Earlier quoted context omitted.
The fact that they succeeded in spite of a purposefully obtuse interface is a pretty clear validation for the concept.
Did they really succeed though?
They succeeded enough to scare zucc into war mode.
Instagram Is Facebook Now
291–300 of 396 posts
Re: Instagram Is Facebook Now
#292I think Facebook (meta)‘s key asset is now WhatsApp. Facebook is practically dead. It’s just a stream of awful content that isn’t from your friends. It’s hyper advertising and desperate attempts to clone other platforms as it slowly dies. It’ll continue for a long time, eventually becoming yahoo like, but young people do not care about it at all. Instagram has similarly been over monetised but in an earlier stage. It…
Ukraine is of course no major market for Facebook, but it's a good example that doesn't match what you describe at all. In Ukraine, Facebook is the place where you follow top journalists, anti-corruption people, activists, and other public figures. It's basically an extremely valuable addition to the media, where anyone can be lifted in popularity in a matter of hours if their content is truly important. Facebook has…
The rest of the world seems to use Twitter for this. Despite all its faults it seems to be better for this kind of stuff.
Facebook's algorithms limit the way posts can be found way too much.
Re: Instagram Is Facebook Now
#293Earlier quoted context omitted.
Isn't this kind of the core of Section 230 protection?
> Isn't this kind of the core of Section 230 protection? No, the opposite: § 230 exists to protect platform’s (and user’s, to the extent they have control of these things) ability to pick and choose when to promote, demote, or outright block third-party content—based on their view of what is worthy or objectionable or somewhere in between—and how to present the content they do present, without being exposed to either…
> > Isn't this kind of the core of Section 230 protection?
> No, the opposite
As an illustration of this point, when Florida recently adopted a law intended to impose the kind of neutrality requirement you ascribe to § 230 on to social media providers, the federal court order preventing enforcement of that law found that it was invalid for several reasons, but the first one cited was that the the Florida law violated the protections in § 230.
https://netchoice.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/NetChoice-v...
Re: Instagram Is Facebook Now
#294Earlier quoted context omitted.
> The irony is that all those engagement-boosting tweaks may work in the short term That's when the promos happen and the bonuses are paid out. > but ultimately kill engagement. Too late. The PM's already jumped ship to the next gig.
Yep, the real root cause of the rot is that the people making the decisions no longer have the long term trajectory of the product at heart.
I guess this is self-inflicted. Most companies pay shit so people milk them out for experience/achievements to then jump ship to the next one.
Maybe if you give zero incentive for your people to jump ship they'd be more likely to stay and actually care about the company's long-term?
Re: Instagram Is Facebook Now
#295I've posted thousands of photos to my instagram over the last decade and generally loved being a user of it (although it did give me FOMO and jealousy). A month or so ago instagram deleted my account permanently because their system falsely flagged it as "suspicious activity". My account was never compromised or spammy. It was simply because I used the web interface from a few locations as well as the mobile app. Rea…
You didn't "engage" with it the right way.
Re: Instagram Is Facebook Now
#296Posting from a throwaway account to avoid any backlash.
I know early, early Facebook employees, like from when the company was just a handful of people. A lot of these people are incredible impressive, capable, creative, risk-tolerant, etc... it's actually intimidating and I don't want to make it sound like I'm at their level at all. Also, we don't keep up anymore - and they haven't worked there in ages - but I back then, I knew them well enough to have insight into the "ethos" of Facebook.
What I don't think the people see is how much making something "cool" is literally the essence of Facebook's DNA. Maybe not in the managers, directors, the employees, etc... but at the top, with Zuck, it is 100% the case. Unfortunately, Facebook has become incredibly uncool, as Zuck has tried to impress the grownups, while being way too confident in his ability to continue replicating early Facebook's coolness.
For example, I kind of think Zuck was really jealous of Instagram, and this really poisoned their partnership. The same goes for WhatsApp. He doesn't like platforms with different ethos' to outshine his mid-2000's baby. A consequence of this, and this is purely speculative by the way, is that there is a certain willingness to destroy these platforms in the pursuit of user engagement.
Like, what doesn't exist in this ethos is thoughtfulness towards what makes each platform special. All that matters is that room full of his friends, and the shared excitement of building one of the first of a new generation of billion dollar companies. It seems that this ethos is basically of accepting others - and obviously Instagram and WhatsApp are super different in terms of their design.
So just bear this in mind. Every time you see news about Facebook/Instagram/WhatsApp, it should always be understood through this lens. That "building cool stuff" (that's vague, I know but it's really the most concise way to articulate it), I.e. Facebook's absolute core, is gone, it will never come back, and you can expect proportionate reaction from its founder, who wields an outsized influence over the company, due to their corporate structure.
Re: Instagram Is Facebook Now
#297Not only that, it keeps showing me the same posts over and over. Just because I liked something months ago, doesn't mean I want to see it every week
If they just showed you a chronological feed you'll be able to tell when you've reached the end of the new posts and stop there.
With an algorithmic feed there's essentially no end in sight, people will scroll way more in hopes of seeing new content, which gives them the opportunity to include more ads.
Re: Instagram Is Facebook Now
#298I think Facebook (meta)‘s key asset is now WhatsApp. Facebook is practically dead. It’s just a stream of awful content that isn’t from your friends. It’s hyper advertising and desperate attempts to clone other platforms as it slowly dies. It’ll continue for a long time, eventually becoming yahoo like, but young people do not care about it at all. Instagram has similarly been over monetised but in an earlier stage. It…
> It’s just a stream of awful content that isn’t from your friends.
100% this. So much "promoted" content (aka ads), or "suggested for you" viral content, or people I know promoting their businesses / blogs etc.
Barely anything real posted anymore by real people.
Re: Instagram Is Facebook Now
#299All social media-ish platforms are increasingly awful. FB, Twitter, Reddit, IG - all aggressively trying to make you create account and log in, hiding/clobbering content if you're not. Less and less content from people I explicitly followed, and more from "we think you'll like this tweet from someone that is followed by Bob" (not even liked or retweeted by people I know!).
Re: Instagram Is Facebook Now
#300Earlier quoted context omitted.
Ukraine is of course no major market for Facebook, but it's a good example that doesn't match what you describe at all. In Ukraine, Facebook is the place where you follow top journalists, anti-corruption people, activists, and other public figures. It's basically an extremely valuable addition to the media, where anyone can be lifted in popularity in a matter of hours if their content is truly important. Facebook has…
The rest of the world seems to use Twitter for this. Despite all its faults it seems to be better for this kind of stuff. Facebook's algorithms limit the way posts can be found way too much.
> The rest of the world seems to use Twitter
I truly don’t think so. The vast majority of people I know in Europe and Asia use Facebook, not Twitter. Only my USA acquaintances use Twitter all the time.