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I think Huffman is falling into a trap that Kanye and Mark Zuckerberg have fallen into: trying to prove he's special. Kanye rose to fame as a young genius rapp
by iaw 3y ago
I think Huffman is falling into a trap that Kanye and Mark Zuckerberg have fallen into: trying to prove he's special.
Kanye rose to fame as a young genius rapper/producer/designer and was acclaimed repeatedly. Zuckerberg rose to fame as a brilliant business twenty-something (according to the world around).
They spent half their life being praised and told they're important, brilliant, special, prescient, etc. So they are confident they can prove it again.
Kanye is doing.... something strange now. Zuckerberg tanked the stock price with VR/Metaverse and then juked it by firing a chunk of the company. They are so confident something intrinsic in them makes their choices special and 'right,' that they can see something no one else can.
Huffman et al. were at the right place and right time with a LAMP(?) stack when Digg imploded. Now he wants to prove that it's not "right place right time" but that he is special.
- idkyall 3y agoLook, I'm not the biggest Mark Zuckerberg fan or anything, but I don't think the thus-far questionable business decision to pivot to the metaverse is quite the same level as having an very public mental breakdown and making anti-semitic remarks
- aprdm 3y agoYeah exactly. I have issues with what social media does to people and some of what Mark has done.. but he is nowhere near my level of despise for Musk, Kanye or others in that circle.
- kulahan 3y agoKanye is suffering from mental illness and was off his medication while simultaneously having millions of dollars, adoring fans, and cameras in his face 24/7/365. I think most of us would do something stupid in that situation. I don't really get why you would "despise" someone for being ill.
- aprdm 3y agoI doubt most of us would support exterminating people if we were sick, but who knows
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- skyyler 3y agoYou'd be surprised at how easily otherwise intelligent people can get swept up into violent ideologies. Bobby Fischer is just one example of a bright mind corrupted by ideology. There are countless.
- kulahan 3y agoI'm not sure you've got a solid grasp of mental illness and how it affects the way you think.
- predictabl3 3y agoI don't know if you're unaware of the entire saga or if you've done some stuff you regret in the past but going on Alex Jones with Nick Fuentes is not something I'm giving a mental-health-pass on. I'm open to feedback that I'm an ableist jerk but I'm also not holding my breath.
- iaw 3y agoI just want to remind you that of the three people listed only Mark took actions that exacerbated a genocide (Rohingya in Myanmar).
- velp 3y agoAnd Elon's lithium mines aren't similar? Or Kanye's open support of rhetoric linked to the Holocaust?
- aprdm 3y agoMusk melding on turkey elections and other countries isn’t too far off
- bgun 3y agoThis is an unfair take. Whatever you think of Meta as a corporation or Zuckerberg as a person, neither caused the Rohingya crisis, much less the conflict; and while it's fair to argue that FB/Meta could have done more to stem hate speech on the platform, your phrasing intentionally villainizes a single individual for an entire ongoing, complex sociopolitical situation.
- iaw 3y agoI have intimate knowledge of FB during that period. Any voice of concern about abuses of the service were repressed as a "we'll deal with that when it's a problem." Concerns about lack of global moderation and enforcement were well known before the massacre. Mark and leadership made a choice akin to what the major oil producers did regarding global warming: kick the can until it's a problem.
- iaw 3y agoI apologize, I should have been clearer. I don't mean Kanye's public antics and statements. I meant his questionable design/musical/performance choices. Mark has lost over $30B on Metaverse supported by a stagnating ad business. Apple just launched an AR product that seems quite a bit better than the Meta options. John Carmack publicly complained about the reasons he left work at Meta which demonstrate a lack of vision at the leadership levels. It's unclear how the Metaverse will play out at this point but it feels like a solution looking from a problem rather than something people really want.
