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I am desperately waiting for someone to come along and disrupt social media. It's overdue. My Facebook feed is entirely low-effort slop and posts from acquainta

I am desperately waiting for someone to come along and disrupt social media. It's overdue. My Facebook feed is entirely low-effort slop and posts from acquaintances I added 15 years ago. Instagram and Snapchat aren't too different. Miserable experiences with infinite content, no quality, and no connections.

andy99 1y ago
I'm curious what properties a "good" social network would have?
- otterley 1y ago
  Facebook in the mid 2000s was pretty good. It was a chronological timeline of your friends’ posts along with a photo album. It was like LiveJournal but with a much better UI.
- ratelimitsteve 1y ago
  no algorithmic content driving the variable reward schedule in order to induce compulsive behavior, just content I've explicitly selected and a willingness to say "we've run out of content" instead of just filling the infinite feed with whatever
  - fsflover 1y ago
    So you're searching for Mastodon.
- jjani 1y ago
  Anything without a feed backed by a recommender system. Front Porch Forum is one example of a relatively good social network. It's made possible by the founders not aiming to become billionaires. This is another necessary property of basically anything good.
- jimt1234 1y ago
  IMHO, having effective parental controls would be good enough.
SketchySeaBeast 1y ago
Honestly, I think it has already. People have dropped off them. Even my parents now primarily communicate over WhatsApp/Signal.
- HankStallone 1y ago
  I dunno, I've been hearing for years that no one uses Facebook anymore, or it's just Boomers, but that's not how it is in my area. Most of the small businesses use it as their main presence online, because it's so easy to toss up a post about a new product or sale or a picture of their new menu. All the small towns have active FB groups where people share community activities and help each other find lost pets and such. My own family uses FB messenger to plan events and keep each other informed about things, which is the only reason I still use it. Maybe it's regional and I just happen to be in a FB-heavy region, or it's dying in the cities but still useful in small towns and rural areas, but it's doing fine here.
  - BeFlatXIII 1y ago
    IME, it's that no one posts to their profile anymore. It's either read-only or posting to groups.
    - HankStallone 1y ago
      That's true, not many use it the way it used to be used. If I go to my friends' timelines, most are empty for months/years at a time, except for a few who post several times a day, apparently craving attention.
    - SketchySeaBeast 1y ago
      Yeah, I check in once in a while to see if my elderly relatives are still posting and that's it.
randunel 1y ago
I deleted my account at some point after they removed the "sort by date" feature in the timeline, probably more than 10 years ago, because that's when it became clear they wanted to be fully in control of my data sources and that's a tradeoff I'm not willing to make for keeping in touch with distant friends such as former classmates. IMO that's the problem, you fully submit to these platforms controlling what you know of.
outime 1y ago
What if the real disruptor is just not using social networks?
- 255kb 1y ago
  Exactly, do we need social media in the first place? I guess most people's family/friend circle do not exceed some dozens of persons. Having different messaging groups seems ideal, more targeted and more genuine interactions than shouting in the void in the hope of getting "likes"...
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
- Zagreus2142 1y ago
  Yes this, exactly this. To the lurkers: If you live in a big enough city, look for local nexuses of people doing good social work and volunteer. Social media is too divorced from reality and the satisfaction of helping improve your community should naturally lead you into the finding cool people in your area. Tool libraries, food kitchens, park cleanup crews, cycling groups, cultural preservation groups, maker spaces, church groups if applicable/compatible, stuff like this. And try to have a calm, humble, accepting attitude.
  - macintux 1y ago
    Volunteer work is so very good for my mental health. The pandemic directly and indirectly caused me to stop it for a few years, but now that I’m volunteering again, I’m much happier.
- BeFlatXIII 1y ago
  The grass shall be touched.
micromacrofoot 1y ago
disruption in the space will make it worse, not better, see: tiktok
2OEH8eoCRo0 1y ago
The unending quest for growth leads to bad incentives. We could absolutely build products that turn a reasonable profit and respect users. They already did this in their early days. Chasing growth forever doesn't allow this. It's interesting that market forces spur such growth but they also eventually spoil those fruits.
LeifCarrotson 1y ago
