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Public networks are dead. We did it for two decades and now people need to go back to something more real and private. Social networks in the current form are j

• aloisdg 3y ago
  reddit disagrees.
  • deepserket 3y ago
    Niche subreddits are usually good, unfortunately when a subreddit becomes famous lots of people start posting without learning the etiquette. Moderating a big subreddit is not easy, you can go from having several chains of comments removed (eg. r/science) to getting flooded with bots (eg. reddit.com).
  • johnchristopher 3y ago
    No, it doesn't. On est bien avancés là hein ?
  • tinyhouse 3y ago
    Reddit is more like HM than a social network.
  • paganel 3y ago
    Reddit is becoming more and more dead as time progresses, I'd say its high-mark was the mid 2010s, until 2017-2018 or so. Of course that its actual traffic might still increase for some time, but it has lost the (counter-)cultural ascendency that it used to have. That's what you get for hiring a former Atlantic Council member as your "policy director".
• johnchristopher 3y ago
  8 years ago, in marketing workshops I ran (badly but that's another topic and the public was really out of touch, it was more an intro to social networks, anyway), I boldly claimed "Facebook is dead but don't worry Messenger is here" and then I'd explained the concepts of direct messaging, humane digital relationships, always-on concierge service, etc. I still think people better move from social networks to messaging services with people they actually have connections with (real life or digital). Edit: Hey, I was not that wrong: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2019/03/zuckerberg-facebook-will-shift-focus-to-private-networks-instead-of-open-ones/ https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2019/03/zuckerberg-facebook-... > > Public social networks will continue to be very important in people's lives—for connecting with everyone you know, discovering new people, ideas and content, and giving people a voice more broadly. People find these valuable every day, and there are still a lot of useful services to build on top of them. But now, with all the ways people also want to interact privately, there's also an opportunity to build a simpler platform that's focused on privacy first. > He acknowledges Facebook is an odd fit for this approach, saying, "frankly we don't currently have a strong reputation for building privacy protective services, and we've historically focused on tools for more open sharing," but: > > I believe the future of communication will increasingly shift to private, encrypted services where people can be confident what they say to each other stays secure and their messages and content won't stick around forever. This is the future I hope we will help bring about.
• threeseed 3y ago
  From Facebook's Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2022 Results: DAUs were 2.00 billion on average for December 2022, an increase of 4% year-over-year. So I think public networks still seem far from dead.
  • elcomet 3y ago
    Facebook is a private network.
    • johnchristopher 3y ago
      For a pedantic definition of private.
      • mtlmtlmtlmtl 3y ago
        The precise definition being that it's private because you need to create an account so they can more accurately violate your privacy.
    • jasode 3y ago
      >Facebook is a private network. You're getting sidetracked by the word "private" instead of looking at the contextual meaning of the conversation people are having: When grandparent poster (asim) wrote: >"and now people need to go back to something more real and private." asim meant "private"=="less-visible-more-intimate-group". You're talking about "private"=="walled-garden". The threeseed's reply of "So I think public networks still seem far from dead" is responding to asim's usage of "private" and not yours.
      • asim 3y ago
        yes thanks for clarifying that. I really do mean, private as in, no one outside of your circles of real connections can see it and it's entirely invite only. Who do I invite into my home and personal conversations? Well not the people on facebook or twitter I'll tell you that much.
• ciex 3y ago
  Public networks are a lot more hostile than we realize while we have moderation armies at work. That may not be a sustainable model. I think the way forward is building the right tools to help communities self-manage. It will be more like Discord and less like Twitter.
  • dsir 3y ago
    It seems like the biggest asset that creators are creating are the communities that form around them and their niche. The people who consume content within a niche tend to be very likeminded and often times quite willing to rally behind and support the bastions propelling the niches that they identify with. Even for smaller creators, I've seen time and time again that all you need is one or two highly dedicated and engaged fans to make being a creator an extremely lucrative endeavour. I've been working on a platform to help content creators diversify their revenue streams and offer their communities that become a sort of privatized social network as one of their product offerings in addition to their content. The hope is to allow creators to better capture their community and monetize from their niche. https://sociables.com/creators https://sociables.com/creators
    • zaplin 3y ago
      I am a content creator (newsletter) where I interview music producers. The main goal behind it is to create a community where we have a place online, and multiple places offline to chill, chat and do our thing. I am on the lookout to find how the online thing looks like, and honestly, it always comes back to a facebook group. I hate facebook. But it is the option with the least friction, for now. Every other option, adds friction. From single signups to downloading mobile apps. I haven't checked sociables yet (gonna, as soon as I hit reply), but I'm letting you know of my thoughts because it's a problem addressed to everyone.
      • dsir 3y ago
        Appreciate the reply. Did you have a chance to check out the platform? We are always looking for ways we can better tailor the platform to serve the needs of people like you. Cheers
• justapassenger 3y ago
  Aren’t hacker news comments public social network?
  • codingdave 3y ago
    No, there are no features on HN that help us network, and I rarely, if ever, even look at what user posted a story or comment, so at least for me it is not social. Just because it is user-generated content does not make it a "social network"
    • endisneigh 3y ago
      That’s exactly what it means. You can favorite posts, comments, upvote and downvote. It’s not algorithmic but it’s still a social network.