- kipchak 3y agoI think the problem Metaverse potentially (partially) solves is the conflict between resource consumption and available supply in consumer culture. In the 2000s there was optimism for the strength of consumer culture, ("for the first time in history there are no practical limits to consumerism."[1]) but we're now beginning to reconcile the desire for infinite growth against finite resources. Digital consumerism is a potential lifeline, as digital products are close to cost free to produce compared to real luxury goods or travel, allowing much higher numbers of people to own them. As people generally become poorer and real consumption grows out of reach, the metaverse potentially serves as a second level of prosperity and success for the have nots in the real world. Some early examples of this are Second Life, valuation of digital items like skins in games and travel and dining POV YouTubers. I think most would prefer the real deal, but if it's unavailable a fake version can be made good enough. [1]https://cup.columbia.edu/book/an-all-consuming-century/9780231113120 https://cup.columbia.edu/book/an-all-consuming-century/97802...
- MattRix 3y agoThere’s a lot to pick apart here. How much money do you think Apple spent on their VR product vs Meta? Sure Apple’s is better, but it also costs SEVEN times more. Do you really think Apple’s will sell more units any time soon? Meta has already sold tens of millions of quests. Also Carmack is a great programmer, but there’s no reason to think he knows a thing about the market and business strategy. Sure there’s the whole metaverse thing, but even without that, people are getting value out of the Quest right now, playing Beat Saber etc.
- LordShredda 3y agoIt was not a lamp stack for sure. Linux maybe but prototype reddit was in lisp
- mattl 3y agoCommon Lisp and then I think the current site is mostly Python.
- explorer83 3y agoIf anyone is thinking they are bigger than they are it's these mods. Some of my favourite hobbies have been absolutely tainted by people who become mods of a community who put their societal/political/sexual beliefs with equal weight with the actual topic of the sub reddit. Say anything that mildly offends the mods personal beliefs? Banned. Or at the very least, find yourself limited in the role you can play in the community. Unfortunately, these mods seem to have the most free time to hijack the shared common interest in the sub-reddit topic to push their own version of community standards. I'm just speaking to my limited experience of my own personal interests but that's all I can say about it.
- cto_of_antifa 3y ago[dead]
- tracerbulletx 3y agoStop pushing the narrative that the mods are the source of the protest. They're just acting on the behalf of the members of their subreddit who are upset at the direction of the company.
- rjbwork 3y agoAgreed. I am one of the oldest active Reddit users and I 100% agree. I have voted in many subreddits' polls for this. I mod a handful of small subs myself and have done the same. My needs are not the same as some of those large subs, so I am not continuing the blackout, but I fully support those that are. I intend to keep using old.reddit.com and never installing their mobile app instead of my 3rd party client.
- justinator 3y ago> I fully support those that are. Fully supporting the blackout would mean continuing the blackout on your own subs, would it not? Just say you're "partially" supporting the blackout - like in ways that don't directly effect your direct, current use of the platform. I don't care either way, just be honest with yourself.
- fluidcruft 3y agoThe whole Meta thing frankly seemed like a suspicious PR move. At the time the remaking was announced Facebook was being dragged into Congress. Suddenly the headlines switched from Facebook this and Facebook that to Meta this and Meta that. Even today reporters are constantly getting themselves into tongue twisters about it.
- bmmayer1 3y agoI've met Steve, and I have to disagree. In my view he is not ego-driven and is quite thoughtful and considerate. Is it possible that he's right? That the damage done to reddit by these boycotts or the reaction to them isn't as bad as the media hype would have you believe?
- nolok 3y agoI've met Steve, and I have to disagree. In my view he is ego-driven and is not really thoughtful nor considerate. Is it possible that parent is right? That the damage done to reddit by these boycotts or the reaction to them is as bad if not worse as the media hype make it seems ? (just pointing out how your message using a personnal connection appeal and chosen adjective to indicate good and bad sides essentially brings nothing factual nor argumentative besides trying to orient the conversation)
- sleepybrett 3y agoSteve edited user comments, denied he did it, and then admitted he did it. What is that other than ego-driven without thought and inconsiderate?
