8 ms·

What if, and hear me out: we ditch the idea of a better replacement social network and just ditch the concept in general? Let’s go back to not being bombarded b

• jollofricepeas 4y ago
  Social networks are hotels, right. - First they are new and cool. The young, hip and rich stay often. - New becomes old. Shoddy carpet, old fixtures, bad music in the lobby but older people stay until they die. - New hotels sprout up with cool carpet, music and fixtures. The cycle repeats. The only way we can ditch them is to ban them and then they’ll go underground :( What is dead may never die.
  • eriknj99 4y ago
    You can checkout any time you like but you can never leave
    • 7thaccount 4y ago
      acoustic guitar intensifies for a brief solo Seriously though, your comment gave me a great laugh this morning and made me think about how much of our communication is built off shared pop culture.
    • shivekkhurana 4y ago
      Most of them also happen to be in California.
  • mym1990 4y ago
    To me the difference is that 1) you pay for hotels and you know exactly what the cost is 2) hotels provide a tangible benefit, mostly being the bed to sleep in. Social media often has this idea that it is “free” and so people don’t think about the massive amounts of time and privacy that is given up as the hours whizz by.
    • JohnFen 4y ago
      Hotels where you don't pay rent, in exchange for the hotel recording everything you do in the room, in the lobby, and if you aren't careful, putting a GPS tracker on your person.
      • kwhitefoot 4y ago
        I doubt that a recording of everything I do in a hotel room would be valuable enough to pay for the room. Pity really, I'd quite like to do some touring without having to pay!
        • 6510 4y ago
          I've done extensive research into providing free services (of many kinds) It is not at all problematic to extract enough value from a conventional hotel visitor to pay for their room. The real puzzle is that a free room doesn't attract that kind of people. You get people who feel obligated to draw penises on the wall, shit in the sink and stab holes in your mattress. The normal audience you get, after making the reservations and/or picking up the key mostly wont be in the room because they don't need it. Whatever plot one was to come up with to realize it it is almost guaranteed that it would work better if you charged extra for a room with such creative original features all this wonderful product information as the deeper the pockets the more valuable and less annoying the promotional circus.
      • gretch 4y ago
        I don't know if you meant this facetiously or not, but I'm pretty sure a LOT of people would want to take this deal if it existed. Which is also why a lot of people are perfectly okay with, and use social media
      • mym1990 4y ago
        Add to this: every 5 feet you walk you have to watch a 5 second ad. I would actually not be surprised if that is a model in the future for hotels...
  • aaronharnly 4y ago
    I like the metaphor. Next, people think “we need AirBnB! Not stodgy old hotels, but cool, real homes owned by real people, where individuals can provide hospitality to each other and everyone wins.” Consequence: independent operators take on the soulless characteristics of hotels but without the accountability or reliability. I can see us entering the AirBnB era of social networks soon…
    • deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
    • mmcgaha 4y ago
      Blogs with RSS?
      • mindtricks 4y ago
        There is a whole generation that isn't even familiar with this concept, so you could honestly re-introduce it. It's "TikTok for Text!"
        • wyre 4y ago
          >TikTok for Text That’s basically Reddit, except Reddit also has images and video.
  • giancarlostoro 4y ago
    Hotels where you don't pay rent, but everything is sponsored ad placement. I wish I could run a hotel like that in real life, just ads everywhere.
    • gibspaulding 4y ago
      Sounds like a casino.
      • bitxbitxbitcoin 4y ago
        There’s no free rent at a casino unless you are proven to be a gambler though - or am I mistaken.
        • namaria 4y ago
          Civilization is fast becoming a casino. Housing is increasingly expensive, most offers are some money-for-dopamine deal. Social media is a never ending row of slot machines. We keep betting small chunks of attention that we will have a mythical pay-off (fame, love, glory), and most just waste away pressing the buttons and looking at the colors change for ever.
          • chao- 4y ago
            In what way does something becoming expensive (in this case housing) make it like a casino? And what would be a flip-side for that metaphor ("housing prices are remaining where they are, which is like {{thing}}")? Not disagreeing you, just unable to follow the connection you are making.
            • namaria 4y ago
              Housing used to be about acquiring acceptable shelter. Now it's more like paying high fees for temporary arrangements... Civilization should be about diverse spaces people can build together but lately it's more like living in a planet size casino with a dumpster fire out back...
  • deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  • sleepybrett 4y ago
    Yeah social networks seem to be 'generationally sticky'. This is probably just network effect shit. You and all your friends are on instagram and use instagram together as your 'main channel'. Tik Tok comes along, some join but some don't. But the next generation they join Tik Tok as their 'main channel' .. the process repeats. Essentially: Facebook = boomers Twitter. = genx insta. = geny ... (but for some other shorter generational definition)
  • dangerwill 4y ago
    I'm sorry what? This is absurd take, to think of hotels as a recent invention where they have been "new and cool", like social media. Hotels are just a formalized way to provide temporary accommodation for money, which has existed as a class of business since trade has existed. The wayside tavern in ancient villages is an exact 1:1 analog with your travel inn motel today. This comparison makes 0 sense
• melling 4y ago
  [Successful] Companies build what consumers want. You aren’t locked into social networks. Don’t use them. Consumers vote with their dollars. The constant noise of “Paywall” is why so much is ad based. So, if you’ve got a better idea, build it and see if they come. [Updated] Clarified that I meant successful companies.
  • js8 4y ago
    > Companies build what consumers want. Note how circular this is. You say "consumers", not people. Who is a consumer is also defined by said companies.
  • deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  • OgAstorga 4y ago
    Companies build what consumers want. You aren’t locked into Heroin. Don’t use it. Consumers vote with their dollars. So, if you’ve got a better idea, synthesize it and see if they come.
    • elicash 4y ago
      I get they both are "addictive" given the broad sense of the term. Yes, your brain gets a little reward with each refresh. But I don't think it's fair to compare the addictive nature of social media to heroin. (Let alone their impact on people's lives. But even putting that aside.) Do you really think social media and heroin should be regulated at all similarly?
      • namaria 4y ago
        Yeah social media is more like alcohol. Feels good in the moment, leaves a hangover if you stay away for any meaningful amount of time, is completely legal and generates a lot of profits and tax revenue. We all know it's bad for us and society at large, yet most of us can't stop using it. Can lubricate social relations but also potentiates abuse.
    • 4y ago
• christehaaland 4y ago
  young people will always want a social network that connects them to their peers before they realize the damaging effects of it. Even if warned, guaranteed they won't care at first
  • SketchySeaBeast 4y ago
    Let's not blame solely young people here, especially when discussing Meta.
  • hungryforcodes 4y ago
    Connecting people with their peers is most certainly not damaging-- any more than socializing in general. Facebook started off GREAT! I singed up almost as soon as it was available to the general public (remember it was just open to university students at first). At that time my timeline was basically text only and the content came from only my friends. It was like a fun online party -- not unlike online chat systems from the old days. Then mysteriously all the people I enjoyed interacting with, disappeared from my timeline. Then I started getting content vaguely unrelated to my friends. Then meme photos I didn't want, ads and now basically just videos I hate and am bored of. So the original concept is fine. It's just where we ended up that is mind numbing and alienating.
    • idiotsecant 4y ago
      It certainly is quite damaging because that connection isn't an accurate representation of a real-world connection. When you see someone in the real world you see them sneeze, you see them cry, you see their successes and their failures. When you are 'friends' with someone on social media you see a carefully curated window into a reality that doesn't exist. This gives young people unrealistic expectations for themselves and others that I would certainly call damaging. It takes all the healthy parts of human interaction, processes them , and spits out a refined version coated in advertisements. It's not new (we've been doing that to young people since media was invented) but the level of pervasiveness is.
      • hungryforcodes 4y ago
• zeroonetwothree 4y ago
  You do realize that social networks are optional? No one is holding a gun to your head and forcing you to use them.
  • bigger_inside 4y ago
    do you realize that roads are optional? you don't have to leave your house to talk to friends. do you realize that using the mail service is optional? nobody forces you to write post cards. do you realize that electricity is optional? you can get a shack in the forest and burn wood. do you realize that water pipes are optional? you can dig for your own ground water. the world is not made of solipsistic individuals. infrastructure encases, shapes, and forms the possibilities and constraints in which all of us live.
    • commandlinefan 4y ago
      > "let's ditch social networks!" > "You realize they're optional, right?" > "Technically so are roads and mail and electricity and water!" so... are you saying we should ditch roads and mail and electricity and water? Your response is one of the sillier non sequiturs I've seen in a while, and I browse Reddit.
      • realce 4y ago
        Obviously the utilization of social networks is fundamental to social engagement in modern life. It's not silly whatsoever, it's a natural response when someone quips that a that a thing that's essentially needed but not absolutely required isn't worth complaining about.
        • msm_ 4y ago
          How is it obvious? I (and most of my friends) don't use social networks at all. They're not "absolutely required" for absolutely anything (unless your country is significantly different from mine). You'll only "miss out" on things that are only happening on social networks, but that's the point, right?
