it really leaves a bad taste in my mouth. But not as bad as the taste of protein from anywhere other than Mega Protein Source! Use code THISSHTSUX for 10% off of your next purchase!
- greyhair 4y ago
  Instagram has spiraled down a hole with the introduction of reels. I was an early adopter of Instagram, and where it has headed, sucks. I deleted my Facebook account pre-COVID, and I don't miss it at all. And my Instagram account is next. It brings me no joy anymore. It has not for several months now. My only online 'social' activity now doesn't involve any IRL friends at all. About three or four really pleasant Reddit groups that actually help people learning new skills, or trading ideas they have tried. So little snark, it is refreshing as can be.

AndrewUnmuted 4y ago

mc32 4y ago

Where does classmates fit into the picture? I don't think too people actively use them, but some people do. I'm actually unsure how Classmates actually works --is it a subscription model, what's it's business model and could it end up morphing into the TheFB of old but subscription based? Maybe the draw of advertising money is too strong to resist.

rphv 4y ago

tekknik 4y ago
Imo this depends on your definition of open. Others being allowed to edit your content opens the door for abuse from opposite political parties.

14 4y ago

From my experience TikTok has nothing compared to Snapchat. Snapchat videos have so many adds I was getting too frustrated and finally vowed never to return. I don’t get that feeling with TikTok

jollybean 4y ago

TikTok is an entertainment platform, not really social media.

tenebrisalietum 4y ago
Therefore, social media is not entertaining. Hence the downfall of social media.

cwkoss 4y ago

Seems like Tiktok has far fewer ads than other social media platforms. Less than 10% of things are ads. Instagram is like 30+% ads for me.

blocko 4y ago
I've seen people claim that they show a variable amount of ads depending on the user, which I imagine would be based on your clickthrough rate or other metrics. The ratio between ads and content also seems to vary over time for me so I feel there's some form of optimization happening
stingraycharles 4y ago
Yeah I was also surprised at that comment, TikTok has significantly less ads than FB/IG, so I don’t understand why it’s being criticized for that.
- dont__panic 4y ago
  I suspect there's a lot more subversive ad content on TikTok -- influencers who are paid or gifted by advertisers to namedrop or show a product in a post that TikTok recommends to millions. The "ad" label feels inherently dirty, and people tend to tune out. But if an influencer sips a coke in a video, without even an explicit mention of the brand, I'm sure a lot of people start craving coke.
  - cwkoss 4y ago
    I'm sure subversive ads happen, but in my experience people are pretty straightforward about marking posts as paid. Then, there's also a lot of small and medium sized manufacturers/artists where their whole channel is showing off their stuff. Kind of ad-like, but quality tends to be good and it doesn't feel sneaky like subtle product placement. Ex. there's a chinese factory that manufactures polycarbonate dome houses, they'll post montages of their domes, nicely decorated in beautiful locations. I think the product is cool, so I intentionally follow and consume their 'ad' content.

hbarka 4y ago

Not just social media. Look at news sites. Evolution from news aggregator to news plus well-placed ads to now where half the page is the Outbrain ads embedment. You could see a well-written story and then scroll down your struck with cognitive dissonance wondering how reputable organizations still put the Outbrain junk at the bottom.

redditmigrant 4y ago

This internet kid of 90s fever dream of an internet thats free and federated is just not gona happen. All evidence we have so far suggests that the scale at which internet is at, the larges opportunities will be in solving for the "non-technical" user. In my view this non technical user now understands that if something is free then that means ads. Thus the next age of social media should be about exploring what business models can work that align themselves with user's own interests.

