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Snap’s Drop in Active Users Could Signal a Social Media Peak

nytimes.com

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Re: Snap’s Drop in Active Users Could Signal a Social Media Peak

#201

Post by xf00 »

lloeki wrote: post #187
danepowell wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds like an example of Goodhart's Law: "When a metric becomes a target, it ceases to be a good metric." Optimizing for something as abstruse as "engagement" seems like a great way to completely ignore everything that actually makes social networks compelling. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goodhart%27s_law

> Optimizing for something as abstruse as "engagement" seems like a great way to completely ignore everything that actually makes social networks compelling. Or anything else, for that matter. The most shocking part of Android Pie release[0] was the repetition of the "drive engagement" mantra (in the post as well as surrounding articles). Fundamentally, phones are tools; how good is any tool to me when it's purposely…

> A tool should make me more efficient, hence, for the same task, make me use it less!

It makes sense when you consider Android phones as a set of tools used by advertisers to reach consumers. The more eyeballs the more efficient the tool becomes.

Re: Snap’s Drop in Active Users Could Signal a Social Media Peak

#202

Post by wastedhours »

Qwertie wrote: post #36
ngngngng wrote: post #11

To me Snapchat is just instagram with a shit user interface that I don't have the time to learn.

Instagram has a pretty craptastic UI itself. It's a pain in the ass to copy images from the web UI (Have to use the inspector to get the link) and the video player doesn't let you skip ahead or move back.

I'd agree if those tasks were part of what they were planning to be a part of the app experience - but seeing as they're explicitly not, then from a pure design perspective, the UI is perfect in that regard.

Re: Snap’s Drop in Active Users Could Signal a Social Media Peak

#203

Post by tonyedgecombe »

quotemstr wrote: post #195
josephg wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Algorithmic ranking is not evil. A tiny minority of people rail against algorithmic ranking, but the vast majority, as demonstrated by their engagement, prefer the algorithmic model. Should we let this tiny vocal minority dictate policy, data be damned? I was listening to the Next Billion Seconds podcast the other day. They made the point that in social media 'engagement' is a polite euphemism for 'addictiveness'.…

How can you distinguish "addictiveness" from people just liking the product? The default assumption should be that people are in control of their own actions.

Why would you assume that, all the research shows we spend most of our time on auto pilot.

Re: Snap’s Drop in Active Users Could Signal a Social Media Peak

#204

Post by t0nyh0 »

leon_sbt wrote: post #69

I really wish social media would "peak" to towards meeting people in real life semi-spontaneously. No profiles, no media uploads, no digital showboating. The best relationships I have with other people fall in this category. Real life,common interests,no digital uploads. Just add attributes of your geolocation and hobbies [biking, yoga,tensorflow,etc] or let it crawl your digital profile(s) to autobuild your attribut…

Agree 100% with this. I believe we should really utilize the internet more as a bridge for offline interactions. I've been trying to build something similar for sports called Reclub. https://reclub.co

Re: Snap’s Drop in Active Users Could Signal a Social Media Peak

#205

Post by terryf »

quotemstr wrote: post #196
terryf wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"As demonstrated by engagement" - isn't really true. It's more "As demonstrated by count of time spent in the app". I believe that is true. But it's also a worse experience. Those two really seem to contradict each other, however, it's really quite nuanced. I'd like to see mostly what my friends are up to. Instead of that, on Facebook at least, I mostly see viral videos from whatever groups I happen to be in. It is t…

If your theory were true --- that apparent engagement increases really just represent navigational inefficiency --- you'd see drops in other metrics, like user retention and visits. But you don't. What you see is that people use the thing more. It's hard not to interpret that as better.

I'm not saying it's navigational inefficiency - it's giving me useless stuff that's really hard to stay away from. I don't want a platform that gives me a free shot of opium every now and then just to get me to stay there.

Being addictive is not a net positive!

Re: Snap’s Drop in Active Users Could Signal a Social Media Peak

#206

Post by Jare »

havermeyer wrote: post #156
florabuzzword wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I bailed at the advent of forced non-chronological timelines. I would have been less insulted if Facebook hired someone to spit in my face. Easily the scummiest design decision I have ever whitnessed. Actively manipulating the structural representation of time in a communication platform is begging for chaos. Yes, of course I know the time stamps are still presented. That is not my point. Communication is sensitive;…

One of the reasons that I like Twitter... It has a short section with "important" (by some metric) tweets since the last time that you viewed your feed, followed by tweets in chronological order. Facebook surely has the ability to do something similar but it would negatively impact how much time people spend on the site.

Twitter forces me to do a monthly dance of "I don't like this" clicking on stuff like that or the "XXX liked this tweet" crap to remove them, instead of providing a simple on/off setting and sticking to it.

Re: Snap’s Drop in Active Users Could Signal a Social Media Peak

#207

Post by kristiandupont »

danepowell wrote: post #54
benwerd wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What's happened is that most of the major social networks only hire and promote people who make decisions primarily based on analytics. As a result these sites no longer have any real communities or organic content, and have been completely hollowed out by math-friendly refrigerator magnet junkfood. _Exactly_ this. Rather than understanding their users as real humans, having unique insights about them, and building…

Sounds like an example of Goodhart's Law: "When a metric becomes a target, it ceases to be a good metric." Optimizing for something as abstruse as "engagement" seems like a great way to completely ignore everything that actually makes social networks compelling. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goodhart%27s_law

When I hear startups declare that they are data-driven I get the image of a person driving a car by focusing stritcly on the dashboard.

Re: Snap’s Drop in Active Users Could Signal a Social Media Peak

#208

Post by auxbuss »

superflyguy wrote: post #181
blitmap wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't want to sound like an ass because I wholeheartedly agree with you. The experience is hollow. But you can't invest in things you can't quantify. You can't make money off of good vibes and authenticity without metrics. Snapchat and the like have thrown enormous money at understanding humans and have the best people in their fields to get this right. I think what worked 10 years ago no longer flies now. How we s…

"But you can't invest in things you can't quantify." From: https://genius.com/Frank-zappa-drooling-midrange-accountants... Once upon a time, a record company had A&R people in it who would take a chance, make a decision, use their gut reaction, sign a group, and see what they could do with it. Okay? That was, whoa, a long time ago. It's not that way anymore. All decisions about who get signed and what happens to the…

`A&R` by Bill Flanagan[0] is a fun read about the now deceased world of A&R. Of special interest to anyone interested in the music business who wasn't around pre-internet.

[0] https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1163779.A_R

Re: Snap’s Drop in Active Users Could Signal a Social Media Peak

#209

Post by Cthulhu_ »

Alex3917 wrote: post #7

We might be at a local maximum, but we're nowhere near the peak. What we're seeing is an end of the race to the bottom. What's happened is that most of the major social networks only hire and promote people who make decisions primarily based on analytics. As a result these sites no longer have any real communities or organic content, and have been completely hollowed out by math-friendly refrigerator magnet junkfood.…

Yeah there's still billions of people that aren't online yet, and even without all of the optimization targets, people still use services like Facebook, Snapchat, Whatsapp, etc multiple times per day - all of these services will remain highly profitable even with declining usage figures.

It's just that their share prices will take a hit and shareholders will be disgruntled. Fuck those guys though.

Re: Snap’s Drop in Active Users Could Signal a Social Media Peak

#210

Post by quotemstr »

tonyedgecombe wrote: post #203
quotemstr wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How can you distinguish "addictiveness" from people just liking the product? The default assumption should be that people are in control of their own actions.

Why would you assume that, all the research shows we spend most of our time on auto pilot.

I assume my fellow humans are sentient creatures with volition and judgement. Do you?
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