4 ms·

The rise of social media was largely predicated on the curation it provided. People, and particularly advertisers, wanted a curated environment. That was the ke

The rise of social media was largely predicated on the curation it provided. People, and particularly advertisers, wanted a curated environment. That was the key differentiator to the wild west of the world wide web. The idea that curation is a problem with social media is always a head scratcher for me. The option to just directly publish to the world wide web without social media is always available, but time and again, that option is largely not chosen... this ruling could well narrow it down that being the only option. Now, in practice, I don't think that will happen. This will raise the costs of operating social media, and those costs will be reflected in prices advertisers pay to advertise on social media. That may shrink the social media ecosystem, but what it will definitely do is raise the draw bridge over the moat around the major social media players. You're going to see less competition.

Dalewyn 2y ago
>The option to just directly publish to the world wide web without social media is always available, Not exactly. You still have to procure web hosting somewhere, and that hosting provider might choose to refuse your money and kick you off. You might also have to procure the services of Cloudflare if you face significant traffic, and Cloudflare might choose to refuse your money and kick you off. >that option is largely not chosen... That's because most people do not have neither the time nor the will to learn and speak computer. Social media and immediate predecessors like Wordpress were and are successful because they brought down the lowest common denominator to "Smack keys and tap Submit". HTML? CSS? Nobody has time for our pig latin.
- cbsmith 2y ago
  > You still have to procure web hosting somewhere, and that hosting provider might choose to refuse your money and kick you off. Who says you need to procure a web hosting provider? But yes, if you connect your computer up to other computers, the other computers may decide they don't want any part of what you have to offer. Without that, I wouldn't want to be in the Internet. I don't want to be forced to ingest bytes from anyone who would send them my way. That's just not a good value proposition for me. > That's because most people do not have neither the time nor the will to learn and speak computer. I'm sorry, but no. You can literally type in to a word processor or any number of other tools and select "save as web content", and then use any number of products to take a web page and serve it up to the world wide web. It's been that way for the better part of 25 years. No HTML or CSS knowledge needed. If you can't handle that you can just record a video, save it to a file, and serve it up over a web server. Yes, you need to be able to use a computer to participate on the world wide web, but no more than you do to use social media. Now, what you won't get is a distribution platform that gets your content up in front of people who never asked for it. That is what social media provides. It lowers the effort for the people receiving the content, as in exactly the curation process that the judge was ruling about.
  - Dalewyn 2y ago
    >You can literally type in to a word processor or any number of other tools Most people these days don't have a word processor or, indeed, "any number of other tools". It's all "in the cloud", usually Google Docs or Office 365 Browser Edition(tm). >select "save as web content" Most people these days don't (arguably never) understand files and folders. >and then use any number of products to take a web page and serve it up to the world wide web. Most people these days cannot be bothered. Especially when the counter proposal is "Make an X account, smash some keys, and press Submit to get internet points". >If you can't handle that you can just record a video, save it to a file, and serve it up over a web server. I'm going to stop you right here: You are vastly overestimating both the will and the computer-aptitude of most people. There is a reason Youtube and Twitch have killed off literally every other video sharing service; there is a reason smartphones killed off personal computers (desktops and to a lesser degree laptops). Social media became the juggernaut it is today because businesses figured out how to capitalize on the latent demand for easy sharing of information: Literal One Click Solutions(tm) that anyone can understand. >what you won't get is a distribution platform that gets your content up in front of people who never asked for it. The internet and more specifically search engines in general have always been that distribution platform. The only thing that changed in the last 30 years is how easy it is to get your stuff on that platform.
    - cbsmith 2y ago