alsargent 4y ago
Here are some trends that could drive a fundamental shift in social media: 1) Trust is the scarcest element in social media today. Any social media company that is built on advertising will never have the trust of a subscription-based social media company. Companies that address scarcity tend to be successful. 2) What's no longer scarce: the underpinning technologies of social media: capturing and displaying photos and videos on multiple types of devices, recommending new social connections and posts. What was cutting-edge in 2004 is now well-known. 3) Meanwhile, users are getting increasing used to paying for subscriptions: app stores, streaming services, SaaS applications, cloud services, etc. 4) Connecting socially with others is a basic human need. This only increases as some kinds of jobs can be done from anywhere, and friends relocate far away. 5) As Facebook/Meta and others pursue the novelty-driven user experience of TikTok -- "show me what's interesting from people I don't know" -- it creates room for companies that want to get back to meeting the need for keeping in touch with friends and family, even when remote. 6) Large tech fortunes have created a donor class focused on legacy, not profit. Example: MacKenzie Scott, the ex-wife of Jeff Bezos. Or Craig Newmark, of Craigslist. -- Put all these together, and it seems like new social media companies could be created along the following lines: 1) Mission-focused. Focus on social connection first, not whatever drives the most revenue. In other words, don't get pulled into the latest fads, as Facebook is doing with TikTok. 2) Subscription business model. This eliminates the conflicts of interest that drives Facebook's trust-eroding privacy practices. Again -- trust is the scarcest element. 3) Subscriber-owned business. Each subscriber owns a portion of the company, and thus the company has a fiduciary, legal obligation to protect their interests. This is similar to what Vanguard does -- investors each own a portion of the company -- which forces Vanguard to act in their interests. It's the opposite of Facebook/Meta's ownership structure, where Mark Zuckerberg controls 90% of class B shares, giving him control over the company. [1] 4) To fix the cold-start problem [2] inherent in building a business with network effects, make the service free until it gets to a critical mass of subscribers. We can debate if critical mass is 10 million users, 100M, 1B, or some other measure. But be transparent about the threshold, and the subscription price once its hit. Speaking of price... 5) Keep entry level prices low to be point of being negligible for the vast majority of users. Maybe one dollar a month. Whatever it is, keep it lower than most other subscription services in order to encourage adoption, but not to shift back to the problematic ad-driven model. 6) A very low subscription price, at scale, can fund innovation. 100M users at $1/month is $1.2 billion per year. That's enough to pay cloud infrastructure and the engineers to build and run apps. Back-of-the-envelope path: suppose for argument's sake that half of that, $600M, goes towards cloud service providers. That's approaching the $1B/year that Netflix spends. The other $600M could fund 2000 engineers at $300k/year/engineer. That's enough to build a great deal of capabilities and bring them to emerging platforms (like AR glasses, cars, IoT/smart home...). 7) A business like this probably might not attract traditional venture capital funding. Even if every one of Facebook's 3 billion users all switched to this business and paid 1 USD/month, that would be $36B per year. That's well short of Facebook's $120B/year [5]. Who might fund it? A set of mission-driven investors, who wants their legacy to include a trusted, self-sustaining organization that socially connects the world. Craig Newmark could be one such investor (at least advisor), having built one such Internet institution (Craigslist) that facilitates community and commerce in an economically-sustaining manner. But there could be many other investors as well. Again, the technologic acumen and capital required aren't what's scarce; trust is. [1] https://www.morningstar.com/articles/1061237/how-facebook-silences-its-investors https://www.morningstar.com/articles/1061237/how-facebook-si... [2] https://www.amazon.com/Cold-Start-Problem-Andrew-Chen/dp/0062969749 https://www.amazon.com/Cold-Start-Problem-Andrew-Chen/dp/006... [3] https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/netflix-pays-1-billionyear-amazon-faraz-ali https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/netflix-pays-1-billionyear-am... [4] https://datareportal.com/essential-facebook-stats https://datareportal.com/essential-facebook-stats [5] https://www.statista.com/statistics/268604/annual-revenue-of-facebook/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/268604/annual-revenue-of...

