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> The social networks are big because they have genuine utility. I think this is mostly wrong, and that the social networks are big primarily because they spen
by jonahx 2mo ago
> The social networks are big because they have genuine utility.
I think this is mostly wrong, and that the social networks are big primarily because they spent money at the right time to create entrenched network effects that allow them to rent-seek ever after. The quality and innovation of the services themselves (especially simple sites like twitter/X) is not the moat. At a technical level, most are easily clone-able and dominate not because they offer the best service or have the best features but because "everyone is there." That ubiquity is the only "genuine utilty" they are offering you.
I said "mostly" above because it seems like substack, e.g., as you said, has bundled payment, email, etc in a way that people really like. Even there, though, the network effect is probably the dominating factor.
- IshKebab 2mo agoIt is wrong, but so are you. The truth is that social networks are big because they HAD genuine utility. The Facebook was amazing... at least until about 2010. I was at uni when it started and I vividly remember thinking "I wish there was a website or something that would help me know who everyone is" (we didn't have physical face books in the UK) and then a year later thefacebook turned up. Amazing for everyone's social lives. But after 2010 it just gradually got shitter. WhatsApp replaced it (in most ways; in some ways there is no replacement) and has so far been amazing but it feels like we're about at the "2010" of WhatsApp. Meta is starting to turn the screws. An AI button. Notifications about new features. Integration with Meta accounts. Eventually it will probably merge with Facebook Messaging or some bollocks and then we'll all have to move elsewhere. Anyway my point is, these things genuinely became big because they were great. They stayed big despite becoming shitter due to network effects.
- eloisant 2mo agoAlso because they closed all the gates of interoperability once they got big enough. If they didn't have the incentive to get a monopoly we would have kept a more decentralized web.
- akoboldfrying 2mo ago> If they didn't have the incentive to get a monopoly we would have kept a more decentralized web. And we would have kept a more inconvenient web, since without that incentive, Facebook etc. would never have had reason to pay for an army of software developers to implement and improve the site and servers to host it.
- inigyou 2mo agoAre you implying something about Facebook is convenient?
- akoboldfrying 2mo agoYes, absolutely. Facebook became successful because at the time it was much more convenient than existing ways of accomplishing the same thing it did (interacting socially with other people, meeting new people), including even existing websites like myspace which were themselves more convenient than trying to create one's own website and grow a community, or traveling to meet people face-to-face. Why do you think it became successful?
- inigyou 2mo agoSo... what about Facebook is convenient?
- akoboldfrying 2mo ago> interacting socially with other people, meeting new people
- inigyou 2mo agoI don't find Facebook a convenient way to meet new people or "interact socially with" people.
- pessimizer 2mo ago> I wish there was a website or something that would help me know who everyone is Did you miss Myspace and Friendster? Orkut had a market, I think. The reason that Facebook succeeded later is because it had a good API and invited people to write apps for it (mostly surveys and games, remember Zynga?), tracked its users across the internet, and sold them in targeted slices to advertisers. It was Friendster as a commercial platform (like Salesforce was CRM as a commercial platform.) It was never any better than Myspace, and gradually got much worse. I have no idea what you think is or was so great about WhatsApp. It was successful largely because it had no overhead and infinite throughput, being created by very talented people using Erlang. The reason people use it is because they always have and their friends do, and for a lot of countries with expensive SMS it provided messaging (and became so integrated into business that people weren't allowed to live without it.) This is my argument about why these things were successful; I think that "they were great" isn't a credible one. They simply grabbed a large chunk of already proven markets quickly, but oriented themselves toward corporate needs to leverage that into total control.
- iamacyborg 2mo ago> It was never any better than Myspace, and gradually got much worse. I might be misremembering a bunch but myspace never had a feed that showed you your friend’s updates. It also wasn’t able to magically show you the people who were at that random house party you went to the night before that you hit it off with but were too drunk to get their number.
- IshKebab 2mo agoFacebook didn't have the feed initially either (and it was really disliked when it was introduced - people thought it was like stalking). But yes to your second point. Real people who you actually wanted to know and had actually met were on Facebook. That wasn't really true of any of the other sites.
- smeej 2mo agoLittle did we know back then how many people were yearning to have stalkers. "This person wants to be notified every time I put something online" sounded incredibly creepy in the mid-aughts!
- noosphr 2mo ago>at least until about 2010 A child born when facebook started going to shit is now able to drive.
- simonsarris 2mo ago> but because "everyone is there." That ubiquity is the only "genuine utilty" they are offering you. Sure. So what? You nonetheless cannot deny the utility. The friends that I have made from social networks are no less real. I am very grateful they (the means to discover these people now in my life) exist.
- kridsdale1 2mo agoYes the thing is valuable because of the network and the network is there because of the network. We don’t really rely too much on the navigability of the Hudson River anymore. But being next to it is still the most expensive land in the nation.
- cpill 2mo agothe point is that they are not mutually exclusive. you can have both. just don't put all your eggs in the corporate basket
- jonahx 2mo agoWe are probably coming at this from different angles. I don't deny those things but they're also not a counter-argument to the point I'm intending to make. As an overly dramatic example, a slave might fall in love with the wife he met on a plantation, and the family he has, and even be grateful for them. Nevertheless, you probably don't want to use those facts to be a booster for slave plantations. My argument is that all the good things you like about social networks, from a technical pov, could be had quite easily without the ads, political propoganda, and other ill-effects of the current popular social networks. Indeed, there are many open source projects that already provide the features you'd want. It's just that none has achieved the network you want. This situation is unlike that of a large, complex physical infrastructure project, where you really do need to "put up" with a governement (or something like it) in order to get the thing built and maintained.
- Barbing 2mo agoLess dramatic off top of head: proud poverty built your work ethic but no motivation to pull any social safety net ladders. Or maybe happy punch card programming developed your 1337 skills but glad IDEs are there for the current generation.
- deleted 2mo ago[deleted]
- jimbokun 2mo agoThe network effects ARE the genuine utility.
- theturtletalks 2mo agoAnd you can take advantage of their network effects by implementing a POSSE system. Publish on your own site, syndicate elsewhere. That way, your website is the source of truth and the other places are like museums you curate to. Why should you go thru the trouble? Because these social networks own your content and your audience and won't hesitate a second to drop you if they deem fit.
- cma 2mo agox.com heavily penalizes off-site links.
- uhoh-itsmaciek 2mo agoFair enough, but that move should make you think twice before tying your fate to theirs.
- theturtletalks 2mo agoUsing something like Typefully or even Postiz lets you post without linking to any site. If you publish a blogpost, you can have one of these tools create an C article with the same content.
- cma 2mo agoGreat way to not get subscribers to your substack etc.
- biztos 2mo ago"Publish Own Site, Syndicate Elsewhere" https://indieweb.org/POSSE https://indieweb.org/POSSE (There were a dozen other, unrelated things ranking higher on Google.)
- 2mo ago
- marysminefnuf 2mo agoIn my class students have to use their school issued google accounts for everythinggggg. Take from that what you will.