4 ms·

It 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.

It 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 3mo ago
Also 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 3mo 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 3mo ago
    Are you implying something about Facebook is convenient?
    - akoboldfrying 3mo ago
      Yes, 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 3mo ago
        So... what about Facebook is convenient?
        akoboldfrying 3mo ago
        > interacting socially with other people, meeting new people
        inigyou 3mo ago
        I don't find Facebook a convenient way to meet new people or "interact socially with" people.
        akoboldfrying 3mo ago
        Millions, possibly billions, did.
        inigyou 3mo ago
        Why do you keep speaking in past tense about the present?
        akoboldfrying 2mo ago
        My claim was only ever about the past. I don't know why you think it was about the present. I expect you will respond by trying to claim that Facebook is no longer convenient, and that this -- not whether it was ever convenient in the past -- is what is really important. Two things: 1. Even if this were true, the finite historical period during which it was convenient to people still has value, which is all that my original claim requires. 2. But it is not true. It is still very convenient to the millions of people who continue to use it, as can be plainly seen from the fact that millions of people continue to use it.
  - mastermage 3mo ago
    what improvements? The algorithm that radicalises people and keeps them seperated in bubbles? The Mass Data Harvesting?
pessimizer 3mo 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 3mo 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 3mo ago
    Facebook 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 3mo ago
      Little 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 3mo ago
>at least until about 2010 A child born when facebook started going to shit is now able to drive.

eloisant 3mo ago

Also 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 3mo 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 3mo ago
  Are you implying something about Facebook is convenient?
  - akoboldfrying 3mo ago
    Yes, 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 3mo ago
      So... what about Facebook is convenient?
      - akoboldfrying 3mo ago
        > interacting socially with other people, meeting new people
        inigyou 3mo ago
        I don't find Facebook a convenient way to meet new people or "interact socially with" people.
        akoboldfrying 3mo ago
        Millions, possibly billions, did.
        inigyou 3mo ago
        Why do you keep speaking in past tense about the present?
        akoboldfrying 2mo ago
        My claim was only ever about the past. I don't know why you think it was about the present. I expect you will respond by trying to claim that Facebook is no longer convenient, and that this -- not whether it was ever convenient in the past -- is what is really important. Two things: 1. Even if this were true, the finite historical period during which it was convenient to people still has value, which is all that my original claim requires. 2. But it is not true. It is still very convenient to the millions of people who continue to use it, as can be plainly seen from the fact that millions of people continue to use it.
- mastermage 3mo ago
  what improvements? The algorithm that radicalises people and keeps them seperated in bubbles? The Mass Data Harvesting?

pessimizer 3mo 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 3mo 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 3mo ago
  Facebook 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 3mo ago
    Little 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 3mo ago

>at least until about 2010 A child born when facebook started going to shit is now able to drive.