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The days of MySpace losing to Facebook or Digg losing to Reddit are over. We reached a phase where the biggest networks are too big to die quickly. It no longer

The days of MySpace losing to Facebook or Digg losing to Reddit are over. We reached a phase where the biggest networks are too big to die quickly. It no longer seems possible to replace these sites wholesale. Their decline will look like Craigslist's. They'll still be around a decade from now, but having slowly and steadily lost traffic and cultural relevance. I fully welcome Twitter and Reddit suddenly sacrificing their future for short term gain. It's the only path to being eventually rid of them. And instead of replacing them with new single winners like Mastodon, I'm hopeful the new trend will be to spread our activity to multiple sites, and to be a bit less online in general.

Levitz 3y ago
>And instead of replacing them with new single winners like Mastodon, I'm hopeful the new trend will be to spread our activity to multiple sites, and to be a bit less online in general. I, too, want to be hopeful, but how do you think this can possibly happen? Metcalfe's law is a thing: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metcalfe%27s_law?useskin=vector https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metcalfe%27s_law?useskin=vecto... TLDR: The more people share a method of communication, the more value that method of communication has. Social networks organically evolve towards monopolies.
- maxbond 3y ago
  I said this in a sibling comment but it felt responsive to yours, so you summarize, I think what we're finding out is a.) When the marginal cost of joining another network is 0, people will join "lower value" networks and b.) When you have enough people on the platform, the marginal value to the user of adding an additional user becomes negative - when you get to a certain scale, the new people joining are less likely to bring you additional conversation then additional trolling and harassment. Anecdotally, HN is at a sweet spot for me. It's large enough that I'm just a person in the crowd (which I value), but it's small enough and the interaction is limited enough that I don't feel I'm likely to receive persistent, ongoing harassment. (I catch plenty of trolling, but it never feels personal really, I don't think they'll recognize me in the next thread we bump into each other.)
- 3np 3y ago
  Specifically on Metcalfe's law, consider that just like with the internet, e-mail, the phone grid, and p2p protocols, it is possible to have a common network without centralized control.
londons_explore 3y ago
> The days of ... Digg losing to Reddit are over. I disagree. Especially somewhere like reddit where the power lies in a relatively small pool of moderators (ie. a couple of hundred people), who aren't well controlled by Reddit the company. These moderators could, if they organised together, kill the site in a matter of days. And I'm sure reddit-clones have been approaching the moderators with lucrative offers to do just that...
- germinalphrase 3y ago
  Surely, Reddit would just remove and replace these moderators at the first taste of real pain. Yes?
  - londons_explore 3y ago
    I don't think they'd have enough replacements ready quick enough. They'd have to decide between an influx of spam from having no moderation and upset users, massive disruption from upset disruptive moderators, or stale content by freezing all submissions to the site. If I were in their position, I would have trained for this scenario, and already prepared a way to put entire subreddits into 'read only' mode which just replays history - ie. show funny cat pictures from last year. Then any subreddit that starts talking too much about leaving for a new platform gets put in read only mode. Let people think they are still interacting - ie. people can still upvote/downvote/comment, but it's mostly/all dummy stuff. But... I bet they haven't prepared, and will be caught off guard.
    - ThrowawayTestr 3y ago
      >I don't think they'd have enough replacements ready quick enough. There is never a shortage of losers desperate for a crumb of power.
      - Macha 3y ago
        Sure, there would be no shortage of applicants, and they'd all largely fall foul of the Douglas Adams rule about those who seek power. But they need not just people who'd put their hand up and do the moderation, but wouldn't drive all the users away (whether immediately or long term), which would be the hard part.
bushbaba 3y ago
Disagree. Generally it’s porn/restricted content as the driver. If Reddit to better monetize the Platform decides porn/certain popular conte t has no place. Another similar to Reddit platform will emerge to host this less than above board content. That will in turn drive other topic discourse and eventually the downfall of the old. See Snapchat for sexting. Instagram for insta-thots (Facebook has parents these days on it), and YouTube which originally was used for hosting copyright infringement (still is).
maxbond 3y ago
