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Ask HN: Has social media reached its saturation point?

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Re: Ask HN: Has social media reached its saturation point?

#31

Post by golergka »

I_DRINK_KOOLAID wrote: post #9
derbOac wrote: post #6

It's an interesting perspective. I think there's a few things going on that are slightly different maybe? Maybe not. I tend to think of it more that discrepancies between what the platforms are purported to be, and the actual use patterns and motives are, has grown to a point where it's getting scrutinized and having substantial pushback. Another way of looking at this is the limitations and drawbacks of current plat…

> even as things like TikTok are percolating up into media consciousness The problem with TikTok is that it's essentially just for actors, musicians and dancers. On Youtube people can Vlog, it's impossible to vlog on TikTok. I think among the many social media Facebook and Instagram manage to capture the most people. - Facebook/Instagram everybody can take a pic or draw some art, or a video or even engage in written…

> The problem with TikTok is that it's essentially just for actors, musicians and dancers.

> On Youtube people can Vlog, it's impossible to vlog on TikTok.

I've got 40k followers mostly just ranting into the camera about politics and without any desire to do it seriously.

Re: Ask HN: Has social media reached its saturation point?

#32

Post by rchaud »

No, because B2C software companies have no idea how to make money without advertising, or in the gaming industry, enabling micro-transactions and gambling behaviours.

Advertising only delivers profits if users are pulled into algorithmic feeds that massively expand the scope of stuff they actually choose to follow. Twitter has its "this person you follow liked this other person's post" and FB and IG just spam you with posts from groups you're not a member of.

Not enough people will walk away from SM on their own volition. So the cycle will continue.

Re: Ask HN: Has social media reached its saturation point?

#33

Post by bko »

demygale wrote: post #28
memish wrote: post #23

> Twitter is making the transition towards a "free speach" platform Twitter was originally a free speech platform. It transitioned away from that, much to the chagrin of its co-founder. "Twitter stands for freedom of expression. We stand for speaking truth to power. And we stand for empowering dialogue." https://twitter.com/jack/status/651003891153108997 The point is to restore the platform's core value and be a neut…

It takes a huge leap of logic to come to the conclusion that Musk cares about free speech for anyone other than himself. What he wants is speech without consequences for himself. His ability to speak is mostly unrestricted by any government power, and policy changes at Twitter will have no effect on what few restrictions he might encounter.

So why would he buy Twitter? No one thinks its going to be a good investment. It was kind of a prerequisite to have shareholders agree to the purchase. There's no conceivable reason for him to spend his time, effort and money in buying twitter apart from his stated purpose. He's going to lose money and time on it. And its a stretch to think his personal wealth or companies will benefit from Musk owning Twitter. So if no other plausible explanation as to why he wants to buy twitter, why not just take him at face value?

Re: Ask HN: Has social media reached its saturation point?

#34

Post by compiler-guy »

memish wrote: post #23

> Twitter is making the transition towards a "free speach" platform Twitter was originally a free speech platform. It transitioned away from that, much to the chagrin of its co-founder. "Twitter stands for freedom of expression. We stand for speaking truth to power. And we stand for empowering dialogue." https://twitter.com/jack/status/651003891153108997 The point is to restore the platform's core value and be a neut…

There is some “truth to power” on twitter, but there is also quite a bit of “lies in my favor”, “bullying to the weaker”, and “outright fraud to the gullible” also.

Not sure how Elon intends to fix any of that by making it even more of a free for all.

Re: Ask HN: Has social media reached its saturation point?

#35

Post by I_DRINK_KOOLAID »

jeffwask wrote: post #29

"Web 1 Socials" were built around for purpose communities; forums, irc, etc where like minded people gathered to discuss common interests. "Web 2 Socials" were the bundling of for purpose communities into giant super communities; reddit, facebook, twitter, etc. If this follows everything else that has gone before it on the internet. The next phase will be an unbundling where things go back to for purpose communities…

But this is not a pie getting bigger.

It's always the same pie, only the size of each serve as well as the number of serve which changes . That's at least the intuition I get it from the famous phrase "2 ways of making money: bundle or unbundle" that you mentioned.

When govt. broke up Standard Oil the pie of oil extraction didn't become bigger, it was just partitioned in a different way.

Re: Ask HN: Has social media reached its saturation point?

