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Instagram is shifting to videos – users aren't happy

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Re: Instagram is shifting to videos – users aren't happy

#271

Post by csours »

MikusR wrote: post #145
Ensorceled wrote: post #97

All of social media is broken right now. Instagram actively hides pics from my step kids, nephew and niece to show me "reels" from people I don't follow. Last night a photo from my step daughter flickered briefly and then was lost. I couldn't find it again until this morning. I literally can't find their content anymore without scrolling and dodging videos that keep popping up. Youtube broke entirely a few months ago…

Youtube has a whole section with all the people you follow. https://www.youtube.com/feed/subscriptions all the videos are in reverse chronological order. Twitter has a button with stars where you can select to show only the tweets of people you follow in reverse chronological order. Called Latest Tweets.

The YouTube subscriptions page is my shortcut to YouTube.

Re: Instagram is shifting to videos – users aren't happy

#272

Post by LionTamer »

asdff wrote: post #255
edm0nd wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Likely waiting on stolen metaverse R&D from American companies given to them from the Chinese government. That's the entire Chinese nation-state backed hackers MO. Steal R&D from Fortune 500 companies to then give it to private Chinese businesses to further the Chinese economy. Why waste your own time/money/resources on R&D when you can just steal it. Same with IP and IP laws. - https://www.cbsnews.com/news/chinese-h…

I don't blame them tbh. On a whole species level, why are we inventing the wheel hundreds of separate times just to satisfy pedantic legalese? Any alien observing earth would think we are idiots and clearly nothing to be worried about because we do stuff like this, in the name of profits usually, instead of just sharing ideas openly with each other.

How do you think humans should incentivize R&D without allowing for those who successfully deployed R&D to protect their ability to reap the fruits of their efforts? I’m sympathetic and am very interested in the idea of the government creating public goods out of intellectual property on a national level (ie instead of rewarding copyrights/parents the government would buy out the creator and make it free for citizens to do what they’d like), but that could work because the government has sovereignty over its territory - how do you prevent international free riding on R&D?

Re: Instagram is shifting to videos – users aren't happy

#273

Post by winternett »

redblacktree wrote: post #121
just_boost_it wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't see IRC coming back as there's just slightly too much friction for the common person to get up and running. I could see websites coming back (I mean like the way people used to actually browse websites instead of social media). The problem with websites at the moment is discoverability. Google's SEO is a major roadblock to this at the moment. A way around it might be a "web of discoverability", with meaningfu…

> a "web of discoverability", with meaningful, relevant links on each website curated by the site owners themselves. Are you old enough to remember "web rings?"

I kind of do that on an individual level myself - http://www.ruffandtuffrecordings.com/SELECTIONS

Those are music picks I regularly update... It would be really cool if there was the ability to standardize the format for small web sites like this and then be able to follow others with similar interests... Pretty much reviving the old Myspace in essence, but with independent micro-sites for hosting curated links and other content from each user.

Re: Instagram is shifting to videos – users aren't happy

#274

Post by asdff »

FredPret wrote: post #267
asdff wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't blame them tbh. On a whole species level, why are we inventing the wheel hundreds of separate times just to satisfy pedantic legalese? Any alien observing earth would think we are idiots and clearly nothing to be worried about because we do stuff like this, in the name of profits usually, instead of just sharing ideas openly with each other.

Actually it's pretty smart to reward the inventive ones and punish the freeloaders, or else there'd be a rush to become a freeloader and stop the hard work of inventing - leading to species-wide collapse.

The reward of a novel invention is enough to keep it going. Look at science. All ideas are published and shared and you don't have this freeloader issue, because the rewards follow innovation even when those innovations are pubically shared. Also take a look at your own work. Chances are you are freeloading on someone else's ideas with everything you do, and there are huge chunks of process that you are only able to do because someone decided to make those ideas freely available to other people.

Re: Instagram is shifting to videos – users aren't happy

#275

Post by [deleted] »

edm0nd wrote: post #199
alexb_ wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are Chinese companies doing metaverse wise?

Likely waiting on stolen metaverse R&D from American companies given to them from the Chinese government. That's the entire Chinese nation-state backed hackers MO. Steal R&D from Fortune 500 companies to then give it to private Chinese businesses to further the Chinese economy. Why waste your own time/money/resources on R&D when you can just steal it. Same with IP and IP laws. - https://www.cbsnews.com/news/chinese-h…

[deleted]

Re: Instagram is shifting to videos – users aren't happy

#276

Post by winternett »

cratermoon wrote: post #15
winternett wrote: post #2

It's interesting that they don't care, it's a Marie Antoinette-esque attitude to their lifeblood, and ultimately what will end their dominance. The truth is they converted a free service into a pay service (the gas-lights creators and businesses into paying for visibility). The visibility, even when paid for is not very fruitful for many as well... If you run a small business like a restaurant in the US, but get 40,0…

> it's a rigged carnival game A major "Aha!" moment for me was when I had it pointed out to me that the social media companies' algorithms that get and keep users attention by showing them what they want can easily be exapted to manipulate the metrics and ad buying behavior.