• crabbone 4y ago
  The ads aren't the problem of social networks. They are the problem of the Web. Usenets were the first social networks, but their monetization scheme didn't allow for mega international companies to exist: they were paid for to ISPs and ISPs only pay other ISPs for traffic, they don't pay for individual services. Email used to be the same way... sigh. Web became the platform that enabled for advertisement to be mixed into the product. I cannot tell if Hotmail or similar saw the promise of ads on the Web, or did they "accidentally" succeed -- whichever the case, it's the Web that took over other Internet applications because it made it possible to monetize it in a different and a more scalable way. Ideally, we'd have an Internet application for social networks, instead of it being a Web application. So that we pay our ISP for usage. We just really don't have that kind of application (yet?) And, I'm not sure ISPs are thrilled about this (will the effort be worth the revenues?). Definitely, companies like Meta aren't interested in that, as that would undermine their core business. But then, who knows... ad spam seems to be able to find its way no matter the technology. You can think about SMS as being similar to an Internet application, and you do get spam ads over SMS too. Another problem of social network as Internet application would be the search. Search works better when it's governed by a single entity which cares about indexing the data in various ways. If it's distributed, that'd be very challenging to implement, especially because it wouldn't be clear who's responsible for storing the indices and who pays whom in the end. Another challenge would be the connection between user's identity and their ISP... well, there are a lot of things that would need work, but I don't think it's not possible overall. In legislative terms, we'd need to recognize social networks as a service similar to postal service, and regulate it accordingly...
  • rchaud 4y ago
    This ignores the algorithmic ordering of social media feeds, which was unique to Facebook and then widely copied by all the other ad-ridden socials. There was no "connecting people" reason for them to do it, it was done because it made it easier to throw ads in to readers' feeds and make sure they'd be noticed.
    • charcircuit 4y ago
      >There was no "connecting people" reason for them to do it Not all posts are equally important. If someone only has time to read 5 posts then they should see important life updates from their friends and what they are interested in and not just show you 5 posts from them same person about how much they enjoyed their dinner and how good it looked.
• karaterobot 4y ago
  > Is the proposition of “being more connected” really worth the downsides? And 'proposition' is the right word to use, since its really just the promise of social networks that people like. In practice it has not worked as a means of connecting people to each other. Certainly not better than the alternatives it replaced. We should call the experiment a failure. I'm all for getting rid of social networks, especially general-purpose ones. I don't see it happening though. Most people see them as a fact of life, inevitable as death or taxes. If you're younger than 30, you probably don't have an intuitive feeling for what the world is like without them. I guess this is understandable, if sad.
  • gwd 4y ago
    > since its really just the promise of social networks that people like. In practice it has not worked as a means of connecting people to each other. I went off FB for a year or two, only to come back on when the pandemic started. I definitely missed the connections and conversations I had with family and friends across the world while I was gone. If I could have that without feeling like I was contributing to all the shenanigans, I would do it. For work I created a Mastodon account, and so far it seems very nice. There are lots of cool people posting interesting stuff, and no ads. Unfortunately I'm not interested in the "public-only microblog" experience for my personal life, and fine-graned access control in a federated system is a tricky problem; and my experience with the systems that are attempting to address that issue haven't been very positive.
    • mym1990 4y ago
      The ad experience will come, because that's really the best option for a lot of platforms to monetize...and no one is running a charity. By that point a lot of users have been locked in and essentially just going with it.
      • gwd 4y ago
        Loads of organizations have been running core infrastructure from donations for decades now. If you don't need to write new code, and don't have a pressure to actually turn a profit, and have people with enough investment in the community to donate time doing moderation / sysadmin tasks, then it should be easy to get enough donations to keep a server up and running. In any case, one of the core functionalities of most federated software is the ability to migrate your profile somewhere else.
• itsoktocry 4y ago
  >What if, and hear me out: we ditch the idea of a better replacement social network and just ditch the concept in general? Why do "we" need to ditch anything? People are building it because they want to, and will use it if they want to. Or not.
  • enraged_camel 4y ago
    I think an argument can be made that social networks have been a net negative on society, despite (or because of) being very good ad delivery mechanisms and making some people and some companies very rich.
  • mym1990 4y ago
    Facebook is not building things 'because they want to'...that is not a business reason. They are buildings things because there are billion and billions to extract.
• juujian 4y ago
  I think you could literally take Twitter's code base from 10 years ago and set up a server and people would flock to it. Building something new is really not what is required, the bigger question is what people, what community.