jmyeet 4y ago

> If we're lucky, that means a federated, open, mostly-ad-and-suggestion-free open source social media ... It's never going to happen. Federation is a solution to a problem no one actually cares about. Obviously "no one" here is somewhat hyperbolic but so few people actaully care about this you may as well round it to zero. We haven't had an at-scale federated network since POTS (and, by extension, SMS). That's a historical artifact. And look at all the problems POTS/SMS has with spam, caller impersonation, robocalls, etc. Now part of that is due to these being open addressable networks rather than the opt-in networking that has become dominant now. But to say that's th eonly reason would be to miss the point that any federated systems will always have bad actors. In the 2000s we had XMPP as an effort to make IM services interoperable. Remember how Google got flak for removing the ability to talk to non-Google services? That was mostly misplaced because the reason it was removed was that Microsoft allowed its IM users to talk to Google Chat but not the reverse. Spam exists on POTS/SMS largely because smaller exchanges "launder" bad traffic with good traffic (and charge higher rates for it) to make it harder to filter or even identify who the bad actors are. As for open? There's really no incentive for this except from the "losers" (in the market).

cal85 4y ago
> Federation is a solution to a problem no one actually cares about. Obviously "no one" here is somewhat hyperbolic but so few people actaully care about this you may as well round it to zero. I think this conflates two things: the number of people who are familiar with a problem as a discussion topic (yes, that’s very niche in this case), and the number of people who are affected by a problem and might be receptive to a solution to it if one was available and understandable to them.
- dont__panic 4y ago
  I see it like Internet Explorer in the 00's. Did my friends and family hate IE enough to switch away themselves? Nope. Did I care enough to find out about Firefox? Yup. Did my friends and family hate IE enough to switch to Firefox when I suggested it? Yup. Social media could be the same situation.

nstart 4y ago

Didn’t have time to read other comments, but based on anecdotal experience I’d say the interpersonal connections have migrated into the private corners of chat via WhatsApp, Meta apps’ chat, or snap (highly dependent on age and location). I’d add on to the idea of social media is over by saying the age of social networking in public is going through a rethink (or is just over for a while). And as much as one wants to take it as a turn towards the networks becoming an ad machine and blame it on networks themselves, I’d also say it’s a human thing. The moment a platform gains escape velocity and starts growing, we immediately see the influencers, hustlers, and businesses approach it with a “grow your brand and audience” mentality. This eventually skews the network towards serving them because they actually bring money and shortly after, tadaaaa. It’s an ad machine laid on top of a content network rather than a social network. Chats don’t suffer from this so in my experience, that’s where “social” networks are going for now. I’ll hold my breath on federated networks being the next step.

wardedVibe 4y ago

Discord is picking up steam, and doesn't seem to be relying on advertising. They're also way more explicit about making communities rather than friend networks.

ew6082 4y ago
The scary part is how much real interpersonal communication data they have on users and what could be done with it in the wrong hands. What is their real business model? It can't just be selling Nitro.
- tekknik 4y ago
  Discord watches what apps you launch, primarily games, and sells this data to others to determine what games to make, or what games people are playing. It’s the same purpose of all the game launchers out there that run even when you’re not playing a game from that company.

xwdv 4y ago

We don’t really need social media because we’ve discovered we actually hate a lot of people once we see their opinions on full display. Just stick to good content please. Most people though aren’t great content creators anyway.

dont__panic 4y ago
A lot of people do post uninteresting, cringey, or downright embarrassing content when given the opportunity. I've done so myself plenty of times. But I think social media brings out the worst in people right now. By constantly "recommending" content that radicalizes people into tiny niche opinions and conspiracy theories and incentivizing "sharing" links and video spam, we're amplifying the worst opinions that people have. But I'm sure those same people have interesting thoughts too -- something as simple as a cute picture of their dog, or a nice sunset, or information about a hobby they enjoy like woodworking or bike riding. Maybe I'm just an optimist who wants to believe the best in people. When I look at Facebook these days, I don't assume that my relatives are actually JUST hateful, conservative, xenophobic conspiracy theorists. I assume that's what Facebook brings out of them -- it's what it suggests to them, it's what it suggests to their friends, it's what they see in their feed so it's ultimately what they share and what they end up thinking about more often as a result. But it isn't who they are. I know these people: they love kayaking, and gin & tonics by the ocean, and their pets, and their kids, and fireworks, and campfires, and boating, and books, and gardening, and a million other things. But you'll never see posts about those other things on Facebook because they aren't "engaging."

