4 ms·

> 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 soc

> 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.
comfypotato 4y ago
I’m over 30 and this rings false for me. Social networks introduced problems at a scale that they hadn’t really been seen before, and it has awful downsides. That being said, the basic concept is nice. My parents, for example, are much more connected to their relatives overseas. More so than they’re relatives, they’re connected to their relatives’ friend groups. The conversations that take place now when they visit are better. They’re more in touch with more lives. The ads, the fomo, the general fakeness of it all is awful. But the benefits still outweigh the negatives.
mym1990 4y ago
The crazy thing is that I can find people right now on the other side of the world and probably make some great connections and share stories, learn about cultures, etc... It just doesn't happen.

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.

comfypotato 4y ago

I’m over 30 and this rings false for me. Social networks introduced problems at a scale that they hadn’t really been seen before, and it has awful downsides. That being said, the basic concept is nice. My parents, for example, are much more connected to their relatives overseas. More so than they’re relatives, they’re connected to their relatives’ friend groups. The conversations that take place now when they visit are better. They’re more in touch with more lives. The ads, the fomo, the general fakeness of it all is awful. But the benefits still outweigh the negatives.

mym1990 4y ago

The crazy thing is that I can find people right now on the other side of the world and probably make some great connections and share stories, learn about cultures, etc... It just doesn't happen.