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"Over time, my timeline contained fewer and fewer posts from friends and more and more content from random strangers. " It still baffles me that Facebook fills

"Over time, my timeline contained fewer and fewer posts from friends and more and more content from random strangers. " It still baffles me that Facebook fills up my feed with random garbage I have no interest in. I barely use it now because their generated content gets in the way of the reason why I opened facebook to begin with. These algorithmic feeds clearly work for someone but its not what I am looking for, I want to see what I follow and nothing else unless I explictly go looking for it.

keyraycheck 8mo ago
While number of active users still grows, one have to ask a question, who is left on facebook aside from dopamine junkies and bots. The only reason why I didn’t delete facebook is messenger, where I chat with old folks.
- loloquwowndueo 8mo ago
  Plot twist: all old folks were also on Facebook only to chat with other old folks. Once this fact was spotted, they all just moved to Discord.
- ben_w 8mo ago
  > who is left on facebook aside from dopamine junkies and bots. Political activists, like a former partner of mine. … who I mute, because I am a British person living in Berlin, I don't need or want "Demexit Memes" and similar groups, which is 90% of what they post … … which in turn means that sometimes when I visit Facebook, my feed is actually empty, because nobody else is posting anything … … which is still an improvement on when the algorithm decides to fill it up with junk, as the algorithm shows me people I don't know doing things I don't care abut interspersed with adverts for stuff I can't use (for all they talk about the "value" of the ads, I get ads both for dick pills and boob surgery, and tax advisors for a country I don't live in who specialise in helping people renounce I nationality I never had in the first place, and sometimes ads I not only can't read but can't even pronounce because they're in cyrillic).
  - naravara 8mo ago
    I take poorly directed targeting advertisements as a performance indicator for how well my data privacy efforts are working. When the ad targeting has you dead to rights is when you need to worry.
    - ben_w 8mo ago
      To an extent, sure, but I think also a sign their analytics were never as good as they claimed. For example, so far as I know my name is strongly gendered male, so why the boob surgery ads?
      - thaumasiotes 8mo ago
        > my name is strongly gendered male, so why the boob surgery ads? Probably so you can suggest it to your partner.
        dizzant 8mo ago
        This. My wife and I can hardly buy each other surprise gifts because the targeted advertising gives us away every time.
  - p_ing 8mo ago
    > I get ads both for dick pills and boob surgery There is some percentage of the world-wide population that would find interest in both ads simultaneously.
    - ben_w 8mo ago
      While true (you're not the first to suggest it, even), in the context of the other things they show, I think it is more likely to be an example of them not knowing which advertiser to pitch my eyeballs at, and less likely to be them identifying me as a member of this set.
- ericmay 8mo ago
  “Who is left on Facebook besides dopamine junkies and bots?” “I only use it in this limited circumstance” You are on Facebook. That’s who. It’s like saying you’re not a drinker because you have a glass of wine every once in a while. Sure you’re not an addict (probably) but you still drink.
  - theodric 8mo ago
    I'm happy they've been able to build a $1,660,000,000,000 company on the back of me logging in once every two months, scrolling 3 posts, getting disgusted with slop, and closing the tab. Gives me hope that my harebrained ventures may also succeed!
    - ericmay 8mo ago