kornhole 4y ago

I think Mastodon or the other Fediverse projects do provide all we need, but the problems with getting there are awareness, intransigence, and excitement which the advertising networks provide. Most people are unaware of this free alternative because it doesn't advertise itself. Effort to change and migrate is too much for many people. Entertainment creation does not provide much if any revenue on free platforms. So we have this divide of advertising products and the rest of us who do not participate in advertising networks. The trend toward the latter is growing but slowly.

ragnarel 4y ago
Jabber failed versus MSN Messenger and that was not because advertising. Propietary products are usually more curated in features and stability than the free options, and those reach the market quickly. Big companies have money, free comunities do not.

grecy 4y ago

> we basically don't have social media right now, we have advertising engines masquerading as social media And that's been true of mainstream media for a long time also.

dont__panic 4y ago
Have you ever read Neil Postman's Amusing ourselves to Death? It doesn't quite hone in on the advertising engine piece of this, but I think it hits the nail right on the head about mainstream media's longtime masquerade as "news."

gibsonf1 4y ago

https://solidproject.org/ https://solidproject.org/

safety1st 4y ago

I think the market simply came to the conclusion that "real social media" (friend-centric) was not a thing that many people needed or wanted. People moved friend-to-friend communication to private messaging apps: FB Messenger, Whatsapp, Signal, Discord, etc. and that space is very alive and well. There is no great unfulfilled demand for a version of that which is also semi-public because then you get your public and private spheres mixed up. Younger users appear to have looked at the mistakes of older users and figured out that this is not the right move - they know that Tiktok/IG/etc. is fake and not friend based, the fakeness is sort of the point, they're there to watch the 2022 version of TV, and participate in a popularity contest and stroke the ego/receive affirmation from a Like count.

dizzystar 4y ago

I'm curious how you can to this conclusion. Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter were always vehicles for advertisers. I suppose it was more acceptable because it was from "influencer marketing," which was taken so far that the FTC had to step in and start fining influencers for dishonest marketing. I guess it is different than "we are interrupting your current show for this important topic," but to be honest, I think the new style of marketing is more sinister. We can expect a TV or radio station to show ads and understand it doesn't exactly reflect the thoughts of the stations. In "influencer marketing," we are led to believe that some 16 year old really knows more about the stock market and crypto than those Wall Street guys.

tekknik 4y ago
TV created influencer marketing. Since before social networks existed products would make appearances in shows. See Sheldon drink a coke in big bang theory, that was paid for. See someone shopping at a particular store in a mall, paid for.
randomsearch 4y ago
That’s odd, I don’t remember there being any advertising at all on those platforms in the early days.

glenngillen 4y ago

This is an interesting perspective and evolution I’d not considered before. And it makes me wonder if the trend of LinkedIn showing ever more personal and less professional content is because it’s the place people have turned to fill the void. It being the main remaining place where people have connections they are least have a somewhat passing personal acquaintance with rather than just a collection of performing strangers.

napolux 4y ago

> If we're lucky, that means a federated, open, mostly-ad-and-suggestion-free open source social media experience can fill the power vacuum for intimate, interpersonal, high-latency communication over the internet. microblog seems promising, but I think even mastodon could provide the experience I'm looking for. might be true for people like us. the other 7 billions out there won’t care

dont__panic 4y ago
That's OK by me. I'd very much enjoy a small community of passionate people like us. My family and friends are fed up with Facebook enough that I could probably persuade them to switch. I don't need everyone on there -- just the people I care about and respect. Of course I think the whole world would benefit if everyone switched away from Facebook, but no need to rush anything.

