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Ask HN: Has social media reached its saturation point?

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Ask HN: Has social media reached its saturation point?

#1

Post by I_DRINK_KOOLAID »

Looking at how big social media companies are operating , their R&D and their stated plans about the future..can we infer that such phenomenon has reached its saturation point?

Zuck changed the company name and is now fixated with the metaverse, which is something nobody can really define or understand. Cartoonish characters used as avatars and the other elements put forward in his keynote leave people wondering what will the actual improvement be.

Twitter is making the transition towards a "free speach" platform which will now ask people to pay to play, somehow creating synergies with Tesla and SpaceX (what???) given the cult of personality surrounding the new owner.

Seems to me like we are really splitting hairs with regards to future improvements and innovation from both those companies, the plateu of the S-curve is in for both of them.

Re: Ask HN: Has social media reached its saturation point?

#4

Post by julianlam »

Social media, when it came on the scene in the form of Facebook, et. al. simply went gangbusters because there wasn't anything like it before (this is arguable, but is beyond the scope of this comment).

On the other hand, lower-reach social communities like forums are still humming along just fine after all these years. Their popularity grows and wanes with trends but there will (probably) always be people on forums.

Social media has broad reach but shallow depth.

Forums, mailing lists, etc. have narrower reach but can be support incredibly deep dives.

Re: Ask HN: Has social media reached its saturation point?

#5

Post by I_DRINK_KOOLAID »

thfuran wrote: post #3

I think there's plenty of room for improvement in social media. At this point, it's all geared toward maximizing ad revenue, which is not closely aligned with maximizing utility for users.

> At this point, it's all geared toward maximizing ad revenue

Well, you have to make money somehow and users will never pay for social media after having been spoiled for 15+ years by free Facebook , not to mention the 20+ years of free Google.

When I paid for Linkedin Gold I felt scammed and canceled after a month.

People are not willing to pay for marginal improvements, they are only willing to pay for very important and vital stuff which matters a lot to them. For example...getting laid, that's why Tinder pay feature brings in revenues.

Getting laid is the dictionary definition of "important and vital" and the difference between chatting on Tinder and actually getting laid using Tinder is enormous, it's not just a marginal improvement and thus prompts people to pay out of pocket to have their profile shown to a much higher number of users

Re: Ask HN: Has social media reached its saturation point?

#6

Post by derbOac »

It's an interesting perspective. I think there's a few things going on that are slightly different maybe? Maybe not.

I tend to think of it more that discrepancies between what the platforms are purported to be, and the actual use patterns and motives are, has grown to a point where it's getting scrutinized and having substantial pushback. Another way of looking at this is the limitations and drawbacks of current platforms are being exposed in unavoidable ways.

Another issue that's gotten some attention but maybe not as much as it deserves is the diversification of social media and generational trends. I think Facebook and Twitter trends older and has become more of a political punching bag, which has led to the sorts of things you're talking about. "Younger" platforms, demographic-wise, have largely gone under the radar and we haven't seen the sort of repositioning and jockeying that we've seen with Twitter and Facebook. So Facebook is trying a sort of pivot (wisely so in my opinion, even though I'm not sure about the nature of that pivot), even as things like TikTok are percolating up into media consciousness. It may not be that social media is saturated it might be that people are migrating, passively or actively, to other platforms that have so far gone unscrutinized by older demographics who tend to use things like Twitter and Facebook.

Who knows though. For me it's interesting to watch. I've never really been involved with either platform, for multiple reasons.

There seems to be growing interested in more decentralized or federated platforms. I'm starting to wonder if these will gain traction sort of slowly and organically as the other platforms churn over time and they're the only things left being stable.

Re: Ask HN: Has social media reached its saturation point?

#7

Post by medymed »

Mainstream social media may be close but niche interests probably have miles to go. HN and stack overflow have some overlap in user niche but are miles apart in intent/design/usage. Any subset of communication between people or groups has potential to have a niche optimized platform.

Re: Ask HN: Has social media reached its saturation point?

#8

Post by tenebrisalietum »

It has to be at the saturation point for at least Facebook. Facebook is old news. Anyone who wants a Facebook account has one, anyone who wants to engage in the platform is already doing so.

However the younger people understand now that posting things on public social media can have consequences, so things like Discord and Telegram are now going to be the future, and classic social media like Facebook is simply going to become more and more inauthentic until it fades away into something 70 year olds preoccupy themselves with out of habit like television.

Re: Ask HN: Has social media reached its saturation point?

#9

Post by I_DRINK_KOOLAID »

derbOac wrote: post #6

It's an interesting perspective. I think there's a few things going on that are slightly different maybe? Maybe not. I tend to think of it more that discrepancies between what the platforms are purported to be, and the actual use patterns and motives are, has grown to a point where it's getting scrutinized and having substantial pushback. Another way of looking at this is the limitations and drawbacks of current plat…

> even as things like TikTok are percolating up into media consciousness

The problem with TikTok is that it's essentially just for actors, musicians and dancers.

On Youtube people can Vlog, it's impossible to vlog on TikTok.

I think among the many social media Facebook and Instagram manage to capture the most people.

- Facebook/Instagram everybody can take a pic or draw some art, or a video or even engage in written discussion, plus they get some officially & professionally produced content from TV (not as much as YT but they do)

- Youtube misses out on people who can take cool pics and write insightful thoughts but captures those who can take cool videos or can vlog, plus they get tons of official professionally produced content from TV

- TikTok misses out on everybody except amateurs who can act, sing or dance

- Twitter is a stadium for culture wars and breaking news

- Reddit is where you can take your time to articulate thoughts/research and link up with people who have the same interests. The news arrive just as fast as twitter without the 140 ch. limits, and it's not properly a stadium for culture wars...more like a small UFC arena

Re: Ask HN: Has social media reached its saturation point?

#10

Post by coward123 »

Not even close? I mean you may be on to something with your hypothesis about the current wave of social media companies, but not if you step back and look at the bigger pictures. People are always looking at ways to connect. The whole premise of social media through the lens of the consumer is to find and stay in contact with ones people - either meatspace friends or newly discovered ones online. So will FB age out? Yes probably at some point. Is Instagram too photo/video centric and lacks any substance? Absolutely. Twitter is the best overall current source for news and information (amazing!) but it's format is both its strength and weakness. The TL DR version of this is - sooner or later some next wave will come along because the core purpose is too central to humans.
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