Just stop using it? Delete your accounts, uninstall the apps, and stop being miserable. I'm on HN and Bluesky. I have a Reddit account I can manually log into if there's something important (but I deleted my login credentials from my browser after the 2023 boycott and rarely post now). I wish I had access to Marketplace sometimes, but enough people still post to Craigslist. If you offered me some cash, equivalent to the amount I've overpaid for stuff because I didn't have Marketplace, to reduce my quality of life with the misery that Facebook once inflicted, I'd laugh in your face. I have no Facebook, Whatsapp, Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok, WeChat, Twitter, or any of the rest. Actual friends and family can keep in touch with me IRL, over SMS, by phone calls, or by email. Yeah, I have Signal and Telegram, but few contacts that use either. I have a Discord with a few servers, but I'm not on the mobile app - I intentionally only use it from my PC. Yes, there are a handful of organizations in my periphery which only post on Facebook Groups and which only communicate by Facebook Messenger, I'm out of the loop with those orgs, but most are understanding when I explain that I don't have Facebook. If I click a link to their pages and try to view comments or pictures, Facebook constantly advertises that I need to create an account because life's better on Facebook - but I know better. Stop waiting for someone else to upend a trillion dollar industry that literally defines network effects and which isn't aligned with what's best for you. Disrupt your social media addiction yourself! There will be a few weeks of adjustment as your brain struggles through withdrawal of the easy dopamine habit. Don't give in, when you recognize the impulse, just choose to do something better: go for a walk, read a book, volunteer with a local organization doing good work, pick up a new habit you can be proud of.
- doublerabbit 1y ago
  I'm someone who deleted my account back in 2010. I've lived life without Facebook, Instagram and it's been hell. I've been targeted with emotional sabotage for not having Facebook. "You don't have Facebook?, well your a red flag" and that hurts when your trying to connect. I now look back and am I glad that no data of mine really exists on the platform. My twenties and university I've missed out on parties, arrangements, opportunities for not having access to groups. Facebook forces you in to their walled garden; disallows & scalds you from sharing anything outside. Shops use Facebook/WhatsApp and I am unable to access their pages. Should I boycott my local organic grocery store because of my own anarchy? Customer support for some large main-high street chains first point of call of contact is via WhatsAp, unhelpful if I need to chase up a refund. My family only have a signal group only because of me. They all default back to WhatsApp, Instagram and the rest because that's where their contacts are. I have no right to tell them not too. CraigsList isn't really thing here, Gumtree works, but not as efficient as market place. Deleting your account leaves you heavily isolated and if you can deal with that; great. With doing so, you however miss out on a lot of stuff and receive not many perks in return. Other than your data isn't being combed to manipulate and poison others. FOMO becomes real. > Actual friends and family can keep in touch with me IRL, over SMS, by phone calls, or by email My actual friends, live in the foreign countries so IRL isn't possible. SMS and Phone calls are expensive. I use a iPhone and they use Android. Apple/Android integration has only just become available but people don't want that. I've tried to onboard them but the mindshare of what WhatsApp gives doesn't match those to of Signal or Element; it's seen as a chore. Discord has some things right and as much as I loathe it, it has been the "one-fits-all" but definitely not suitable for my 70 year old something mother. It's a nice ideology "just delete" but it's flawed concept when the whole world uses the technology you're trying to escape from. MySpace was perfect and I didn't need anything else.
fullshark 1y ago
I don't miss the old facebook, but I'm also not 20 anymore. I just don't want to share random thoughts or my life's highlights with everyone I've ever met anymore. The only people who do are people doing advertising. I use private chats to talk to people that matter to me, about topics we both care about. I don't care to replace that. I don't see any reason to have true social media (and not pseudonymous message boards like this site) in my life.
barbazoo 1y ago
What’s keeping you on there?
fsflover 1y ago
You already can do it now: https://joinmastodon.org https://joinmastodon.org.
WhyNotHugo 1y ago
What kind of disruption are you expecting? It can only get replaced with something similar, not something better. Think of tabaco. Nothing comes along and gets people to quit addiction to this shit. The only stuff that might naturally have this effect is usually worse. Folks addicted to social media won’t quit for something healthy. Those who do, do so with great effort, much like those who quit tabaco.

