Snap’s Drop in Active Users Could Signal a Social Media Peak • Hacker News Board

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

#271

Post by drb91 » Wed, Aug 08, 2018, 3:37 PM UTC

mrep wrote: post #242

drb91 wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> with new technologies are going to come novel and compelling forms of social interaction. What, Web 3.0 will come with booze? While I am entertained by social media, I can't remember the last time I actually interacted with anyone in a substantive way. I'd much rather hit the bar and admit to myself that social media isn't very social.

You're interacting with us right now :)

Oh I do agree there! I just don’t file forums under “social media” in the sense most people bemoan the concept.

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

#272

Post by Nickersf » Wed, Aug 08, 2018, 3:50 PM UTC

Pigo wrote: post #251

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

I'm forced to interact with certain people in my life through certain social media tools, but I lost interest in most if it a long time ago. I've tried to quantify what it is that made it so exciting at first, and the best thing I can think of is that I used to meet new people or engage with people I wanted to get to know better when things were first kicking off. I never wanted it to become the way I talk to my folk…

I couldn't agree more with this. I'm in the same boat. 32 years old, so I had a social life before social media. There is one exception for me and that's Instagram. I'm a visual person and it satisfies that for me. Three minutes on Twitter is enough to make me depressed for the rest of the day. Facebook isn't much different... I think humans will naturally shift to actually hanging out in real life again.

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

#273

Post by vitaflo » Wed, Aug 08, 2018, 4:40 PM UTC

stef25 wrote: post #227

trophycase wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's basically just the life cycle of nearly every corporation due to their incessant need to grow. Offer a great product and build a strong customer base, then slowly cut costs by worsening product or externalizing costs.

> their incessant need to grow This need is something I've never really understood and indeed is the root of all these problems. Zuck wouldn't be mister billionaire if he'd kept FB V1, but the world would have been better for it.

>This need is something I've never really understood

>Zuck wouldn't be mister billionaire if he'd kept FB V1

Are you sure you don't understand it?

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

#274

Post by Izkata » Wed, Aug 08, 2018, 4:41 PM UTC

mmt wrote: post #111

striking wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cord cutting isn't just about commercials (indeed, there is an ad supported tier of Hulu). It's about control over what you get to watch, when. No more waiting around for a particular time, no forgetting to set the DVR. This has always been a nuisance.

Indeed, even before full-on cord-cutting was a thing, Tivo was (and still is, AFAIK) a thing, including speculative recording of content (i.e. it became more than just a digital version of a VCR). There's evidence that this has been an evolution rather than a revolution.

> (and still is, AFAIK)

Yep, my condo just cut a deal with our collective internet+cable provider that includes a Tivo for everyone.

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

#275

Post by lsalvatore » Wed, Aug 08, 2018, 5:25 PM UTC

cyphar wrote: post #148

lsalvatore wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're not going to convince me that someone narrating over themselves play Half-Life has the same creativity as Shakespeare, because "everything is a copy". To say that no one actually owns the rights to Pokemon, that someone copying Pokemon frame-by-frame is of equal creative value as someone drawing their own monsters, well I just am deeply saddened by that.

(I'll be honest that I didn't originally didn't read that the topic under discussion was modding of games. Passing off a game as your own is obviously not right, but that isn't the only topic under discussion here.) Of course modding is not the same as Shakespeare. My point was that stories like those of Shakespeare would not have been possible with our modern notions of copyright. I do agree that many (but not all)…

Thanks for your comment. I'm certainly not arguing for a binary definition of creativity. I would play The Stanley Parable and vouch for it's existence as a stand-alone work of art.

But should The Stanley Parable be able to profit and set up a free enterprise on the tireless work of Valve engineers? Well, I wasn't really arguing that either.

