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Instagram Is Facebook Now

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Re: Instagram Is Facebook Now

#81

Post by throw_nbvc1234 »

ryandrake wrote: post #70
andrew_eit wrote: post #35

Facebook aside you really see this across the board on almost any platform, that once the product reaches it's 1.0 stage, (where it is good, does what the users want it to do, and has realised its vision) it begins a process of gradual decay, as the focus of the product managers (now panicking to find some statistics to improve to show their bosses) shifts from "building functionality" to "increasing engagement/reten…

Even products that don't have a mandate to become attention-sucking get ruined eventually. Developers gotta develop---so once the product is pretty much done, it becomes a feature-cram-fest to try to bolt-on every crazy thing they can think of, including the kitchen sink. Meanwhile, long-standing bugs go unaddressed, security issues crop up, quality drops, and long-time users feel more and more alienated. I've seen t…

yeah you don't just fire the PM's, gotta fire most of the devs as well; promotion driven development is the underlying theme. Just keep a group around for ops, scaling, and bug fixes. Maybe this kind of role is a 3 or 4 day a week job and becomes acceptable in a world that aligns with OP's vision.

Re: Instagram Is Facebook Now

#82

Post by hotpotamus »

ryandrake wrote: post #70
andrew_eit wrote: post #35

Facebook aside you really see this across the board on almost any platform, that once the product reaches it's 1.0 stage, (where it is good, does what the users want it to do, and has realised its vision) it begins a process of gradual decay, as the focus of the product managers (now panicking to find some statistics to improve to show their bosses) shifts from "building functionality" to "increasing engagement/reten…

Even products that don't have a mandate to become attention-sucking get ruined eventually. Developers gotta develop---so once the product is pretty much done, it becomes a feature-cram-fest to try to bolt-on every crazy thing they can think of, including the kitchen sink. Meanwhile, long-standing bugs go unaddressed, security issues crop up, quality drops, and long-time users feel more and more alienated. I've seen t…

I once heard it said that developers are like beavers - they just instinctively keep cutting down trees and building dams. Seems accurate based on my experience.

Re: Instagram Is Facebook Now

#83

Post by vineyardmike »

MarcelOlsz wrote: post #9
athenot wrote: post #7

At this point, Instagram decided it wants to be a TV and just show me what it wants me to see, not my carefully curated feed. I'm letting my account die.

Exactly. I just use instagram to msg people who aren't on Telegram and other services as I don't have FB. I don't think I've ever used the feed before, simply because of seeing ads. I never watch stories either. It's a dumpster fire, and any algorithm to show me stuff is a mistake, full stop. I only want to see my friends stuff chronologically, nothing else on the app matters for me. I genuinely don't understand why…

> I don't think I've ever used the feed before, simply because of seeing ads.

This is surprisingly disciplined and extreme. Kudos (i think? Can't quite tell if you're missing out due to ideology or holding good ground).

> any algorithm to show me stuff is a mistake, full stop. I only want to see my friends stuff chronologically, nothing else on the app matters for me.

> I genuinely don't understand why they do this

Unfortunately, it seems like you're probably in the minority there. Algo feeds are way easier to ensure the user always sees something new (which is somewhat important), and you can still make it only people you follow (so still only your friends).

Re: Instagram Is Facebook Now

#85

Post by esotericsean »

marcodiego wrote: post #32

I don't understand Instagram language. My GF uses it. It is full of digital influencers, people who make money because they are digital influencers. Young people with sometimes funny but generally pointless and most often ridiculous dancing moves to an equally ridiculous repetitive song. People buying expensive things, doing idiot things talking about uninteresting details of the uninteresting lives of equally uninte…

I have an Instagram account where I post about modding retro game consoles. Turns out there's a huge community of very supportive people who do the same thing. It's not all TikTok influencers, there are niches on every platform. It's just like real life, there are good and bad people, places to go, etc. I love Instagram and some of the communities I've discovered within it.

I hate that it's owned by Facebook.

Re: Instagram Is Facebook Now

#86

Post by otrahuevada »

Facebook's unique brand of algorithmic bias is probably the one thing they will end up being remembered for once they manage to sunset themselves. Even Google will recommend some odd, interesting things from time to time to find out if your bubble is in need of expanding, while FB for whatever reason just can´t and defaults to showing you the most handsomely paid for, boring spam available.

