4 ms·

I think we're in for an era of a more social networks with distinct cohorts that want to do things in their own way, not necessarily prescribe to established no

I think we're in for an era of a more social networks with distinct cohorts that want to do things in their own way, not necessarily prescribe to established norms for web communities. Mastodon might have had slow growth but it definitely is a community. It's going to operate differently. It won't scale fast or make big ad revenue money. That's okay. That's great, actually. Threads is _clearly_ a Hail Mary play to extract as much ad rev as possible from Meta's most engaged social network, Instagram, by putting those same users in a new space and hope they have enough juice to keep each other occupied long enough to justify the CPM.

EA-3167 3y ago
> I think we're in for an era of a more social networks with distinct cohorts that want to do things in their own way, not necessarily prescribe to established norms for web communities. Agreed, megaforums with links between them, but just enough to enable migration rather than direct contact, seems to be the way to go. I think another type of person is going to emerge from this though, and that's a lot of people who just decide to opt out. I like to think that people will take the experiences of Twitter, Facebook, Reddit and so on... and realize that disengagement from these platforms is in and of itself empowering. A move away from endless engagement, endless over-consumption of meaningless twaddle, and distancing from the sorts of people and drama that only really exist online in the first place. Maybe we can all finally accept that, "Twitter isn't a real place," and all that entails.
- efields 3y ago
  Self-empowerment through logging off is real. Felt good when I left Fb many many years ago and dumping Twitter finally was easier than I thought. I did sneak into Bluesky, but I like the meaningless twaddle of Bluesky. It's collectively unserious, full of the Twitter misfits who just want to let the weird leak out of their brain and onto the keyboard. I do want communities to come together online when it is fitting to do so, and it seems like we need some platform(s) or another to accomplish this, but they need to be designed to not bring out the worst behaviors in us.
Shawnj2 3y ago
I think this makes sense as the internet basically stops being a monolith. In the earlier days of the internet there was a lot of value in getting everyone onto a single platform and everyone using a site would generally have the same shared experience, but user personalization has lead to more specific/niche online communities.

EA-3167 3y ago

> I think we're in for an era of a more social networks with distinct cohorts that want to do things in their own way, not necessarily prescribe to established norms for web communities. Agreed, megaforums with links between them, but just enough to enable migration rather than direct contact, seems to be the way to go. I think another type of person is going to emerge from this though, and that's a lot of people who just decide to opt out. I like to think that people will take the experiences of Twitter, Facebook, Reddit and so on... and realize that disengagement from these platforms is in and of itself empowering. A move away from endless engagement, endless over-consumption of meaningless twaddle, and distancing from the sorts of people and drama that only really exist online in the first place. Maybe we can all finally accept that, "Twitter isn't a real place," and all that entails.

efields 3y ago
Self-empowerment through logging off is real. Felt good when I left Fb many many years ago and dumping Twitter finally was easier than I thought. I did sneak into Bluesky, but I like the meaningless twaddle of Bluesky. It's collectively unserious, full of the Twitter misfits who just want to let the weird leak out of their brain and onto the keyboard. I do want communities to come together online when it is fitting to do so, and it seems like we need some platform(s) or another to accomplish this, but they need to be designed to not bring out the worst behaviors in us.

Shawnj2 3y ago

I think this makes sense as the internet basically stops being a monolith. In the earlier days of the internet there was a lot of value in getting everyone onto a single platform and everyone using a site would generally have the same shared experience, but user personalization has lead to more specific/niche online communities.