andy99 1y ago

I'm curious what properties a "good" social network would have?

otterley 1y ago
Facebook in the mid 2000s was pretty good. It was a chronological timeline of your friends’ posts along with a photo album. It was like LiveJournal but with a much better UI.
ratelimitsteve 1y ago
no algorithmic content driving the variable reward schedule in order to induce compulsive behavior, just content I've explicitly selected and a willingness to say "we've run out of content" instead of just filling the infinite feed with whatever
- fsflover 1y ago
  So you're searching for Mastodon.
jjani 1y ago
Anything without a feed backed by a recommender system. Front Porch Forum is one example of a relatively good social network. It's made possible by the founders not aiming to become billionaires. This is another necessary property of basically anything good.
jimt1234 1y ago
IMHO, having effective parental controls would be good enough.

SketchySeaBeast 1y ago

Honestly, I think it has already. People have dropped off them. Even my parents now primarily communicate over WhatsApp/Signal.

HankStallone 1y ago
I dunno, I've been hearing for years that no one uses Facebook anymore, or it's just Boomers, but that's not how it is in my area. Most of the small businesses use it as their main presence online, because it's so easy to toss up a post about a new product or sale or a picture of their new menu. All the small towns have active FB groups where people share community activities and help each other find lost pets and such. My own family uses FB messenger to plan events and keep each other informed about things, which is the only reason I still use it. Maybe it's regional and I just happen to be in a FB-heavy region, or it's dying in the cities but still useful in small towns and rural areas, but it's doing fine here.
- BeFlatXIII 1y ago
  IME, it's that no one posts to their profile anymore. It's either read-only or posting to groups.
  - HankStallone 1y ago
    That's true, not many use it the way it used to be used. If I go to my friends' timelines, most are empty for months/years at a time, except for a few who post several times a day, apparently craving attention.
  - SketchySeaBeast 1y ago
    Yeah, I check in once in a while to see if my elderly relatives are still posting and that's it.

randunel 1y ago

I deleted my account at some point after they removed the "sort by date" feature in the timeline, probably more than 10 years ago, because that's when it became clear they wanted to be fully in control of my data sources and that's a tradeoff I'm not willing to make for keeping in touch with distant friends such as former classmates. IMO that's the problem, you fully submit to these platforms controlling what you know of.

outime 1y ago

What if the real disruptor is just not using social networks?

255kb 1y ago
Exactly, do we need social media in the first place? I guess most people's family/friend circle do not exceed some dozens of persons. Having different messaging groups seems ideal, more targeted and more genuine interactions than shouting in the void in the hope of getting "likes"...
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
Zagreus2142 1y ago
Yes this, exactly this. To the lurkers: If you live in a big enough city, look for local nexuses of people doing good social work and volunteer. Social media is too divorced from reality and the satisfaction of helping improve your community should naturally lead you into the finding cool people in your area. Tool libraries, food kitchens, park cleanup crews, cycling groups, cultural preservation groups, maker spaces, church groups if applicable/compatible, stuff like this. And try to have a calm, humble, accepting attitude.
- macintux 1y ago
  Volunteer work is so very good for my mental health. The pandemic directly and indirectly caused me to stop it for a few years, but now that I’m volunteering again, I’m much happier.
BeFlatXIII 1y ago
The grass shall be touched.

micromacrofoot 1y ago

disruption in the space will make it worse, not better, see: tiktok

2OEH8eoCRo0 1y ago

The unending quest for growth leads to bad incentives. We could absolutely build products that turn a reasonable profit and respect users. They already did this in their early days. Chasing growth forever doesn't allow this. It's interesting that market forces spur such growth but they also eventually spoil those fruits.