      • vaylian 3y ago
        What is your definition of a social network? In my view a social network requires that you actually represent social connections on the platform. Afaik there is no way for me to establish such a social connection with you on HN.
        • justapassenger 3y ago
          Explicit social connections are dying trend on social network, as weird as it sounds. TikTok, Twitter's "For you", Reels - all of them are considered to be social networks, and they depend on algorithmic feeds recommending content to you.
          • vaylian 3y ago
            Interesting point. Then I think we should acknowledge that former social networks are morphing into something that should no longer be called a social network?
          • skinnymuch 3y ago
• berkes 3y ago
  Facebook has such a network: WhatsApp. In the US apparently not that omnipresent, but it's everywhere in many countries. Facebook has the data, and knows exactly how such closed-networks are in demand, can (not) be monetized and what features are needed to make them grow. In e.g. The Netherlands anything from your neighborhood-watch to parents-info, or anything related to school, via business-groups, your bachelors party, to the weekly scissors-collectors-club-coffee-meet . All of these organize, inform, discuss, on WhatsApp.
  • asim 3y ago
    Yes, I use WhatsApp, my family uses WhatsApp, my wife's family uses WhatsApp. I found it to be an incredibly effective tool and was a really big fan of Jan Koum and Brian Acton pre-sale to Facebook. And now, I wonder how to replace it. Signal did not become a replacement, if anything it's not that great because user friendliness trumps everything else. Networks are sticky and shifting a network is a damn near impossible task, but then people are using WhatsApp over Facebook Messenger or SMS, so I guess the question is, how do you create another shift? I'm personally developing more and more conviction around the idea of doing something that first tries to tackle this on a personal level before doing it for others e.g How do I get my family off WhatsApp. Well, I might need to run the equivalent as a private server or I might need a way to bridge the chat to pull them over. I might need some sort of really key collaborative feature also. I definitely think there's a sort of missing tool for family, friends and community. One that's totally private. Maybe like an open source facebook groups. But hosting is a must because no one wants to run it, we just want to know its open source, vetted and we can guarantee it's private. Where Signal was for 1:1 text on Mobile, I think something else could be community first.
    • roydivision 3y ago
      I introduced my extended family to Signal after they initially wanted to use WhatsApp. It has worked perfectly for years, ages from 14 to 80.
    • lakomen 3y ago
      Telegram seems like the logical choice. It has everything WhatsApp does and more.
• iambateman 3y ago
  Don’t look now but you wrote this on a public network. :) That said, I agree the current iteration of public social networks is pretty rough.
  • asim 3y ago
    The irony. HN is probably one of the few places left I feel like actually every so often leaving a comment. Why is that? The value of the network perhaps. Or that it does in some ways feel like a closed network. It's so niche, the self promotional nature is quite limited to posting about things you're working on. There's no retweet/advert like culture that results in infinite threads. Anyway, if HN was a closed network that would be good too. I don't see why the comments need to be public, I don't see why any of it needs to be public. I mean in 2009 a friend recommended it to me, but equally if it was invite only he could have sent me an invite. But that's the way I discovered most great things, someone I personally know told me about it or shared an invite. And I think if there was to be a great new network that it should actually be invite only, totally private and even then I think "public" spaces within that private domain should be limited to fixed size groups. On any given day, if a room has more than 10 people in it, I probably know I'm not going to enjoy that conversation or setting. I think its the same of the internet. Crowds are not cool, they're anxiety inducing. So 20 people max in a group.
• winternett 3y ago
  Public networks have value for entertainment, movies, TV, and music all should be sponsored by social media apps, especially independent music. These social apps also need to abandon the predatory and destructive (ad boosting) schemes they've created and instead tax big (and very profitable) media companies alone. Undercover the truth has been that social media has always been simply a channel for commercials, and they should embrace that truth and make it les sof a ponzi scheme, and more of an easy way to scroll through specific areas of interest for individual people. If social media was honest and fair, the metrics on consumer sentiment would be game-changingly valuable to everyone in business, but as of right now, pure corruption, deceptive marketing, and endless new schemes are being invented by people trying to leverage social media against the unaware masses on it. Closed networks can be just as easily corrupted, and they can be weaponized against users with no way of anyone knowing what occurred. Closed systems can hide valuable knowledge and truth from the public, they create a nightmare for law enforcement as well in solving crimes perpetrated on groups or individuals, they also encourage maintaining multiple individual accounts and paywalls around data that does not need to be private... Neither solution is perfect. Many of the massive public social media services have been operating as if they are closed networks lately as they try to squeeze money and data out of users over time (e.g. Twitter not allowing posts to be accessed without having an account). I am really tired myself of all the tricks, gimmics, and schemes that social media creates jus tin order to operate successfully on it, and new tools are often the same old schemes, but in reality, there is now barely any other cost-effective way to promote yourself to the world... Google search can also be kind of considered the same as social media in a way because many have to pay for prominent placing and manipulate keywords, and even do things like registering an SSL cert and pay hosting to be ranked higher on results... TikTok has basically become a massive video search engine on the flip side of that. The problem is these networks thrive on free and coerced labor form content creators and businesses, they offer little reward for hard work, and they facilitate wide-scale fraud, info theft, ID impersonation, and disinformation. Those things need to be addressed thoroughly moving forward, or it will all turn into a desolate strip mall with little value to anyone but the land owners.