      I don't buy it. You use it more than that - otherwise you'd just delete your account.
      - bluGill 8mo ago
        That is about right for me. I scoll a little longer but as soon as it changes from people I care to follow to slop I'm gone for a couple more months. there is value in following distant friends but it isn't worth hours per day of sorting through slop to find it. When it is only every month or two the non-slop still seems to rise to the top. (But God only knows what non slop they choose not to show me) I wish there was a way to block all 'so-and-so shared' as that is where most of the slop comes from. (Ads at least I can say is how they pay the bills and so I accept a few as non-slop)
      - morissette 8mo ago
        I’m down to 3 hours a week of social media woot!
        sitkack 8mo ago
        Does that include HN?
- grvdrm 8mo ago
  Around me I see this usage: - Older folks. - People using marketplace - People exchanging inter-personal tips and info: best stroller, contractor, etc. Not saying FB is best for those things but it doesn’t seem dead at all.
- CraigRood 8mo ago
  The growth is across the family of products (inc Instagram and WhatsApp) not Facebook itself. Facebook itself is a zombie, and I don't believe they have a way to innovate out of it. I'm not going to predict the end of Meta, they have more than enough products, but agreed that it's actually quite difficult to understand who's really left.
- Aurornis 8mo ago
  The cognitive dissonance in some of these posts is strange. > one have to ask a question, who is left on facebook aside from dopamine junkies and bots. > The only reason why I didn’t delete facebook is messenger, where I chat with old folks. How are you confused about who still uses Facebook in one sentence and then immediately in the next sentence you describe yourself as a user and explain why it’s useful to you and the people you know.
- bjelkeman-again 8mo ago
  There are some apparent niche communities both on Facebook and Instagram. Heavy metal and hardrock music fans is one group that hasn’t migrated anywhere else yet. I both play in a band and promote events, and both are still required in my geographic area to reach out.
- skirge 8mo ago
  it's like wondering why pubs or restaurants exists if I'm not visiting them everyday, but they do because they have other businesses (birthday parties, company events etc.). Look at Facebook for business.
hippo22 8mo ago
Your friends don’t produce much content yet people had a need for frequent entertainment. Also, people realized that posting things to social media meant that it was there forever. This led to a bifurcation: friends / family updates are mostly relegated to temporary formats like stories while “feed” content is professional produced.
BorisMelnik 8mo ago
hey you know there is a feed on mobile, built into the app that only shows you your friends feed? not a fb employee or defending them just relaying info.
- JKCalhoun 8mo ago
  Too late. (And I don't do mobile anyway.) I don't wish to sound like I am shooting the messenger here, but Meta just has way, way too much baggage for me to ever consider returning.
  - Barbing 8mo ago
    and keep your kids away from it too before Mark’s robots get handsy https://reuters.com/investigates/special-report/meta-ai-chatbot-guidelines https://reuters.com/investigates/special-report/meta-ai-chat... Warning: truly disgusting
    - erentz 8mo ago
      The adult engineers and adult managers responsible for such things should get the same treatment as any adult having such conversations directly. You can’t just say “wasn’t me, it’s the AI layer I built to do the abuse for me”. You’re actively choosing to abuse and groom children. Sick stuff.
- magicmicah85 8mo ago
  The funny thing about the friends feed is that it highlights for me who is extremely active on the platform. People resharing stuff all the time. And, it's one of the few feeds you can't endlessly scroll through. It will tell you to "check back later" once you get to 3-4 days of updates. No money in showing people their friends feeds, so why let them endlessly scroll.