I'm not sure those days ever existed. MySpace is still operating, after all. I think we may have overestimated the degree to which network effects lead to an exclusive or monopolistic structure - it turns out a lot of people are pretty willing to have multiple active social media accounts, and that there are disadvantages to very large networks (pushing people to spread out into a series of smaller ones). And then there's federated stuff like Discord and Mastodon, where you can use the same account to join many networks, decreasing the modest friction.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
xtracto 3y ago
We need to go back to build open protocols. Protocols instead of programs. And then let Open Source and companies build the programs. That was a fight we had "won" on the days of MP3 (very painful), SMTP, MKV, among others during the 80s and 90s. The fact that people are now more willing to go back to install "real software" (in the form of phone applications) instead of web apps is an opportunity.
- slushh 3y ago
  'We' are building such a protocol with ActivityPub. What's wrong with it that you have ignored it?
  - xtracto 3y ago
    Aaah!! I was just trying to remember the "facebook killer" . Diaspora!! IIRC ActivityPub is what c as me from its inception in 2010. Nothing wrong with it. Good job what the team has been doing. Now we only need some entity to build the "killer" social network app using it. Something like the Hotmail or (later) Gmail of SMTP. I'll be waiting!
derekp7 3y ago
Here's an idea -- there is already a sizeable number of users that get to Reddit via third party apps. Would it be feasible for a would-be Reddit alternative to form by having all the third-party apps switch over to the new platform overnight (as soon as their API access to Reddit is cut off)? That would get you a large enough user base to bootstrap.
rchaud 3y ago
"Less Online" is exactly the silver lining I'm seeing from this new era of public facing websites slamming the doors shut, and treating sharecroppers ('creators' in the current lexicon) as inconveniences.
candiddevmike 3y ago
What killed Craigslist more, Facebook marketplace or the Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act?
screye 3y ago
> Digg losing to Reddit are over I strongly disagree and I can give you a clear reason why. Internet forum / niche communities serve a few purposes, and the advent AI (I know, bear with me) destroys their existing moat. A reddit serves the following purposes: 1. Persistent store of timeless information - ChatGPT style models have made this redundant. I 2. Updated store of current information - The problem with current information, is that it's generated where the users are. It is a chicken and egg problem, but that's exactly what makes it so dangerous. It takes 1 viral moment for people to pull off a critical mass of exodus, and you're never getting your users back. Like a siphon that will keep draining until your reservoir is fully empty. 3. fully realized niche hang-out spot - 20% of people create 80% of content. The 20% are embedded deeply enough in internet culture, that they can make a consensus move to another platform, and the other 80% will follow. (only applies to niche hobbies) 4. 9gag replacement - This is easy to disrupt and has been disrupted many times before. Reddit itself has already destroyed any sense of uniqueness that its platform had. No meme platform has managed to stay cool for more than 1 generational cycle. Reddit will be no different. Previous reddit exoduses didn't work, because it involved banning a certain extremist/morally dubious communities. The alternatives were terrible, unmoderated and struggled to migrate the timeless information over. The next exodus will be normal users. Timeless information migration has already been completed by ChatGPT. My favorite subreddit has already migrated to a 3rd party website. Moderation is a lot easier with LLMs. The last remaining piece of the puzzle is for a semi-competent new competitor to show up. Let's see if it actually happens.
- sangnoir 3y ago
  > Persistent store of timeless information - ChatGPT style models have made this redundant. This was only possible because ChatGPT-style models were trained on data scraped from Reddit using the (then) free API. While it may seem like bolting the barn door after the horse has run out, Reddit can ignore this and become obsoleted by models that keep ingesting the latest user comments, or at least earn some money out of it.
lcnmrn 3y ago
I welcome you to Subreply.
narrator 3y ago
As far as alternatives for Reddit go, there's http://communities.win http://communities.win. That's where all the subreddits that got cancelled went. My favorite community on there is http://communities.win/c/nonewnormal http://communities.win/c/nonewnormal which was an anti-lockdown and later anti-vax community that got cancelled on Reddit. Reddit refugees, used to a finally manicured echo chamber, will of course find it toxic. However, it doesn't suffer from the problem of Gab and Truth social in that there's enough fun stuff mixed in to make most of the content funny and reasonably entertaining and not just overly serious excessively doomer politics. Rumble seems to be doing pretty well too. However, nothing can replace Reddit for the unbelievable variety and ontology of adult content.

