4 ms·

> Strip the platforms of any and all initiative. Make them dumb pipes. Stop pretending that people want to use social media for entertainment and news and celeb

by gyomu 1y ago

> Strip the platforms of any and all initiative. Make them dumb pipes. Stop pretending that people want to use social media for entertainment and news and celebrities. Stop trying to turn it into interactive TV. Stop forcing content from outside of my network upon me. Make the chronological feed the only option. Congrats, you now have platforms no one will care about, as attention span gets sniped by competitors who want to maximize engagement and don't care about your arbitrary rules (ie, literally what happened 15 years ago).

grishka 1y ago
What do you mean by "no one"? There is definitely demand for such a platform.
- rickdeckard 1y ago
  It's a dilemma. There might be demand, but this "platform A" will be in competition with a dopamine-focused engagement "platform B" which also supports to host updates from "the lives of people you follow". The majority of people will then have both installed but spend more time on "platform B" as it is actively engaging them. Platform A will again end up in competition for user-attention with Platform B, as it needs money to operate their business etc. Now if Platform A asks for a subscription fee to fund their non-engagement social media platform, how many of these users described above will pay and not simply prefer the free "platform B"? How will such a churn affect users willing to PAY for "Platform A", if people whose "life they want to follow" have completely moved to "Platform B"? Funny enough, as a European I could use WhatsApp as this "Platform A", as it has features to share status-updates, pictures etc. as part of your profile. Everyone I know has WhatsApp, noone is using those features. So in essence, this Platform A already exists in Europe but doesn't work as "social media" because people don't engage with it...
  - grishka 1y ago
    > The majority of people will then have both installed but spend more time on "platform B" as it is actively engaging them. And why would that be a problem? Most people also spend more time sleeping than using social media, so what? Let them be. Give them a tool that they would decide how to use best to suit their lifestyle. > Platform A will again end up in competition for user-attention with Platform B, as it needs money to operate their business etc. It would not, because it would not be run by a commercial organization. At this point I'm convinced that it's impossible for a sane social media platform to exist unless it's decentralized and/or run by a nonprofit. As soon as one touches venture capital, enshittification becomes only a matter of time.
    - rickdeckard 1y ago
      > And why would that be a problem? I'm referring to the journey that will move people away from "Platform A" again because of Platform B. That's a problem to solve because the value of the social network to an individual is largely the PEOPLE on that network. > It would not, because it would not be run by a commercial organization. Agree, taking "platform A" out of the profit-wheel could help. But still in a normal adoption scheme you need to make it worthwhile for a critical mass of people to use it for OTHER people to also consider it. In the end I believe you will need another external driver to solve this (i.e. restricting for-profit social media), because that other platform "has all the people and the dopamine". - There is a more simple parallel situation one can observe: People trying to move from WhatsApp/FB-messenger/.. to i.e. Signal. It's JUST about direct messaging, but anecdotally the majority of these transitions fail to complete because not all involved are actually on-board to abandon the old Messenger. So you succeed and your close group installs Signal and starts to use it with you, but each one is also part of other groups who are still also on the legacy app. Everyone has both apps installed, but slowly communication starts to move back to the legacy app because it's the "superset" of all friend-groups.
- fsflover 1y ago
  What do you mean by "demand"? Mastodon has been working for a while.
xanderlewis 1y ago
> you now have platforms no one will care about I would care, and I imagine there are others who would too. I don’t use social media anymore (at all!) because of this. If I could have the chronological feed restored and no intrusion of other content I’d redownload immediately. There must be a market for this.
- gyomu 1y ago
  There's plenty of options, take your pick. The latest one that I've been hearing about is https://retro.app https://retro.app, there are others. The issue of course is that your friends won't be on it, most of them won't sign up even if you beg them, and most likely none of you will be using the service anymore 6 months from now.
  - xanderlewis 1y ago
    Well, yes. That is the problem. I just want the old Instagram and Twitter back.
rsolva 1y ago
I like to think that humanity is starting to build up some amount of immunity and aversion towards algorithmic feeds. Non-tech friends and family in my life (Norway and the Netherlands) express a rapidly growing discomfort being on Google and Meta's platforms, and some have gone cold turkey, others are actively formulating an exit strategy. I dropped out of these platforms some years ago and have been very happy having the Fediverse (and HN!) as my only social media. It is just the right amount of engagement and impulse for me. I do not check my feeds compulsively, but occasionally – and the people I follow is a diverse bunch, giving me food for thought and keeping me up to date with topics and software projects. It is still a niche place to hang out, but I'm OK with that. Now and then, friends get curious enough to join and check it out.
baxuz 1y ago
You wouldn't as competitors who use these dark patterns should be regulated out of existence in normal countries. Every other form of mass media is regulated, for good reason.
const_cast 1y ago
More addictive products will always win, because they're more addictive. That doesn't mean we need to one-up each other and repeatedly hyper optimize until we're making the digital equivalent of fentanyl-laced cigarettes. Also, we can actually ban stuff. I know it's not a physical product, but that doesn't mean we just have to fucking put up with whatever and deal with it. We'd never let a company sell fentanyl-laced cigarettes. But when it comes to tech, we all just throw up our hands and say "well we tried nothing and we're all out of ideas!"