- TheRealDunkirk 3y agoIt's important to remember that Digg imploded for the same reason that Reddit is having trouble: a big investment, followed by demands to recoup it. Reddit was ready to take up the slack. The thing that will save Reddit is that there doesn't seem to be another service ready to absorb the outflow.
- iaw 3y agoIf someone can make Lemmy more resilient than Lemmy seems to be the answer.
- ChiperSoft 3y agoKbin is what you’re looking for https://kbin.pub/en https://kbin.pub/en
- coffeebeqn 3y agoThe death of digg was pretty anti climactic compared to this standoff. I’ve been going to Reddit less and less over the years to the point where I try to avoid it now. It’s a huge echo chamber and the voting system caters to the lowest common denominator. I do wonder if Reddit will pass the torch to a third platform or will this type of site die off. I don’t see the community surviving a very profit driven site which the IPO will force on them. I’m not sure what their moat is exactly other than the large userbase
- ASalazarMX 3y agoReddit also wasn't ready to absorb the outflow, it was pretty small at the beginning. It grew massive with time, just as the current Reddit alternatives might.
- dangwhy 3y ago> Zuckerberg tanked the stock price with VR/Metaverse and then juked it by firing a chunk of the company. meta stock today is at $280.
- iaw 3y agoDid you stop reading before the "and" in that sentence? If you can lower your cost basis while keeping revenues unchanged it will juke the stock price. Mark has been laying people off trying to get the stock back up from his major mistake.
- dangwhy 3y agogot it. I wasn't sure what 'juked it' meant in the sentence, looks like its sports related word. I thought it was a typo for 'junked' .
- gumby 3y ago> Zuckerberg tanked the stock price with VR/Metaverse Is that what happened? ISTR there was something else tanking the stock (Cambridge analytica? TikTok? Headlines become forgotten so quickly these days) and the metaverse thing was a saving throw. Even if my explanation is correct, it was an overreaction (didn't need to rename the company) and didn't work.
- SN76477 3y agoI'm not convinced infinite growth is possible. Give me calm and stability over growth any day. I tell my company all of the time, that paying bills and wages IS success. But it gets a lot of grimaces from investors etc. They can shove off in my opinion.
- phire 3y ago> Huffman et al. were at the right place and right time with a LAMP(?) stack when Digg imploded. That's incorrect revisionist history. Reddit was a large part of the cause for Digg to implode. users had been flooding from Digg to reddit for years before Digg finally imploded. There was an entire series of "digg vs reddit" comics. Both sites launched within a year of each-other. Digg always had the prettier website, which did a better job at looking professional and attracting users. But reddit had better algorithms for promoting content to the front page and the threaded comment system that attracted in-depth discussions. Digg's algorithms sucked so much that their front page always seemed to be links that had reached Reddit's front page 6 hours earlier. Though, you might be right about the "trying to prove he's special" thing.
- iaw 3y agoI'd argue we have different perspectives on the matter and wont undermine yours. My thoughts are that Digg sealed its fate with Digg 2.0 (or whatever major redesign they had) that made the site unusable and degraded content quality. I think the lesson Huffman is missing is that quality content from your 2% contributors makes the site worth visiting.
- phire 3y agoWhile I was one of the many users who migrated from Digg to reddit in 2007-2009, I'm mostly basing my assertions off the perspective of the Digg engineer who launched Digg v4, and the article they wrote [1] on the topic. From this inside perspective, it's very clear that Digg was already dying long before the launch of Digg v4; They explictly state that Digg v4 was pushed out the door early, as a gamble, because they only had so much runway before the remaining VC cash ran out. They knew it was a disaster and decided to launch it anyway. I'll admit, that from the perspective of the average Digg user in 2010 it would seem like Digg was perfectly healthy, then suddenly shat the bed by pushing out digg v4. But really, the digg v4 launch only served to communicate to the users that the site was dying. [1] https://lethain.com/digg-v4/ https://lethain.com/digg-v4/
- Stephen_0xFF 3y agoEh, it’s working out for Musk.