- Xiol 8mo ago
  The amount of shady stuff Facebook has tried with their app over the years has resulted in it, and other Meta apps, being banned from my devices.
cyanydeez 8mo ago
People seek novelty. Real social networks do not change as fast as that.
steveBK123 8mo ago
Instagram followed a similar trajectory for me. For a while, as a photography hobbyist, it was a far more "active" social community for photography enthusiasts than whatever came before (Flickr, Smugmug, photo.net, various niche forums). I made photography friends thru it that I met in person even when traveling overseas. This lasted maybe 2 years. Then all the "normies" got on it and my feed started to just be casual snaps by people I knew in real life... which rapidly lead to its final form. It is now fully an influencer economy of people making a full-time job out of posting thirst traps / status envy / travelp*rn / whatever you wanna call it. It is a complete inundation of spend spend spend.
- Brog_io 8mo ago
  You might like Foto https://fotoapp.co/ https://fotoapp.co/
  - zukzuk 8mo ago
    Or Pixelfed, for a decentralized fediverse option.
  - uhoh-itsmaciek 8mo ago
    +1 for Foto. I was also using Instagram through a photography lens and fell off when it got totally unsuitable for that. Foto is pretty good so far.
  - squidsoup 8mo ago
    Foto is good, provided you want a community exclusively made up of other photographers. If you want greater reach for your work, Instagram unfortunately is still the only option. The worst thing about Instagram today for photographers and artists, is that to succeed, you have to effectively become an influencer and share reels of yourself and your process.
    - Seattle3503 8mo ago
      > If you want greater reach for your work, Instagram unfortunately is still the only option. Wasn't people wanting reach what supposedly ruined Instagram in the first place? Seems like wanting it both ways if you want reach for yourself, but not for "influencers"
bad_username 8mo ago
> These algorithmic feeds clearly work for someone They clearly work for advertisers, and that's all that matters.
dyauspitr 8mo ago
For many people, the alternative would be that their feeds are completely empty since a lot of folks don’t post any updates on Facebook really.
terminalshort 8mo ago
It's literally what got me off Facebook for good. I used it less and less over the years, but would still log in once every couple weeks or so. At least it was always 100% content posted by friends or friends of friends, or at least something that was interacted with by someone I know. Then it seems like overnight they flipped a switch and it was 10% content from people I know and 90% completely irrelevant slop. I logged in one more time after that, and then never again.
baby 8mo ago
Twitter followed the same way ad well. All political rubbish now
- atmosx 8mo ago
  It’s the worse. The algo will feed anything that makes you cheer or infuriates you. No middle ground. And God forbid if you dig to some disunion and you “like” something or stop scrolling in the “wrong” tweet… you’ll be getting similar content for months. It’s crazy how bad it has become.
  - baby 8mo ago
    I really think youtube did a good job there. No thirst trap, no outraging content. Praise to the youtube algorithm.
a123b456c 8mo ago
It's not complicated. That random garbage increases advertising revenues. Maybe not from every user, but certainly in the aggregate.
renewiltord 8mo ago
It’s funny how everyone experiences their own Eternal September. Remember that there are 1.5 billion Indians. They’re on FB too and influencing the algorithm with what they want to see.
xnx 8mo ago
Everyone wants to be TikTok. The generated feed is much better than following "creators"/influencers.

