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> vast amounts of people crave toxicity, popularity contests and flamewars If there was a social media network that could exclude these things, then smaller wo
by trts 4y ago
> vast amounts of people crave toxicity, popularity contests and flamewars
If there was a social media network that could exclude these things, then smaller would be fine.
I remember Google Reader as a brief, well-balanced example of healthy social media platform. It was mostly text, the selection bias was in favor of users who were savvy enough to understand RSS, generally interested in an array of different things, no engagement algorithms. The blogosphere that drove much of the content at the time was wonkish, (more) independent, often irreverent but also sincere about what a better future for human civilization and politics could be like. Haven't seen another thing like it since.
- sylens 4y agoReader wasn't really a social platform for many of those reasons. It was its integration with Buzz that gave it the ability to share socially with friends
- trts 4y agoI don't think this was the case as I wasn't a Buzz user. And yes, it wasn't _really_ a social platform, but you could share items from your own feed to other mutuals and converse under the thread that you (or they) shared. A couple other readers like Inoreader and TheOldReader later implemented stuff like this, but without the large user base that Gmail had it was pointless. Its limitations were part of what made it thrive.