All I was saying is that, as an artist, if you consider yourself "fucked" because you can't profit off of releasing a commercial game "Harry Potter with Pokemon" that sits on the shelves of GameStop alongside the originals- even though you would be quite good and creative artist in my mind, hell I would play the shit out of that game- you are not realizing that respecting copyright law and abiding by those rules, as "unfair" as they may be, is the only thing that protects companies from being ruthlessly shared on uTorrent for free, and that if you were truly creative and trying to form a business, why not respect this law, and take additional effort to create something "new" and "original", which I understand is total hyperbole, but within our confines of law is simply a matter of "reskinning" so yes Shakespeare could be regarding on the level of reskinning someone else's Angry Birds, but clearly he put his creative spin on it enough to be different or else he wouldn't have made his mark.

In conclusion, nothing is completely "original", and fanfiction is still creative, but artists should strive to not self-identify with other creative entities, if they wish to form a business, out of respect for the law that protects from 100% bad actors which do not wish to creatively enhance, but to sell or distribute identical copies of original creative work.

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

#276

Post by lsalvatore » Wed, Aug 08, 2018, 5:32 PM UTC

shawn wrote: post #46

Qwertie wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could you explain exactly how blockchains allow societies to create ideas? I'm not sure how append only lists allow idea sharing in ways a database does not.

Alex isn't wrong. But I don't think it's blockchain. It's decentralization in general. For example, I want to release a tool that can mod old ROMs. I cannot legally sell this. This is a new idea, I'd like to make a living with it, but I can't. And why not? Because the concept of IP has turned us into servants. Meanwhile you have youtube series like Freeman's Mind https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5SQhfkpX9bc making a k…

Addendum to my previous comment: Look no further than the man who claimed to be Leonardo himself [1] for proof that a lawless blockchain protects no one and hurts original content creators.

[1] https://bitcoinist.com/leonardo-da-vinci-mona-lisa-blockchai...

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

#277

Post by quotemstr » Wed, Aug 08, 2018, 6:37 PM UTC

tonyedgecombe wrote: post #266

quotemstr wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

No, if you want evidence then just look at the numbers of obese people in the population. People don't make rational decisions, this isn't some moral failing, it's just the way we are.

And in this analogy, those arguing against algorithmic ranking would forbid optimizing food for taste. I don't want to live in that world.

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

#278

Post by spacehome » Wed, Aug 08, 2018, 7:33 PM UTC

Kurtz79 wrote: post #256

spacehome wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess you can. Email seems to be more popular, though. For any given person, there's a higher likelihood they have email than any particular IM client.

Not at a local level. In many countries in Europe, WhatsApp is just about ubiquitous, and used by the average guy way more often than email. The same (from what I understand) for WeChat in China. Yes, if you need to communicate outside of your local circle of family and friends, e-mail is still king (for business communication for example, no contest), but how often does the average guy does it?

I'm a little shocked at your experience. It doesn't match my experience. Literally everyone I know has an email address.

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

#279

Post by jmcqk6 » Wed, Aug 08, 2018, 8:06 PM UTC

quotemstr wrote: post #128

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;…

Chronological is just one ordering. Why are you so attached to it? Why must deviating from this one specific ranking approach lead to "chaos"? 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?

Why is engagement the metric to optimize for? I can find utility in a post that I don't engage with.

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

#280

Post by ZainRiz » Wed, Aug 08, 2018, 8:09 PM UTC

drb91 wrote: post #80

lsalvatore wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe those "fucked" artists should invent their own characters. You know, being creative instead of copying other people's ideas.

Being creative and copying ideas are not mutually exclusive. For instance, I love the harry potter universe. I just happen to think that JK Rowling is a terrible writer. I would pay hundreds of dollars for quality fan fiction, ideally licensed or legal. There’s really no mechanism for any human on the planet to tell a story in this universe and widely distribute it legally. Arguably this is more of an issue with copy…

Harry Potter has more fanfiction about it than any other storiy. The most famous one is on hpmor.com, but you can find tons of others on fanfiction.net.