Levitz 3y ago

>And instead of replacing them with new single winners like Mastodon, I'm hopeful the new trend will be to spread our activity to multiple sites, and to be a bit less online in general. I, too, want to be hopeful, but how do you think this can possibly happen? Metcalfe's law is a thing: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metcalfe%27s_law?useskin=vector https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metcalfe%27s_law?useskin=vecto... TLDR: The more people share a method of communication, the more value that method of communication has. Social networks organically evolve towards monopolies.

maxbond 3y ago
I said this in a sibling comment but it felt responsive to yours, so you summarize, I think what we're finding out is a.) When the marginal cost of joining another network is 0, people will join "lower value" networks and b.) When you have enough people on the platform, the marginal value to the user of adding an additional user becomes negative - when you get to a certain scale, the new people joining are less likely to bring you additional conversation then additional trolling and harassment. Anecdotally, HN is at a sweet spot for me. It's large enough that I'm just a person in the crowd (which I value), but it's small enough and the interaction is limited enough that I don't feel I'm likely to receive persistent, ongoing harassment. (I catch plenty of trolling, but it never feels personal really, I don't think they'll recognize me in the next thread we bump into each other.)
3np 3y ago
Specifically on Metcalfe's law, consider that just like with the internet, e-mail, the phone grid, and p2p protocols, it is possible to have a common network without centralized control.

londons_explore 3y ago

> The days of ... Digg losing to Reddit are over. I disagree. Especially somewhere like reddit where the power lies in a relatively small pool of moderators (ie. a couple of hundred people), who aren't well controlled by Reddit the company. These moderators could, if they organised together, kill the site in a matter of days. And I'm sure reddit-clones have been approaching the moderators with lucrative offers to do just that...

germinalphrase 3y ago
Surely, Reddit would just remove and replace these moderators at the first taste of real pain. Yes?
- londons_explore 3y ago
  I don't think they'd have enough replacements ready quick enough. They'd have to decide between an influx of spam from having no moderation and upset users, massive disruption from upset disruptive moderators, or stale content by freezing all submissions to the site. If I were in their position, I would have trained for this scenario, and already prepared a way to put entire subreddits into 'read only' mode which just replays history - ie. show funny cat pictures from last year. Then any subreddit that starts talking too much about leaving for a new platform gets put in read only mode. Let people think they are still interacting - ie. people can still upvote/downvote/comment, but it's mostly/all dummy stuff. But... I bet they haven't prepared, and will be caught off guard.
  - ThrowawayTestr 3y ago
    >I don't think they'd have enough replacements ready quick enough. There is never a shortage of losers desperate for a crumb of power.
    - Macha 3y ago
      Sure, there would be no shortage of applicants, and they'd all largely fall foul of the Douglas Adams rule about those who seek power. But they need not just people who'd put their hand up and do the moderation, but wouldn't drive all the users away (whether immediately or long term), which would be the hard part.

bushbaba 3y ago

Disagree. Generally it’s porn/restricted content as the driver. If Reddit to better monetize the Platform decides porn/certain popular conte t has no place. Another similar to Reddit platform will emerge to host this less than above board content. That will in turn drive other topic discourse and eventually the downfall of the old. See Snapchat for sexting. Instagram for insta-thots (Facebook has parents these days on it), and YouTube which originally was used for hosting copyright infringement (still is).