      > Most people these days don't have a word processor or, indeed, "any number of other tools". It's all "in the cloud", usually Google Docs or Office 365 Browser Edition(tm). Read that again. ;-) > Most people these days don't (arguably never) understand files and folders. We can debate on the skills of "most people" back and forth, but I think it's fair to say that "save as web content" is easier to figure out than figuring out how to navigate a social media site (and that doesn't necessarily require files or folders). If that really is too hard for someone, there are products out there designed to make it even easier. Way back before social media took over, everyone and their dog managed to figure out how to put stuff on the web. People who couldn't make it through high school were successfully producing web pages, blogs, podcasts, video content, you name it. > I'm going to stop you right here: You are vastly overestimating both the will and the computer-aptitude of most people. I disagree. I think they don't have the will to do it, because they'd rather use social media. I do believe if they had the will to do it, they would. I agree there are some people who lack the computer-aptitude to get content on the web. Where I struggle is believing those same people manage to put content on social media... which I'll point out is on the web. > There is a reason Youtube and Twitch have killed off literally every other video sharing service Yes, because video sharing at scale is fairly difficult and requires real skill. If you don't have that skill, you're going to have to pay someone to do it, or find someone who has their own agenda that makes them want to do it without charging you... like Youtube or Twitch. On the other hand, putting a video up on the web that no one knows about, no one looks for, and no one consumes unless you personally convince them to do so is comparatively simple. > there is a reason smartphones killed off personal computers (desktops and to a lesser degree laptops) Yes, that reason is that smartphones were subsidies by carriers. ;-) But it's good that you mentioned smartphones, because smart phones will let you send content to anyone in your contacts without you having anything that most would describe as "computer-aptitude". No social media needed... and yet the prevailing preference is for people to go through a process of logging in, shaping content to suit the demands of social media services, attempting to tune the content to get "the algorithm" to show it to as many people as possible, and put their content there. That takes more will/aptitude/whatever, but they do it for the distribution/audience. > Social media became the juggernaut it is today because businesses figured out how to capitalize on the latent demand for easy sharing of information: Literal One Click Solutions(tm) that anyone can understand. I'd agree with you if you said "distribute" instead of "sharing". It's really hard to get millions of people to consume your content. That is, until social media came along and basically eliminated the cost of distribution. So any idiot can push their content out to millions and fill the world with whatever they want.... and now there's a sense of entitlement about it, where if a platform doesn't push that content on other people, at no cost to them, that they're being censored. Yup, that does really require social media. > The internet and more specifically search engines in general have always been that distribution platform. The only thing that changed in the last 30 years is how easy it is to get your stuff on that platform. No, the Internet & the web required you to go looking for the content you wanted. Search engines (at least at one time) were designed to accelerate that proces of find exactly the content you were looking for faster, and get you off their platform ASAP. Social media is kind of the opposite of search engines. They want you to stay on their platform; they want you to keep scrolling at whatever "engaging" content they can find, regardless of what you're looking for; if you forget about whatever you were originally looking for, that's a bonus. It's that ability to have your content show up when no one is looking for it where social media provides an advantage over the web for content makers.
stale2002 2y ago
> People, and particularly advertisers, wanted a curated environment Then give the choice to the user. If a user wants to opt in, or change their moderation preferences then they should be allowed. By all means offer a choice of moderation decisions. And let the user change them, opt out conditionally and ignore them if they so choose.
- cbsmith 2y ago
  You say that like that choice doesn't exist.
  - stale2002 2y ago
    > You say that like that choice doesn't exist. You said this: "People, and particularly advertisers, wanted a curated environment." If moderation choices are put in the hands of the user, then what you are describing is not a problem, as the user can have that. Therefore, you saying that this choice exists, means that there isn't a problem for anyone who chooses to not have the spam, and your original complaint is refuted.
    - cbsmith 2y ago
      There absolutely can be a problem despite choice existing. I'm not saying otherwise. I'm saying the choice exists. The choices we make are the problem.
      - stale2002 2y ago
        > I'm saying the choice exists. The choices we make are the problem. Well then feel free to choose differently for yourself. Your original statement was this: "People, and particularly advertisers, wanted a curated environment." You referencing what people "want" is directly refuted by the idea that they should be able to choose whatever their preferences are. And your opinion on other people's choices doesn't really matter here.
        2y ago