keyraycheck 8mo ago

While number of active users still grows, one have to ask a question, who is left on facebook aside from dopamine junkies and bots. The only reason why I didn’t delete facebook is messenger, where I chat with old folks.

loloquwowndueo 8mo ago
Plot twist: all old folks were also on Facebook only to chat with other old folks. Once this fact was spotted, they all just moved to Discord.
ben_w 8mo ago
> who is left on facebook aside from dopamine junkies and bots. Political activists, like a former partner of mine. … who I mute, because I am a British person living in Berlin, I don't need or want "Demexit Memes" and similar groups, which is 90% of what they post … … which in turn means that sometimes when I visit Facebook, my feed is actually empty, because nobody else is posting anything … … which is still an improvement on when the algorithm decides to fill it up with junk, as the algorithm shows me people I don't know doing things I don't care abut interspersed with adverts for stuff I can't use (for all they talk about the "value" of the ads, I get ads both for dick pills and boob surgery, and tax advisors for a country I don't live in who specialise in helping people renounce I nationality I never had in the first place, and sometimes ads I not only can't read but can't even pronounce because they're in cyrillic).
- naravara 8mo ago
  I take poorly directed targeting advertisements as a performance indicator for how well my data privacy efforts are working. When the ad targeting has you dead to rights is when you need to worry.
  - ben_w 8mo ago
    To an extent, sure, but I think also a sign their analytics were never as good as they claimed. For example, so far as I know my name is strongly gendered male, so why the boob surgery ads?
    - thaumasiotes 8mo ago
      > my name is strongly gendered male, so why the boob surgery ads? Probably so you can suggest it to your partner.
      - dizzant 8mo ago
        This. My wife and I can hardly buy each other surprise gifts because the targeted advertising gives us away every time.
- p_ing 8mo ago
  > I get ads both for dick pills and boob surgery There is some percentage of the world-wide population that would find interest in both ads simultaneously.
  - ben_w 8mo ago
    While true (you're not the first to suggest it, even), in the context of the other things they show, I think it is more likely to be an example of them not knowing which advertiser to pitch my eyeballs at, and less likely to be them identifying me as a member of this set.
ericmay 8mo ago
“Who is left on Facebook besides dopamine junkies and bots?” “I only use it in this limited circumstance” You are on Facebook. That’s who. It’s like saying you’re not a drinker because you have a glass of wine every once in a while. Sure you’re not an addict (probably) but you still drink.
- theodric 8mo ago
  I'm happy they've been able to build a $1,660,000,000,000 company on the back of me logging in once every two months, scrolling 3 posts, getting disgusted with slop, and closing the tab. Gives me hope that my harebrained ventures may also succeed!
  - ericmay 8mo ago
    I don't buy it. You use it more than that - otherwise you'd just delete your account.
    - bluGill 8mo ago
      That is about right for me. I scoll a little longer but as soon as it changes from people I care to follow to slop I'm gone for a couple more months. there is value in following distant friends but it isn't worth hours per day of sorting through slop to find it. When it is only every month or two the non-slop still seems to rise to the top. (But God only knows what non slop they choose not to show me) I wish there was a way to block all 'so-and-so shared' as that is where most of the slop comes from. (Ads at least I can say is how they pay the bills and so I accept a few as non-slop)
    - morissette 8mo ago
      I’m down to 3 hours a week of social media woot!
      - sitkack 8mo ago
        Does that include HN?
grvdrm 8mo ago
Around me I see this usage: - Older folks. - People using marketplace - People exchanging inter-personal tips and info: best stroller, contractor, etc. Not saying FB is best for those things but it doesn’t seem dead at all.
CraigRood 8mo ago
The growth is across the family of products (inc Instagram and WhatsApp) not Facebook itself. Facebook itself is a zombie, and I don't believe they have a way to innovate out of it. I'm not going to predict the end of Meta, they have more than enough products, but agreed that it's actually quite difficult to understand who's really left.
Aurornis 8mo ago
The cognitive dissonance in some of these posts is strange. > one have to ask a question, who is left on facebook aside from dopamine junkies and bots. > The only reason why I didn’t delete facebook is messenger, where I chat with old folks. How are you confused about who still uses Facebook in one sentence and then immediately in the next sentence you describe yourself as a user and explain why it’s useful to you and the people you know.
bjelkeman-again 8mo ago
There are some apparent niche communities both on Facebook and Instagram. Heavy metal and hardrock music fans is one group that hasn’t migrated anywhere else yet. I both play in a band and promote events, and both are still required in my geographic area to reach out.
skirge 8mo ago
it's like wondering why pubs or restaurants exists if I'm not visiting them everyday, but they do because they have other businesses (birthday parties, company events etc.). Look at Facebook for business.

hippo22 8mo ago

Your friends don’t produce much content yet people had a need for frequent entertainment. Also, people realized that posting things to social media meant that it was there forever. This led to a bifurcation: friends / family updates are mostly relegated to temporary formats like stories while “feed” content is professional produced.

BorisMelnik 8mo ago

hey you know there is a feed on mobile, built into the app that only shows you your friends feed? not a fb employee or defending them just relaying info.