by gyomu 1y ago

grishka 1y ago

What do you mean by "no one"? There is definitely demand for such a platform.

rickdeckard 1y ago
It's a dilemma. There might be demand, but this "platform A" will be in competition with a dopamine-focused engagement "platform B" which also supports to host updates from "the lives of people you follow". The majority of people will then have both installed but spend more time on "platform B" as it is actively engaging them. Platform A will again end up in competition for user-attention with Platform B, as it needs money to operate their business etc. Now if Platform A asks for a subscription fee to fund their non-engagement social media platform, how many of these users described above will pay and not simply prefer the free "platform B"? How will such a churn affect users willing to PAY for "Platform A", if people whose "life they want to follow" have completely moved to "Platform B"? Funny enough, as a European I could use WhatsApp as this "Platform A", as it has features to share status-updates, pictures etc. as part of your profile. Everyone I know has WhatsApp, noone is using those features. So in essence, this Platform A already exists in Europe but doesn't work as "social media" because people don't engage with it...
- grishka 1y ago
  > The majority of people will then have both installed but spend more time on "platform B" as it is actively engaging them. And why would that be a problem? Most people also spend more time sleeping than using social media, so what? Let them be. Give them a tool that they would decide how to use best to suit their lifestyle. > Platform A will again end up in competition for user-attention with Platform B, as it needs money to operate their business etc. It would not, because it would not be run by a commercial organization. At this point I'm convinced that it's impossible for a sane social media platform to exist unless it's decentralized and/or run by a nonprofit. As soon as one touches venture capital, enshittification becomes only a matter of time.
  - rickdeckard 1y ago
    > And why would that be a problem? I'm referring to the journey that will move people away from "Platform A" again because of Platform B. That's a problem to solve because the value of the social network to an individual is largely the PEOPLE on that network. > It would not, because it would not be run by a commercial organization. Agree, taking "platform A" out of the profit-wheel could help. But still in a normal adoption scheme you need to make it worthwhile for a critical mass of people to use it for OTHER people to also consider it. In the end I believe you will need another external driver to solve this (i.e. restricting for-profit social media), because that other platform "has all the people and the dopamine". - There is a more simple parallel situation one can observe: People trying to move from WhatsApp/FB-messenger/.. to i.e. Signal. It's JUST about direct messaging, but anecdotally the majority of these transitions fail to complete because not all involved are actually on-board to abandon the old Messenger. So you succeed and your close group installs Signal and starts to use it with you, but each one is also part of other groups who are still also on the legacy app. Everyone has both apps installed, but slowly communication starts to move back to the legacy app because it's the "superset" of all friend-groups.
fsflover 1y ago
What do you mean by "demand"? Mastodon has been working for a while.

xanderlewis 1y ago

> you now have platforms no one will care about I would care, and I imagine there are others who would too. I don’t use social media anymore (at all!) because of this. If I could have the chronological feed restored and no intrusion of other content I’d redownload immediately. There must be a market for this.

gyomu 1y ago
There's plenty of options, take your pick. The latest one that I've been hearing about is https://retro.app https://retro.app, there are others. The issue of course is that your friends won't be on it, most of them won't sign up even if you beg them, and most likely none of you will be using the service anymore 6 months from now.
- xanderlewis 1y ago
  Well, yes. That is the problem. I just want the old Instagram and Twitter back.

rsolva 1y ago

I like to think that humanity is starting to build up some amount of immunity and aversion towards algorithmic feeds. Non-tech friends and family in my life (Norway and the Netherlands) express a rapidly growing discomfort being on Google and Meta's platforms, and some have gone cold turkey, others are actively formulating an exit strategy. I dropped out of these platforms some years ago and have been very happy having the Fediverse (and HN!) as my only social media. It is just the right amount of engagement and impulse for me. I do not check my feeds compulsively, but occasionally – and the people I follow is a diverse bunch, giving me food for thought and keeping me up to date with topics and software projects. It is still a niche place to hang out, but I'm OK with that. Now and then, friends get curious enough to join and check it out.

baxuz 1y ago

You wouldn't as competitors who use these dark patterns should be regulated out of existence in normal countries. Every other form of mass media is regulated, for good reason.

const_cast 1y ago

More addictive products will always win, because they're more addictive. That doesn't mean we need to one-up each other and repeatedly hyper optimize until we're making the digital equivalent of fentanyl-laced cigarettes. Also, we can actually ban stuff. I know it's not a physical product, but that doesn't mean we just have to fucking put up with whatever and deal with it. We'd never let a company sell fentanyl-laced cigarettes. But when it comes to tech, we all just throw up our hands and say "well we tried nothing and we're all out of ideas!"