Linus Torvalds Says Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram Are 'A Disease' • Hacker News Board

Re: Linus Torvalds Says Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram Are 'A Disease'

#101

Post by adnfo883kkd » Thu, Apr 04, 2019, 3:52 PM UTC

dragontamer wrote: post #90

BFLpL0QNek wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really miss forums. Google did a really good job of indexing forums, they where a great place to find honest reviews, share information etc. Now they are dying with users spread across various services which are not publicly indexed making it hard to find interesting information, that and forum posts look to be now down ranked in Google in favor retail sites. A few of the communities I am interested in such as outd…

Frankly... forums are dying because of Discord. Maybe Google-docs (which is emerging as a highly-curated, invite-only chat-platform for the younger generation). Kids these days go to Discord and/or Google Docs for serious conversation. If you have an adult community, they may still use forums, but its more or less seen as a dated and ancient Web 1.0 sort of thing. Google-docs fits all the requirements. No major schoo…

I'm not really disagreeing with you about discord and google docs being popular but something strikes me about it.

(1) because they're both centrally controlled, which leads to some of the same problems (2) google docs for chat is pretty ad hoc, which is fine at some level, but points to something (secrecy? ban-proof-ness? teenagers co-opting something where there might be a better solution, like irc or riot or various group chats?) (3) I don't think google docs or discord are quite the same as twitter etc. in the sense that they serve a different function (group chat)... maybe discord has some similarities but it seems to serve a different function.

which leads me to:

How much is this discussion about centralization versus public versus private-facing communication?

I've always felt that centralization (as opposed to federation or decentralization) is a bad thing (or at least, less desirable, network math be damned), and think that some old-school things are underrated (e.g., IRC). At the same time, there's been a common thread for years of people wanting to communicate over the internet without the technical hassle. webpage without learning networking and programming -> MySpace/Facebook... rss without learning networking and programming -> twitter... forums without learning forum software and dealing with name registries etc. -> reddit ...

I've toyed around with mastodon and have been struck by how much it has the feel of a lot of the old web, but it seems like it needs more critical mass to take off like something like email.

Re: Linus Torvalds Says Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram Are 'A Disease'

#102

Post by skipschumacher » Thu, Apr 04, 2019, 3:58 PM UTC

BFLpL0QNek wrote: post #18

trpc wrote: post #7

Social media ruined the internet forever, even less than a decade ago there were websites, forums of all sorts and for all kinds of interests, now the internet for most people is just these social websites/apps which intentionally lock users inside their services as long as possible to make more money from advertising and promoted posts. Unfortunately unless something big happens to fix this issue, the internet is lo…

I really miss forums. Google did a really good job of indexing forums, they where a great place to find honest reviews, share information etc. Now they are dying with users spread across various services which are not publicly indexed making it hard to find interesting information, that and forum posts look to be now down ranked in Google in favor retail sites. A few of the communities I am interested in such as outd…

I am also into adventure motorcycle riding. All I have come across is a reddit group r/Dualsport for a forum. There is also thumpertalk. Though I feel that is more geared towards MX riding and not adventure riding. Have you been able to find any other groups that are worth anything? Maybe the adv crowd isn't as big into forums, they might be too busy out riding!

Re: Linus Torvalds Says Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram Are 'A Disease'

#103

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Apr 04, 2019, 4:02 PM UTC

[deleted]

Re: Linus Torvalds Says Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram Are 'A Disease'

#104

Post by canidiarus » Thu, Apr 04, 2019, 4:04 PM UTC

He neglected to mention usenet, where he made his original announcement about his hobby OS. The Usenet alt groups were one of the first examples of what's seen in FB/TWT/IG today. What's changed is who has access and the methods of access - everyone and everywhere.

Re: Linus Torvalds Says Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram Are 'A Disease'

#105

Post by orev » Thu, Apr 04, 2019, 4:30 PM UTC

gargs wrote: post #97

The one thing that the Internet changed in a very negative manner that ultimately brought us here is -- the expectation that everything is/has to be free. No one wants to pay for anything anymore; people don't want to pay for information; paying for correspondence is just a terrible idea; and so on. You could control who you interact with, only so far. When no one you know reads the newspaper, while depending on 'soc…

You can’t blame that on the Internet. TV and radio have been mostly free and ad-supported, and there are/were many free newspapers also supported by ads. I think it’s more accurate to say that people in general prefer their media consumption to be free.