Here in Uruguay, the most useful feature I found in there and the main reason why I kept coming back to it was Events, and lately they seem to have dropped the ball on that too, only recommending the most anodine, generic things possible.

Friends with bands and tiny galleries have complained that their events just don't get that much people in anymore. The boringest, most astroturfed events just get to eat their lunch instead, and as a consequence even that is getting unusable this days.

-minor side rant- Also, Instagram has been Facebook For Teens for a while already, hence actual teens escaping to places like tiktok and wattpad. Whatever algorithmic choices FB is making, they don't seem to be working that well on them.

Re: Instagram Is Facebook Now

#87

Post by epolanski »

thrashh wrote: post #76
epolanski wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I met one of the most brilliant people in my life. Smart, passionate about art, culture, politics. Brilliant student, top of her class from elementary through college. Fluent (as in certified) C2 in English and German. Terrific career as a public servant in foreign politics already in her late 20s. She would never, ever, miss a single episode of a “reality” about dating in tv, a show famous in Italy as “trash tv”. It…

I don’t really watch those shows but I get the appeal. It’s a lot of people drama and it’s fun trying to see what’s going on in the minds of the contestants on the show. Sometimes someone does something and it doesn’t make sense, and it’s fun. It’s not for me but a lot of “dumb” shows can be appreciated with an open mindset.

But that’s besides my main point which is the fact that low quality entertainment is actively seeked by people actively wanting to forget about life. It’s the intentional zombification that worries me, especially when coupled with 24/7 availability and per-user engagement optimization. Socials, especially passive ones where you consume awfully more than you interact are just those escape hatches from stress, thoughts and boredom.

Re: Instagram Is Facebook Now

#88

Post by _jal »

kbenson wrote: post #46
andrew_eit wrote: post #35

Facebook aside you really see this across the board on almost any platform, that once the product reaches it's 1.0 stage, (where it is good, does what the users want it to do, and has realised its vision) it begins a process of gradual decay, as the focus of the product managers (now panicking to find some statistics to improve to show their bosses) shifts from "building functionality" to "increasing engagement/reten…

> We, as in the IT industry, need to come up with a culture or methodology of 'declaring a product complete' whereby all product managers are gracefully allowed to move on and a product is put into a state of stasis We live in a time when large companies will divest themselves of profitable but not growing businesses because it gets in the way of the core mission, which for large public companies is only one thing. G…

Yeah, this is the root problem. If you want to break from mandatory upgrades (this includes "cloud" stuff, where you have even less control over software), you need vendors that aren't forced to invent reasons to build them by their operational structure.

This is a "Master's tools will never dismantle the Master's house" situation.

Not unrelatedly, I strongly support Debian and think everyone else should, too. Software in the Public Interest (https://www.spi-inc.org) accepts donations for them.

Re: Instagram Is Facebook Now

#89

Post by rmrfslashbin »

Can we talk about the "personal newsletter" aspect of this post? Feels like the dawn of the blogs back in the 2000s. Everyone had one, then we got twitter, facebook, and instagram. Now we're done with those and going back? Lovely. Hope I still know how to LAMP stack.

Re: Instagram Is Facebook Now

#90

Post by kleer001 »

rgbrgb wrote: post #68
andrew_eit wrote: post #35

Facebook aside you really see this across the board on almost any platform, that once the product reaches it's 1.0 stage, (where it is good, does what the users want it to do, and has realised its vision) it begins a process of gradual decay, as the focus of the product managers (now panicking to find some statistics to improve to show their bosses) shifts from "building functionality" to "increasing engagement/reten…

Netflix seems good at not destroying their product... though inherently the vision is kind of a scaled distraction machine. I agree with the thrust of your comment and wonder how we might get there. Software companies did look more like you describe in the past, and a few like (some parts of) Apple and some game companies still do. Mostly these are companies that ship a chunk of finished software rather than a "servi…

> Netflix seems good at not destroying their product.

So far.

I see them frequently flirting with BS tangential solutions to problems that the user doesn't care about. Like, they're hosting games on the phone app now? No thanks. And I'm counting the days until the "play something" button goes away.

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