Dalewyn 2y ago

>The option to just directly publish to the world wide web without social media is always available, Not exactly. You still have to procure web hosting somewhere, and that hosting provider might choose to refuse your money and kick you off. You might also have to procure the services of Cloudflare if you face significant traffic, and Cloudflare might choose to refuse your money and kick you off. >that option is largely not chosen... That's because most people do not have neither the time nor the will to learn and speak computer. Social media and immediate predecessors like Wordpress were and are successful because they brought down the lowest common denominator to "Smack keys and tap Submit". HTML? CSS? Nobody has time for our pig latin.

cbsmith 2y ago
> You still have to procure web hosting somewhere, and that hosting provider might choose to refuse your money and kick you off. Who says you need to procure a web hosting provider? But yes, if you connect your computer up to other computers, the other computers may decide they don't want any part of what you have to offer. Without that, I wouldn't want to be in the Internet. I don't want to be forced to ingest bytes from anyone who would send them my way. That's just not a good value proposition for me. > That's because most people do not have neither the time nor the will to learn and speak computer. I'm sorry, but no. You can literally type in to a word processor or any number of other tools and select "save as web content", and then use any number of products to take a web page and serve it up to the world wide web. It's been that way for the better part of 25 years. No HTML or CSS knowledge needed. If you can't handle that you can just record a video, save it to a file, and serve it up over a web server. Yes, you need to be able to use a computer to participate on the world wide web, but no more than you do to use social media. Now, what you won't get is a distribution platform that gets your content up in front of people who never asked for it. That is what social media provides. It lowers the effort for the people receiving the content, as in exactly the curation process that the judge was ruling about.
- Dalewyn 2y ago
  >You can literally type in to a word processor or any number of other tools Most people these days don't have a word processor or, indeed, "any number of other tools". It's all "in the cloud", usually Google Docs or Office 365 Browser Edition(tm). >select "save as web content" Most people these days don't (arguably never) understand files and folders. >and then use any number of products to take a web page and serve it up to the world wide web. Most people these days cannot be bothered. Especially when the counter proposal is "Make an X account, smash some keys, and press Submit to get internet points". >If you can't handle that you can just record a video, save it to a file, and serve it up over a web server. I'm going to stop you right here: You are vastly overestimating both the will and the computer-aptitude of most people. There is a reason Youtube and Twitch have killed off literally every other video sharing service; there is a reason smartphones killed off personal computers (desktops and to a lesser degree laptops). Social media became the juggernaut it is today because businesses figured out how to capitalize on the latent demand for easy sharing of information: Literal One Click Solutions(tm) that anyone can understand. >what you won't get is a distribution platform that gets your content up in front of people who never asked for it. The internet and more specifically search engines in general have always been that distribution platform. The only thing that changed in the last 30 years is how easy it is to get your stuff on that platform.
  - cbsmith 2y ago
    > Most people these days don't have a word processor or, indeed, "any number of other tools". It's all "in the cloud", usually Google Docs or Office 365 Browser Edition(tm). Read that again. ;-) > Most people these days don't (arguably never) understand files and folders. We can debate on the skills of "most people" back and forth, but I think it's fair to say that "save as web content" is easier to figure out than figuring out how to navigate a social media site (and that doesn't necessarily require files or folders). If that really is too hard for someone, there are products out there designed to make it even easier. Way back before social media took over, everyone and their dog managed to figure out how to put stuff on the web. People who couldn't make it through high school were successfully producing web pages, blogs, podcasts, video content, you name it. > I'm going to stop you right here: You are vastly overestimating both the will and the computer-aptitude of most people. I disagree. I think they don't have the will to do it, because they'd rather use social media. I do believe if they had the will to do it, they would. I agree there are some people who lack the computer-aptitude to get content on the web. Where I struggle is believing those same people manage to put content on social media... which I'll point out is on the web. > There is a reason Youtube and Twitch have killed off literally every other video sharing service Yes, because video sharing at scale is fairly difficult and requires real skill. If you don't have that skill, you're going to have to pay someone to do it, or find someone who has their own agenda that makes them want to do it without charging you... like Youtube or Twitch. On the other hand, putting a video up on the web that no one knows about, no one looks for, and no one consumes unless you personally convince them to do so is comparatively simple. > there is a reason smartphones killed off personal computers (desktops and to a lesser degree laptops) Yes, that reason is that smartphones were subsidies by carriers. ;-) But it's good that you mentioned smartphones, because smart phones will let you send content to anyone in your contacts without you having anything that most would describe as "computer-aptitude". No social media needed... and yet the prevailing preference is for people to go through a process of logging in, shaping content to suit the demands of social media services, attempting to tune the content to get "the algorithm" to show it to as many people as possible, and put their content there. That takes more will/aptitude/whatever, but they do it for the distribution/audience. > Social media became the juggernaut it is today because businesses figured out how to capitalize on the latent demand for easy sharing of information: Literal One Click Solutions(tm) that anyone can understand. I'd agree with you if you said "distribute" instead of "sharing". It's really hard to get millions of people to consume your content. That is, until social media came along and basically eliminated the cost of distribution. So any idiot can push their content out to millions and fill the world with whatever they want.... and now there's a sense of entitlement about it, where if a platform doesn't push that content on other people, at no cost to them, that they're being censored. Yup, that does really require social media. > The internet and more specifically search engines in general have always been that distribution platform. The only thing that changed in the last 30 years is how easy it is to get your stuff on that platform. No, the Internet & the web required you to go looking for the content you wanted. Search engines (at least at one time) were designed to accelerate that proces of find exactly the content you were looking for faster, and get you off their platform ASAP. Social media is kind of the opposite of search engines. They want you to stay on their platform; they want you to keep scrolling at whatever "engaging" content they can find, regardless of what you're looking for; if you forget about whatever you were originally looking for, that's a bonus. It's that ability to have your content show up when no one is looking for it where social media provides an advantage over the web for content makers.

stale2002 2y ago

> People, and particularly advertisers, wanted a curated environment Then give the choice to the user. If a user wants to opt in, or change their moderation preferences then they should be allowed. By all means offer a choice of moderation decisions. And let the user change them, opt out conditionally and ignore them if they so choose.

cbsmith 2y ago
You say that like that choice doesn't exist.
- stale2002 2y ago
  > You say that like that choice doesn't exist. You said this: "People, and particularly advertisers, wanted a curated environment." If moderation choices are put in the hands of the user, then what you are describing is not a problem, as the user can have that. Therefore, you saying that this choice exists, means that there isn't a problem for anyone who chooses to not have the spam, and your original complaint is refuted.
  - cbsmith 2y ago
    There absolutely can be a problem despite choice existing. I'm not saying otherwise. I'm saying the choice exists. The choices we make are the problem.
    - stale2002 2y ago
      > I'm saying the choice exists. The choices we make are the problem. Well then feel free to choose differently for yourself. Your original statement was this: "People, and particularly advertisers, wanted a curated environment." You referencing what people "want" is directly refuted by the idea that they should be able to choose whatever their preferences are. And your opinion on other people's choices doesn't really matter here.
      - 2y ago