maxbond 3y ago

I'm not sure those days ever existed. MySpace is still operating, after all. I think we may have overestimated the degree to which network effects lead to an exclusive or monopolistic structure - it turns out a lot of people are pretty willing to have multiple active social media accounts, and that there are disadvantages to very large networks (pushing people to spread out into a series of smaller ones). And then there's federated stuff like Discord and Mastodon, where you can use the same account to join many networks, decreasing the modest friction.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

xtracto 3y ago

We need to go back to build open protocols. Protocols instead of programs. And then let Open Source and companies build the programs. That was a fight we had "won" on the days of MP3 (very painful), SMTP, MKV, among others during the 80s and 90s. The fact that people are now more willing to go back to install "real software" (in the form of phone applications) instead of web apps is an opportunity.

slushh 3y ago
'We' are building such a protocol with ActivityPub. What's wrong with it that you have ignored it?
- xtracto 3y ago
  Aaah!! I was just trying to remember the "facebook killer" . Diaspora!! IIRC ActivityPub is what c as me from its inception in 2010. Nothing wrong with it. Good job what the team has been doing. Now we only need some entity to build the "killer" social network app using it. Something like the Hotmail or (later) Gmail of SMTP. I'll be waiting!

derekp7 3y ago

Here's an idea -- there is already a sizeable number of users that get to Reddit via third party apps. Would it be feasible for a would-be Reddit alternative to form by having all the third-party apps switch over to the new platform overnight (as soon as their API access to Reddit is cut off)? That would get you a large enough user base to bootstrap.

rchaud 3y ago

"Less Online" is exactly the silver lining I'm seeing from this new era of public facing websites slamming the doors shut, and treating sharecroppers ('creators' in the current lexicon) as inconveniences.

candiddevmike 3y ago

What killed Craigslist more, Facebook marketplace or the Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act?

screye 3y ago

> Digg losing to Reddit are over I strongly disagree and I can give you a clear reason why. Internet forum / niche communities serve a few purposes, and the advent AI (I know, bear with me) destroys their existing moat. A reddit serves the following purposes: 1. Persistent store of timeless information - ChatGPT style models have made this redundant. I 2. Updated store of current information - The problem with current information, is that it's generated where the users are. It is a chicken and egg problem, but that's exactly what makes it so dangerous. It takes 1 viral moment for people to pull off a critical mass of exodus, and you're never getting your users back. Like a siphon that will keep draining until your reservoir is fully empty. 3. fully realized niche hang-out spot - 20% of people create 80% of content. The 20% are embedded deeply enough in internet culture, that they can make a consensus move to another platform, and the other 80% will follow. (only applies to niche hobbies) 4. 9gag replacement - This is easy to disrupt and has been disrupted many times before. Reddit itself has already destroyed any sense of uniqueness that its platform had. No meme platform has managed to stay cool for more than 1 generational cycle. Reddit will be no different. Previous reddit exoduses didn't work, because it involved banning a certain extremist/morally dubious communities. The alternatives were terrible, unmoderated and struggled to migrate the timeless information over. The next exodus will be normal users. Timeless information migration has already been completed by ChatGPT. My favorite subreddit has already migrated to a 3rd party website. Moderation is a lot easier with LLMs. The last remaining piece of the puzzle is for a semi-competent new competitor to show up. Let's see if it actually happens.

sangnoir 3y ago
> Persistent store of timeless information - ChatGPT style models have made this redundant. This was only possible because ChatGPT-style models were trained on data scraped from Reddit using the (then) free API. While it may seem like bolting the barn door after the horse has run out, Reddit can ignore this and become obsoleted by models that keep ingesting the latest user comments, or at least earn some money out of it.

lcnmrn 3y ago

I welcome you to Subreply.

narrator 3y ago

As far as alternatives for Reddit go, there's http://communities.win http://communities.win. That's where all the subreddits that got cancelled went. My favorite community on there is http://communities.win/c/nonewnormal http://communities.win/c/nonewnormal which was an anti-lockdown and later anti-vax community that got cancelled on Reddit. Reddit refugees, used to a finally manicured echo chamber, will of course find it toxic. However, it doesn't suffer from the problem of Gab and Truth social in that there's enough fun stuff mixed in to make most of the content funny and reasonably entertaining and not just overly serious excessively doomer politics. Rumble seems to be doing pretty well too. However, nothing can replace Reddit for the unbelievable variety and ontology of adult content.