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

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

#601

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> People were on facebook for the features facebook had. People were on Facebook for the people that were on Facebook.

One of the features of Facebook was the people who were on Facebook.

Where have they "gone"?

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

#602

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm really curious to know what you think that "cat" is ? Are you thinking that digital technology is irrevocably corrupted and hereafter can only be employed toward abusive and manipulative ends? Or are you supposing that because we have allowed some companies to damage society through abuses of technology, that the situation can never be remedied. No laws can ever be brought to bear? Or are you alluding to somethin…

I've said it before and I'll say it again - social media is not the root of the problem here. I believe that there could be a great social media platform that respects its users and their privacy. But the minute you let marketing and sales into the room the game changes. They are the ones that see their users as the advert dollars, not the people building the platform. The highly paid executives whose only goal is to…

You forgot the part where after 2 years they are shown the door but with a huge payout and glowing references ostensibly because "We don't want to ruin their careers" but actually: We don't want the market to know we hired this idiot and it took us 2 years to work it out and we don't want to be sued by their high-priced lawyers.

Then they take their "success" to the next company and the cycle repeats.

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

#603

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…

> cesspit of flashy videos and clickbait posts.

... that people in your network (re-)post, right?

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

#604
FB/Meta still has phenomenal value, just the FB app is being sunset. The Whatsapp acquisition, fb friends list and all those photos you have uploaded will be worth so much in time to come.

Where FB wins is it owns the best connections. Who cares what the app shows you, FB actually knows more about who you care about. When that comes to the metaverse that will be like owning the yellowpages and always brings added value.

FB App is dead. Meta is still winning.

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

#605

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.

> Wouldn't a consequence of this be that Facebook would be losing users in droves? Do we know that they aren't? Certainly my Facebook usage has dramatically changed since 10 years ago, and I would say that's true of the majority of my network too. I still use Messenger and I still log in about once a week or so, so I imagine I still count towards Monthly Average Users, but still: there was a time in my life 10-15 yea…

[deleted]

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

#606

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Facebook just doesn't respect its users or care about their needs. Facebook cares a great deal about its users--advertisers. You and I aren't Facebook's users; we are the ore Facebook has been mining at a cost approaching zero for over a decade and selling at a huge markup to its actual customers. But now the mine is playing out. We no longer cost Facebook zero to mine and the advertisers are beginning to realize t…

> one day they will simply slink away in the middle of the night leaving several thousand mine workers unemployed and holding the bag. When that day comes, the moment Facebook and Meta are declared dead I will go out, order the most expensive bottle of champagne, and celebrate all night. Future generations of an advanced technological society will look back in horror and disbelief that a small cadre of privateers wer…

The problem is not Facebook or Meta. The problem is the disgusting business model of targeted advertising coupled with algorithmic curation of content to increase ad impressions. Facebook happens (happened?) to play that game perfectly but it's not limited to them by any means and another player will just take its place if Meta dies.

I'll keep my bottle of champagne for the day targeted advertising is regulated away, either on privacy grounds or on "Section 230" grounds (if you're curating content to increase engagement it's fair that you should be considered an editor and thus lose Section 230 protection and start being liable for any inflammatory content you promote to increase engagement).

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

#607
post #604

FB/Meta still has phenomenal value, just the FB app is being sunset. The Whatsapp acquisition, fb friends list and all those photos you have uploaded will be worth so much in time to come. Where FB wins is it owns the best connections. Who cares what the app shows you, FB actually knows more about who you care about. When that comes to the metaverse that will be like owning the yellowpages and always brings added val…

What they really sell is user's attention , and dashboards for advertisers. The user connections and photos are useful for maintaining that attention but are rather a burden without it.

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

#609
post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's been an interesting path. It went from the early days where you'd post just about anything, then people tightened up on what felt "good enough" and some of the charm was lost. I got the sense that people became more anxious about what reached that "good enough" mark. A friend who was making a living from putting up Instagram content just abruptly started turning down money and stopped posting. No one should be f…

> No one should be fretting about sharing content because they worry about how their grid looks - it's idiotic. Pre-social media, nobody shared pictures of food. I don't think we're self-censoring, I think we're returning to normal .

Food blogs were one of the first genres to develop once they evolved beyond links. There were jokes about how nobody wants to read a blog about what you ate for dinner before there were jokes about how nobody wants to read tweets about what you ate for dinner.

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

#610

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have siblings, cousins and other relatives and friends spread around the globe. We keep in touch over Signal, WhatsApp, FaceTime, Jitsi, Messages... It's a little more work. We don't speak as often as we used to see each other's posts on Facebook but when we do get in touch it's a lot more personal and meaningful. It's not rare either. I speak to some pretty much daily, others weekly to monthly, and others perhaps…

I can't even remember when I deleted my FB account, but my experience matches yours exactly: less but better. It _is_ a bit of a pain to juggle the matrix of options, but the bulk go through iMessages, Keybase Chat, Twitter, and good ol' mail.

I am way past that point. I used to use Slack personally but I like Slack about as much as FB, so I now primarily have reverted to my own personal blog, where I make posts with video etc and take comments, and post those posts on FB, Twitter and other social media. It's like I have gone back to what works. My closest family and friends have a login to that blog where we share posts that are private. All our YouTube videos are unlisted and embedded on the blog with settings to prevent "Watch on YouTube" etc. I have my own nix servers and maintain shared family audio/photo/video/media content. We extensively use Signal, Facetime and Skype. When you have a large extended group that wants to stay interconnected globally there is only so much you can do - different participants have their own preferences and if you want to stay connected with them you have to use their poison of choice. It is unrealistic to alienate users who only know one or two platforms and lack the technical expertise, time and yes money to invest in yet again something new.

Also, I never did understand the benefit you get from deleting your FB/Instagram account - Meta still owns your content. It never gets deleted. Isn't it better to maintain your account but lock it down to your own standards? (e.g. link external content, share content to focused groups of users, etc). You can use Messenger (which is all some people actually use). What do you gain by deleting the account? Just losing control.

EDIT: One thing I think is great with FB is the ability to export all your content. I do that at least annually and have a MySQL database into which I import it all (which gives me the coveted ability to search for a specific post either by date back in 2008 for instance, by text etc). Why would I want to lose all that?

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