#36

Post by lastofthemojito »

memish wrote: post #23

> Twitter is making the transition towards a "free speach" platform Twitter was originally a free speech platform. It transitioned away from that, much to the chagrin of its co-founder. "Twitter stands for freedom of expression. We stand for speaking truth to power. And we stand for empowering dialogue." https://twitter.com/jack/status/651003891153108997 The point is to restore the platform's core value and be a neut…

I mean, if we're splitting hairs, Twitter was originally a way to communicate with friends over SMS in a new way. Following friends would get their status updates delivered to your phone via text message, so you could learn that Suzy was planning on getting drinks at Bar X tonight or that Jim was looking for folks to play disc golf this weekend, without Suzy or Jim texting you individually.

Oh, and Twitter also made a website where you could find these status updates, but that wasn't the initial focus. Eventually, the SMS delivery bit became obsolete and everyone used the Twitter website or apps, and the content became less "what am I up to" and more "what are my thoughts on current events". So yeah, then it needed content moderation in the same way that any web comments section needs content moderation but your iMessage group chat with some friends does not.

I think Elon's talk about "free speech" and "open sourcing the algorithm" will just result in users having a choice of a handful of open-sourced, but vetted and approved newsfeed algorithms. By default it'll probably be something like today - users who post hate speech or who incite violence will be hidden. Sure, there will probably be an option to show tweets from everyone, even loonies who think Jews should be killed before their space lasers activate the 5G COVID vaccines or whatever, but hardly anyone will enable that algorithm. But Elon will have technically "brought back free speech" and will declare victory.

Re: Ask HN: Has social media reached its saturation point?

#37

Post by pram »

julianlam wrote: post #4

Social media, when it came on the scene in the form of Facebook, et. al. simply went gangbusters because there wasn't anything like it before (this is arguable, but is beyond the scope of this comment). On the other hand, lower-reach social communities like forums are still humming along just fine after all these years. Their popularity grows and wanes with trends but there will (probably) always be people on forums.…

Forums can have amazing longevity. In the past 10 years I’ve seen communities on social media go completely extinct multiple times (rip Tumblr) and yet I’m still regularly using a forum I’ve posted on for 21 years.

They don’t have good growth but it’s the closest thing to an authentic “public square” in my opinion. Actual conversations, instead of people just yelling on their soapbox.

Re: Ask HN: Has social media reached its saturation point?

#38

Post by I_DRINK_KOOLAID »

bko wrote: post #33
demygale wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It takes a huge leap of logic to come to the conclusion that Musk cares about free speech for anyone other than himself. What he wants is speech without consequences for himself. His ability to speak is mostly unrestricted by any government power, and policy changes at Twitter will have no effect on what few restrictions he might encounter.

So why would he buy Twitter? No one thinks its going to be a good investment. It was kind of a prerequisite to have shareholders agree to the purchase. There's no conceivable reason for him to spend his time, effort and money in buying twitter apart from his stated purpose. He's going to lose money and time on it. And its a stretch to think his personal wealth or companies will benefit from Musk owning Twitter. So if…

Musk got to #1 in the Forbes 400 by saying things to people on twitter and becoming a techno-utopian cult figure

This is like Kim Kardashian buying E! to make sure they can never cancel "Keeping up with the Kardashians".

Musk wants to keep rolling his promises into the future in order to avoid people asking them about practical and tangible results in the present, as they have been underwhelming to say the least when compared to the financial bubble he managed to inflate.

Re: Ask HN: Has social media reached its saturation point?

#39

Post by DerekBickerton »

julianlam wrote: post #4

Social media, when it came on the scene in the form of Facebook, et. al. simply went gangbusters because there wasn't anything like it before (this is arguable, but is beyond the scope of this comment). On the other hand, lower-reach social communities like forums are still humming along just fine after all these years. Their popularity grows and wanes with trends but there will (probably) always be people on forums.…

> social communities like forums are still humming along

Is the web still full of vBulletin and phpBB forums that can sustain themselves with donations and such? I think the only ones left are the ones who asked for donations from the start. Yes, hosting is relatively cheap, but when boards get bigger they have to add capacity and that all adds up. There's only so much 'pocket money' can get you. Eventually you will need to sustain a forum with fees or donations.

Re: Ask HN: Has social media reached its saturation point?

#40

Post by can16358p »

I think the next big thing is combining reputation/content value into some asset in a decentralized/uncensorable way.

Some combination of decentralized storage, decentralized identity, and some form of (not saying in its current form) crypto-assets (whether blockchain, L"x" scaling, or something entirely different).

The idea is giving control back to where it belongs without a central authority, with a completely-uncensorable platform by design, which also "pays" the creators (and people who host those content) by design automatically instead of relying on YouTube/Instagram etc.

I'm definitely not saying we are there, but I believe it will be the next big thing as technology and ideology evolves, not only for what we currently call social media, but generalized into many other aspects of information technologies such as hosting, IoTs, any kind of resource sharing being some examples.

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