Live data from Hacker News

Facebook's TikTok-like redesign marks sunset of social networking era

axios.com

431–440 of 687 posts

Re: Facebook's TikTok-like redesign marks sunset of social networking era

#431

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well not quite. Shutting it down takes effort. First you have to let it sit and rot away until it becomes a meme. Then you can squeeze another round of promotions out of the deprecation work.

A meme is what is popular (= a unit of culture).

"Memetic Unit of Culture" would be an excellent Banksian Culture ship name.

Edit: Got to be a GCU really.

Re: Facebook's TikTok-like redesign marks sunset of social networking era

#432
post #74

It’s crazy to think the social media era may finally be ending. There’s really no viable platform anymore where you can just go passively keep up with what friends and acquaintances are doing. Everything is about feeding you content you didn’t ask for but may be targeted enough to catch your attention. And for what? To show you some ads here and there? To collect data that can be used to… sell more ads and products?…

The answer to the one platform that resisted all temptations and did this well: Twitter. The #metoo #blacklivesmatters and not to mention numerous international protests and movements sprouted there.

As both cause and effect, Twitter has missed the capitalistic financial success of similarly sized and engaged companies.

Re: Facebook's TikTok-like redesign marks sunset of social networking era

#433

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It really is weird, isn't it? To have what was essentially a solved problem 10 years ago become... what you described. On Facebook/Instagram/Twitter/LinkedIn, I still have tons of people I'd be interesting in passively keeping up with. Maybe even actively, sometimes. But all that latent sociality is increasingly just dead out of the gate, seeing as I no longer use any of those platforms regularly. My closest friends,…

Interesting take. Me and my friends also moved to group chats. Probably unconsciously to avoid the intrusion. I guess FB overextended by invading out feeds with ads and "recommendations" rather than gossip about friends.

>Me and my friends also moved to group chats. Probably unconsciously to avoid the intrusion.

I guess that's why they have ads in Messenger now.

Re: Facebook's TikTok-like redesign marks sunset of social networking era

#434

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the bottom line (to me) is that Facebook just doesn't respect its users or care about their needs. Wouldn't a consequence of this be that Facebook would be losing users in drovers? And yet the data seem to disagree. This is a type of take that feels very "inside baseball" and fueled more by the feelings of its proponents than any kind of empiricism.

That's a fair point. I think another perspective is that this is a case of businesses chasing (or being forced to chase) endless 'growth'. Facebook is likely optimising to increase engagement and revenue. But in my humble opinion the Facebook of the early 2000s was close to perfect in terms of use. Obviously leaving the product the same wasn't going to drive that revenue and make the careers of all the employees. I w…

I continue to think that the difference in taxation between capital gains and dividends was a market distorting error. "Not growing noticeably but being steadily profitable" is IMO both underrated and overtaxed.

Re: Facebook's TikTok-like redesign marks sunset of social networking era

#435
post #74

It’s crazy to think the social media era may finally be ending. There’s really no viable platform anymore where you can just go passively keep up with what friends and acquaintances are doing. Everything is about feeding you content you didn’t ask for but may be targeted enough to catch your attention. And for what? To show you some ads here and there? To collect data that can be used to… sell more ads and products?…

The answer to the one platform that resisted all temptations and did this well: Twitter. The #metoo #blacklivesmatters and not to mention numerous international protests and movements sprouted there. As both cause and effect, Twitter has missed the capitalistic financial success of similarly sized and engaged companies.

Twitter's rage algorithm is just as bad as Facebook. Twitter engagement is solid. Their problem is that their core product is harder to monetise.

Re: Facebook's TikTok-like redesign marks sunset of social networking era

#436
post #309

Nobody hates Facebook users more than Facebook, I guess. :-/ I've tried to type out several pithy comments, but the bottom line (to me) is that Facebook just doesn't respect its users or care about their needs. Can you imagine if brick-and-mortar businesses tried to do this? You go out for a Big Mac, but it's not on the menu anymore because Taco Bell had a few really good quarters, so McDonald's decided to pivot to t…

Can you imagine if brick-and-mortar businesses tried to do this? You go out for a Big Mac Your point is 100% valid, so don't consider this a disagreement. It is merely that McDonalds has changed, and it annoys me. I went to the one on El Camino near Oregon, and waited 7 minutes to have my order taken, and 14 minutes more for my food. Why? Doordash, and others. https://nypost.com/2022/02/14/doordash-to-penalize-mcdona…

Their business has gone up. If those customers were to show up in person you'd be in line behind them parking, in the drive-thru, in line with them fiddling for coins and change and ummmm-ing on what to order.

as someone who has managed the front lines recently at a fast food restaurant, companies like Doordash have been a boon for the in-house efficiency

Re: Facebook's TikTok-like redesign marks sunset of social networking era

#438
post #309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you imagine if brick-and-mortar businesses tried to do this? You go out for a Big Mac Your point is 100% valid, so don't consider this a disagreement. It is merely that McDonalds has changed, and it annoys me. I went to the one on El Camino near Oregon, and waited 7 minutes to have my order taken, and 14 minutes more for my food. Why? Doordash, and others. https://nypost.com/2022/02/14/doordash-to-penalize-mcdona…

The issues is that until the delivery business model runs into a brick wall (which IMO is inevitable), we'll see this continue. It's hard to blame them because being slow to disruption can be fatal to a business. It's just hard to tell at the beginning which disruptive ideas will end up taking over, and which ones end up as duds.

Curious why you think it is inevitable? The convenience of having the whole city available for delivery for consumers, and for restaurants to have access to a broad base of on-demand drivers and these customers, seems like an intractable modern day invention.

Re: Facebook's TikTok-like redesign marks sunset of social networking era

#439

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As far as I can tell, marketplace has displaced Craigslist. It's still low-friction and local, but a bit more trustworthy.

And this is was what people warned us about when FB became the new single destination. It became its own walled off version of the web.

I think it's nice. It provides some additional accountability that Craigslist doesn't provide.

I don't know what you mean by "walled-of version of the web". At least, I don't know what kind of warning you are talking about, with respect to Facebook Marketplace.

Re: Facebook's TikTok-like redesign marks sunset of social networking era

#440
post #322
post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even though the original product is dead, they bought WhatsApp and Instagram, which are far from dead

WhatsApp isn't dead, but it isn't really monetisable. We'll see how Telegram Premium goes - personally i have it, but i doubt many people are willing to pay for a chat app with tons of free alternatives.

I'd be very willing to pay for a good chat app.

But if Facebook turned around and would say "hey if you all start paying us we can drop the whole evil thing" then yeah they'll get my middle finger. They just have lost my trust.

Post reply on HN