Yep, the algorithms are all geared towards serving company revenue, not towards finding the best content contributors... What you see on most platforms is now override by who pays the most to boost their posts. There's a whole bunch of smoke and mirrors goin on.

Re: Instagram is shifting to videos – users aren't happy

#277

Post by not-my-account »

asdff wrote: post #255
edm0nd wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Likely waiting on stolen metaverse R&D from American companies given to them from the Chinese government. That's the entire Chinese nation-state backed hackers MO. Steal R&D from Fortune 500 companies to then give it to private Chinese businesses to further the Chinese economy. Why waste your own time/money/resources on R&D when you can just steal it. Same with IP and IP laws. - https://www.cbsnews.com/news/chinese-h…

I don't blame them tbh. On a whole species level, why are we inventing the wheel hundreds of separate times just to satisfy pedantic legalese? Any alien observing earth would think we are idiots and clearly nothing to be worried about because we do stuff like this, in the name of profits usually, instead of just sharing ideas openly with each other.

Profits matter, though! We need them to pay people to do the research and development, which people will not do for nothing - our dependence on food and shelter makes this necessary. If an American firm absorbs all the costs, but gains none of the benefit, it will not survive as long, meaning the research will also disappear alongside it.

China, on the other hand, can spend those funds elsewhere while also poaching the work of the American firm, which would put them at a great competitive advantage.

Re: Instagram is shifting to videos – users aren't happy

#278

Post by _meu9 »

Everytime I get on Facebook, the navbar seems to have a new combination.

Watch, Gaming (Streaming), Dating, Marketplace, "News" Feed, Shop, Groups, Home, etc... These could all be different applications under the same login.

Kylie Jenner is right (for once)... Nobody knows what Facebook or Instagram is for nowadays.

Reddit - Communities and memes

Snapchat - Sending snaps and watching stories of your actual friends

Tiktok - Fast paced entertainment (Short videos)

Twitter - What's happening right now?

Instagram and Facebook is trying to be all of those at the same time.

Re: Instagram is shifting to videos – users aren't happy

#279

Post by asdff »

LionTamer wrote: post #272
asdff wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't blame them tbh. On a whole species level, why are we inventing the wheel hundreds of separate times just to satisfy pedantic legalese? Any alien observing earth would think we are idiots and clearly nothing to be worried about because we do stuff like this, in the name of profits usually, instead of just sharing ideas openly with each other.

How do you think humans should incentivize R&D without allowing for those who successfully deployed R&D to protect their ability to reap the fruits of their efforts? I’m sympathetic and am very interested in the idea of the government creating public goods out of intellectual property on a national level (ie instead of rewarding copyrights/parents the government would buy out the creator and make it free for citizens…

A lot of government funded R&D e.g. from the NIH or NSF has stipulations actually that say the data and results be made publicly available so that other researchers may benefit. At the end of the day we have to decide where our values lie. Do they lie with individualized benefit? Then we allow people to have protection legally so they may individually profit off of that technology using a perverted market condition (them having the sole rights of distribution for a period of time). If we value the collective whole, then we would share these ideas with others who would benefit from them and further them still, like we do medical research. You have to decide where your moralities lie.

Re: Instagram is shifting to videos – users aren't happy

#280

Post by alexpotato »

As a casual user of both Facebook and TikTok, I would share my impression of how they share videos:

TikTok

- Their algorithm seems to very quickly hone in on things I actually want to see.

- e.g. if figured out that I like to see comedy clips, some woodworking videos etc

- I suspect that they do this by a combination of showing you some "test" videos that quickly bucket your interests and then using additional data based on other videos that have paired well together from other users

- Keep doing the above and I would imagine you get to a pretty good graph of what I'm into

Facebook

- Have been a user for YEARS

- they have almost all of my personal relationships mapped

- choose to show me videos with "Wait till you see what happens!" titles that are ~10 minutes of build up to an incredibly anticlimactic ending

- As a user and a SRE/Developer, I ask myself: "The smartest people in tech + essentially limitless computing power and this is the best you can do?"

I would guess one of two things is going on:

1. I remember seeing those video ads about 10-15 years ago that went on for about 20 minutes and there was no fast forward or skip etc. Someone pointed out: "Advertisers care a LOT about people who are willing to just sit there and watch a 20 minute video"

2. What I'll basically call the "Groupon Effect" (based on [0]) which is basically "Well X is good, X+1 is better so X*1000 must be great". Andrew Mason talks a lot about this in the linked article and how Groupon just blindly followed the "metrics" rather than thinking through "Ok, what is really the best for our users/community". It seems the tech giants have gone for "What makes the most money RIGHT NOW!" vs "How do we build a larger LTV over the next couple years"

[0] - https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2018/10/andrew-mason-on-grou...

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