LeifCarrotson 1y ago

Just stop using it? Delete your accounts, uninstall the apps, and stop being miserable. I'm on HN and Bluesky. I have a Reddit account I can manually log into if there's something important (but I deleted my login credentials from my browser after the 2023 boycott and rarely post now). I wish I had access to Marketplace sometimes, but enough people still post to Craigslist. If you offered me some cash, equivalent to the amount I've overpaid for stuff because I didn't have Marketplace, to reduce my quality of life with the misery that Facebook once inflicted, I'd laugh in your face. I have no Facebook, Whatsapp, Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok, WeChat, Twitter, or any of the rest. Actual friends and family can keep in touch with me IRL, over SMS, by phone calls, or by email. Yeah, I have Signal and Telegram, but few contacts that use either. I have a Discord with a few servers, but I'm not on the mobile app - I intentionally only use it from my PC. Yes, there are a handful of organizations in my periphery which only post on Facebook Groups and which only communicate by Facebook Messenger, I'm out of the loop with those orgs, but most are understanding when I explain that I don't have Facebook. If I click a link to their pages and try to view comments or pictures, Facebook constantly advertises that I need to create an account because life's better on Facebook - but I know better. Stop waiting for someone else to upend a trillion dollar industry that literally defines network effects and which isn't aligned with what's best for you. Disrupt your social media addiction yourself! There will be a few weeks of adjustment as your brain struggles through withdrawal of the easy dopamine habit. Don't give in, when you recognize the impulse, just choose to do something better: go for a walk, read a book, volunteer with a local organization doing good work, pick up a new habit you can be proud of.

doublerabbit 1y ago
I'm someone who deleted my account back in 2010. I've lived life without Facebook, Instagram and it's been hell. I've been targeted with emotional sabotage for not having Facebook. "You don't have Facebook?, well your a red flag" and that hurts when your trying to connect. I now look back and am I glad that no data of mine really exists on the platform. My twenties and university I've missed out on parties, arrangements, opportunities for not having access to groups. Facebook forces you in to their walled garden; disallows & scalds you from sharing anything outside. Shops use Facebook/WhatsApp and I am unable to access their pages. Should I boycott my local organic grocery store because of my own anarchy? Customer support for some large main-high street chains first point of call of contact is via WhatsAp, unhelpful if I need to chase up a refund. My family only have a signal group only because of me. They all default back to WhatsApp, Instagram and the rest because that's where their contacts are. I have no right to tell them not too. CraigsList isn't really thing here, Gumtree works, but not as efficient as market place. Deleting your account leaves you heavily isolated and if you can deal with that; great. With doing so, you however miss out on a lot of stuff and receive not many perks in return. Other than your data isn't being combed to manipulate and poison others. FOMO becomes real. > Actual friends and family can keep in touch with me IRL, over SMS, by phone calls, or by email My actual friends, live in the foreign countries so IRL isn't possible. SMS and Phone calls are expensive. I use a iPhone and they use Android. Apple/Android integration has only just become available but people don't want that. I've tried to onboard them but the mindshare of what WhatsApp gives doesn't match those to of Signal or Element; it's seen as a chore. Discord has some things right and as much as I loathe it, it has been the "one-fits-all" but definitely not suitable for my 70 year old something mother. It's a nice ideology "just delete" but it's flawed concept when the whole world uses the technology you're trying to escape from. MySpace was perfect and I didn't need anything else.

fullshark 1y ago

I don't miss the old facebook, but I'm also not 20 anymore. I just don't want to share random thoughts or my life's highlights with everyone I've ever met anymore. The only people who do are people doing advertising. I use private chats to talk to people that matter to me, about topics we both care about. I don't care to replace that. I don't see any reason to have true social media (and not pseudonymous message boards like this site) in my life.

barbazoo 1y ago

What’s keeping you on there?

fsflover 1y ago

You already can do it now: https://joinmastodon.org https://joinmastodon.org.

WhyNotHugo 1y ago

What kind of disruption are you expecting? It can only get replaced with something similar, not something better. Think of tabaco. Nothing comes along and gets people to quit addiction to this shit. The only stuff that might naturally have this effect is usually worse. Folks addicted to social media won’t quit for something healthy. Those who do, do so with great effort, much like those who quit tabaco.