JKCalhoun 8mo ago
Too late. (And I don't do mobile anyway.) I don't wish to sound like I am shooting the messenger here, but Meta just has way, way too much baggage for me to ever consider returning.
- Barbing 8mo ago
  and keep your kids away from it too before Mark’s robots get handsy https://reuters.com/investigates/special-report/meta-ai-chatbot-guidelines https://reuters.com/investigates/special-report/meta-ai-chat... Warning: truly disgusting
  - erentz 8mo ago
    The adult engineers and adult managers responsible for such things should get the same treatment as any adult having such conversations directly. You can’t just say “wasn’t me, it’s the AI layer I built to do the abuse for me”. You’re actively choosing to abuse and groom children. Sick stuff.
magicmicah85 8mo ago
The funny thing about the friends feed is that it highlights for me who is extremely active on the platform. People resharing stuff all the time. And, it's one of the few feeds you can't endlessly scroll through. It will tell you to "check back later" once you get to 3-4 days of updates. No money in showing people their friends feeds, so why let them endlessly scroll.
Xiol 8mo ago
The amount of shady stuff Facebook has tried with their app over the years has resulted in it, and other Meta apps, being banned from my devices.

cyanydeez 8mo ago

People seek novelty. Real social networks do not change as fast as that.

steveBK123 8mo ago

Instagram followed a similar trajectory for me. For a while, as a photography hobbyist, it was a far more "active" social community for photography enthusiasts than whatever came before (Flickr, Smugmug, photo.net, various niche forums). I made photography friends thru it that I met in person even when traveling overseas. This lasted maybe 2 years. Then all the "normies" got on it and my feed started to just be casual snaps by people I knew in real life... which rapidly lead to its final form. It is now fully an influencer economy of people making a full-time job out of posting thirst traps / status envy / travelp*rn / whatever you wanna call it. It is a complete inundation of spend spend spend.

Brog_io 8mo ago
You might like Foto https://fotoapp.co/ https://fotoapp.co/
- zukzuk 8mo ago
  Or Pixelfed, for a decentralized fediverse option.
- uhoh-itsmaciek 8mo ago
  +1 for Foto. I was also using Instagram through a photography lens and fell off when it got totally unsuitable for that. Foto is pretty good so far.
- squidsoup 8mo ago
  Foto is good, provided you want a community exclusively made up of other photographers. If you want greater reach for your work, Instagram unfortunately is still the only option. The worst thing about Instagram today for photographers and artists, is that to succeed, you have to effectively become an influencer and share reels of yourself and your process.
  - Seattle3503 8mo ago
    > If you want greater reach for your work, Instagram unfortunately is still the only option. Wasn't people wanting reach what supposedly ruined Instagram in the first place? Seems like wanting it both ways if you want reach for yourself, but not for "influencers"

bad_username 8mo ago

> These algorithmic feeds clearly work for someone They clearly work for advertisers, and that's all that matters.

dyauspitr 8mo ago

For many people, the alternative would be that their feeds are completely empty since a lot of folks don’t post any updates on Facebook really.

terminalshort 8mo ago

It's literally what got me off Facebook for good. I used it less and less over the years, but would still log in once every couple weeks or so. At least it was always 100% content posted by friends or friends of friends, or at least something that was interacted with by someone I know. Then it seems like overnight they flipped a switch and it was 10% content from people I know and 90% completely irrelevant slop. I logged in one more time after that, and then never again.

baby 8mo ago

Twitter followed the same way ad well. All political rubbish now

atmosx 8mo ago
It’s the worse. The algo will feed anything that makes you cheer or infuriates you. No middle ground. And God forbid if you dig to some disunion and you “like” something or stop scrolling in the “wrong” tweet… you’ll be getting similar content for months. It’s crazy how bad it has become.
- baby 8mo ago
  I really think youtube did a good job there. No thirst trap, no outraging content. Praise to the youtube algorithm.

a123b456c 8mo ago

It's not complicated. That random garbage increases advertising revenues. Maybe not from every user, but certainly in the aggregate.

renewiltord 8mo ago

It’s funny how everyone experiences their own Eternal September. Remember that there are 1.5 billion Indians. They’re on FB too and influencing the algorithm with what they want to see.

xnx 8mo ago

Everyone wants to be TikTok. The generated feed is much better than following "creators"/influencers.