Yes, there are some exceptions like cinema, HBO, etc.

Re: Linus Torvalds Says Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram Are 'A Disease'

#106

Post by vidanay » Thu, Apr 04, 2019, 4:30 PM UTC

BFLpL0QNek wrote: post #18

trpc wrote: post #7

Social media ruined the internet forever, even less than a decade ago there were websites, forums of all sorts and for all kinds of interests, now the internet for most people is just these social websites/apps which intentionally lock users inside their services as long as possible to make more money from advertising and promoted posts. Unfortunately unless something big happens to fix this issue, the internet is lo…

I really miss forums. Google did a really good job of indexing forums, they where a great place to find honest reviews, share information etc. Now they are dying with users spread across various services which are not publicly indexed making it hard to find interesting information, that and forum posts look to be now down ranked in Google in favor retail sites. A few of the communities I am interested in such as outd…

Every forum I was a member of in the last 25 years decayed into a deafening echo chamber of like-minded idiots and trolls who couldn't discuss a topic without personal slander and political or religious influences.

Just like social media.

Re: Linus Torvalds Says Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram Are 'A Disease'

#107

Post by smt88 » Thu, Apr 04, 2019, 4:37 PM UTC

ZhuanXia wrote: post #63

smt88 wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those forums exist and are more widely-used than ever. They're just mostly hosted on reddit now.

Reddit uses machine learning models to maximize engagement. This ruins any of the forum-like qualities reddit had. It’s gross. Every subreddit is constantly in the process of eternal September, which kills the dynamics of getting to know one another that were common on forums. Social media that is good cannot have advertising and cannot be an algorithmic Skinner box that maximizes engagement. I am starting to think o…

> Reddit uses machine learning models to maximize engagement.

Can't you just sort by new...?

Re: Linus Torvalds Says Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram Are 'A Disease'

#108

Post by smt88 » Thu, Apr 04, 2019, 4:39 PM UTC

rchaud wrote: post #70

smt88 wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those forums exist and are more widely-used than ever. They're just mostly hosted on reddit now.

The mechanics of Reddit are completely different from forums. Many niche subreddits have seen an entire change in culture and content quality simply because a single posts hit the front page, bringing with it a flood of new subscribers who simply post variations of that top-ranking post in order to gain upvotes, or "Reddit gold", a useless e-token that is somehow considered extremely valuable to some Redditors.

> The mechanics of Reddit are completely different from forums

Well, that's the double-edged sword of reddit: it helps niche forums stay alive by constantly bringing in new users that originally visited reddit for other reasons. But that visibility can also kill them.

Still, aren't there lots of private subreddits or subreddits where only subscribers can post? If mods are active and ban regularly, you can preserve a culture if you want.

Re: Linus Torvalds Says Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram Are 'A Disease'

#109

Post by newsgremlin » Thu, Apr 04, 2019, 4:40 PM UTC

He's right, and nothing on these sites feels 'real'. Not even the people you know in real life project themselves as they are, and if they do it's only the happy side of their life that people see which is certainly not healthy to see every day for anyone's mental health or realistic perceptions and expectations of life. Anything different from that people tend to stay clear from, almost to distance their relation to a particular person.

Couple that with being bombarded by obvious and not so obvious advertisements through promoted content, viral marketing campaigns, promoters and creators that act (emphasis on act) and galvanize certain lifestyles that appeals to individual wants and needs at a unrealistic level.

Just like the old medium of television, everything is manufactured to look a certain way, and consciousness of looks still persists.

Re: Linus Torvalds Says Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram Are 'A Disease'

#110

Post by type0 » Thu, Apr 04, 2019, 4:48 PM UTC

Secretmapper wrote: post #29

BFLpL0QNek wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really miss forums. Google did a really good job of indexing forums, they where a great place to find honest reviews, share information etc. Now they are dying with users spread across various services which are not publicly indexed making it hard to find interesting information, that and forum posts look to be now down ranked in Google in favor retail sites. A few of the communities I am interested in such as outd…

This is one of the most obvious things that really were lost in the advent of the big social media sites. Those weird little forums that have their own communities, with the sites having their own little eccentricities. With how everything is just in one platform, it becomes impersonal as well. I heard about mastodon which feels like it sort of is taking this 'little communities' concept again, but I really wish foru…

> I heard about mastodon which feels like it sort of is taking this 'little communities' concept again, but I really wish forums would have a comeback.

Mastodon is different, it's more like twitter and almost as impersonal