_nalply 4y ago

This article filled me with hope, but I already see a danger: A threadmill of products to "bring the world together" under different names and mottos but all sooner or later devolving into advertisement machines. Maybe next: WhatsApp, then Signal then Mastodon? For this to happen, founders just need to sell out, for example to Meta. WhatsApp already sold out but did not yet pivot.

XorNot 4y ago
Signal very obviously has a finite lifespan, but in the moment it's best in class for privacy.
- cal85 4y ago
  Very obviously - not to me. Why?
- dont__panic 4y ago
  Very obviously? Am I missing something? That being said, I'm strongly considering switching to a Matrix client these days, since I like the idea of encrypted chat that works across whatever client I prefer. If you're knowledgeable in the encrypted chat space I'd love to hear your thoughts on the pros and cons.
  - XorNot 4y ago
    Signal is anti-federation, so it's limited to the quality that moxie can enforce so long as he can enforce it. Realistically, if he steps down for any reason and someone decides they need to layer in ads to support it...that'll be the end. I would desperately like Signal to have a commercial service offering you can pay for which would of offer the possibility of sustainment.
    - tekknik 4y ago
      > I would desperately like Signal to have a commercial service offering you can pay for which would of offer the possibility of sustainment. That will kill it even quicker. What does this look like? All users have to pay to have an account? Now you’ll have less users and miss out on network effects. If only some users have to pay, what do they get besides feel goods? Ad removal? They’re stuck, Signal must continue being free. So agreed, Signal has a finite lifespan

hnbad 4y ago

This reminds me of a video I watched the other day about how nobody asks you to "share" anymore. In the early days of social networks every site and app had front page ad copy asking you to "share". Nowadays most don't even tell you what they are because it's assumed that you already know. And even those that try to explain themselves no longer talk about "sharing".

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

marcus_holmes 4y ago

The problem of "who pays for this?" still remains. If it's free to the user, it has to be ad-supported (or I guess donation-driven; the Wikipedia/Guardian model, but I don't see that working so well for social media). If it's ad-supported that means the advertiser becomes the customer and the point of the thing gets subverted to maximise ad revenue. If it's not free to the user, then we have to educate everyone that they need to pay for their social media. Not an easy task.

dont__panic 4y ago
That's easy, honestly. Give people an option: - host your own instance, no limits on usage because you're paying your own way, hosting your own images and content, running your own server - use someone else's instance, they can show you whatever ads they like (though preferably in a sidebar, not integrated into your main feed) and subject you to space limitations. In a truly federated environment where users can easily switch between instances, those instances can compete based on ad and space efficiency. Some folks, like myself, might shell out for their own instance and host friends and family with no ads and ample space just to be nice. Facebook as of 2009 was damn near "feature complete" social media. Messaging, photos, videos, comments, chronological feed. It's not that complicated. You could run the whole thing as an open source + donation based project, like Wikipedia or Mozilla. You don't need tens of thousands of engineers and venture capital that forces you to employ dark patterns and inject more and more ads and growth. Hell, I think that governments could even donate to a project like this since it's essentially a public service and (compared to Facebook/Twitter/Instagram/TikTok) an investment in public mental health.
- marcus_holmes 4y ago
  yeah, those are the options. And I agree, FB in 2009 was great. But that's my point: companies have to keep moving, and optimising, and growing (because shareholders). If the revenue is supplied by advertisers, then they're the customers, and any optimisation is aimed to increase lock-in/revenues/etc based on their experience. The actual users get a worse experience as time goes on because their needs are secondary to the advertisers. Eventually the whole thing ends up where we are with FB: the user experience is shitty and people start leaving. If this is really going to work properly, then we have to persuade people to pay for their social media service.

Yizahi 4y ago

Mastodon is anything but high-latency. If you missed a post in the stream of other posts it is gone forever, unless you were glued to the screen in hopes of not missing anything. I don't think it is better than Tiktok really, same basic principle of keeping people in the app. Forums and blogs with comment sections are the only high-latency mediums, and I guess we will keep reinventing them every five years.