• KKKKkkkk1 4y ago
  > What if, and hear me out: we ditch the idea of a better replacement social network and just ditch the concept in general? Good luck with that. Social networks is an idea that is as old as the Internet. MySpace and Facebook were merely a step in a progression that included IRC, Usenet, email. Arguably hypertext itself. If you're not connecting people, what is the point of the Internet?
  • Apocryphon 4y ago
    Connecting computer programs without human intervention
  • bcrosby95 4y ago
    Don't forget CompuServe and Prodigy, which predates the consumer internet. Back in the late '80s my parents subscribed to these, and I would read and post on their comic book forums, arguing about which super hero could beat who.
• layer8 4y ago
  You mean, ditch the HN comments section?
• olah_1 4y ago
  I think the ideal social network would just extend the natural social networks of real life. Moxie at Signal was right when he said the real “social network” is just your phone contacts.
  • kwhitefoot 4y ago
    No he wasn't. Most of the people I have connected to via social networks do not appear in my phone contacts. And the social networks themselves do not have my phone number.
    • UncleEntity 4y ago
      > And the social networks themselves do not have my phone number. Yeah, they probably do… Back in the before times people would keep up with their “Social Networks” by running into them at parties or whatever and “Update their Status”. Sometimes people would even “PM” each other over dinner and drinks outside of these “Group Chats”. Hard to believe, I know, but somehow the human race managed to keep going.
      • kwhitefoot 4y ago
        > Yeah, they probably do… If so then they got it from some one else outside the network because it never appears in my conversations and I use the networks exclusively via a web browser.
    • olah_1 4y ago
      Phone numbers became a “bigger deal” when they started being abused. People just started using instagram as a first means of contact because it felt less personal. It allowed for more “escape hatches” if it turns out that you don’t like the person so much. If phone numbers allowed for varying levels of trust like instagram, it would work as a social network today like it once did in the past
• sleepybrett 4y ago
  I think facebook realizes that their uptake among younger audiences is way down and their userbase is aging. They've buttressed themselves so far via instagram, but I imagine they are maybe seeing a bit of the same trend. A generation seems to, more or less, engage with some social network and it becomes pretty sticky for them. So maybe this is just their 'next wave' play.
• comfypotato 4y ago
  They bring way too much value for this. They’ve introduced a slew of “new” problems, and these problems are bad. The problems are still outweighed by the benefits. I enjoy the connection social media gives me to people outside of geographical area and outside the sphere of who I’m comfortable phone calling.
• akira2501 4y ago
  This puts the cart before the horse. Otherwise, you seem to be assuming that all people on social networks were somehow tricked into being there. They're there for a reason. It just so happens that this current implementation of entertainment is particularly popular. Is that because they lack other options or because this is actually prime entertainment? Or is it because it's essentially free and mildly fulfilling and socially useful for people? Either way I doubt a "solution" is to essentially "make it illegal."
  • mym1990 4y ago
    Making it illegal would be silly, society would need to come to the conclusion on its own, which is why social media will probably not ever go away. The trap is exactly what you just said: "it's essentially free". Which of course it is not. Time is one's most valuable resource, I guess it is up to you what you value it. Mental well being has value. Privacy has value. I really don't know that many people that walk away from FB or IG or Twitter and say "that was fulfilling". Maybe I am really off base there.
• vitiral 4y ago
  Welcome to hacker news, the place that is definitely not a social network.
• totemandtoken 4y ago
  I hear arguments like this all the time, and it bothers me that such arguments miss that there is something that people like about social media - connecting with people. It clearly is worth it and that's been around since the beginning of the internet in some shape or form be it IRC, forums, usenet, whatever. There's innovations that constitute as modern "social media," like the feed or social search, but the core notion of using the internet to try to connect people is going to be a demand as long as there are people and there is an internet. The best we can possibly do is identify maladaptive innovations and try to provide some alternative, until one is dominant enough that "social media" is as dated as "forums."
  • mym1990 4y ago
    There is something people like about cocaine as well, but it doesn't mean it should be prevalent in society. You know what a good way to connect with people is? To go out and talk to them. Join a club, chat with a coworker about something more than the morning standup, text or call a friend you haven't talked to in a while. I would be incredibly surprised if the majority of users see dramatic upticks in connectedness while engaging with FB/IG/Twitter. I love the concept of forums and little communities here and there, hell even the little post count and quirky username colors based on seniority meant something to me in those days. But as soon as those things are turned into mega money making machines, the incentives are no longer with the users.