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TikTok and the Fall of the Social-Media Giants

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Re: TikTok and the Fall of the Social-Media Giants

#381

Post by t_mann »

What's most bizarre is that Meta has two popular and quite distinct social media apps and it now seems to be changing both to mimic TikTok. I'm sure that some smart people have analyses showing that that's what maximises engagement for each product, but from a strategy perspective they really seem to be throwing a potential huge advantage out of the window. Why not just change one app and keep the other one distinct?

Especially the old Facebook-style 'keep up with friends and family' app would seem to have potential for sustained long-term use from a different user base than a TikTok clone.

Re: TikTok and the Fall of the Social-Media Giants

#382

Post by annadane »

EnKopVand wrote: post #370
labrador wrote: post #367

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've posited before on HN that Facebook is dying based on my observations as a long time user. A lot of people said I was wrong and it's strength is in it groups and marketplaces. I wouldn't know because I don't get a lot of satisfaction from groups and I don't use the marketplace, but people say that they serve as a small town gathering place in a lot of locations, sort like Craigslist was for awhile. I don't see ho…

Facebook groups and events is basically the only reason I use Facebook, and while it’s very anecdotal I’m not the only one in my also anecdotal network. It’s not actually the functionality that works for Facebook, it’s the fact that people have a Facebook account that they check. As more and more people quit, it becomes more and more of a bother to continue using Facebook to organise things, but when they have 3 bill…

> unless someone figures out how to do it with e-mail, which is basically the only other thing that everyone also has

Which they've also hijacked... https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4151433

Re: TikTok and the Fall of the Social-Media Giants

#383

Post by klabb3 »

labrador wrote: post #367
roody15 wrote: post #355

"This explains Facebook’s recent transition toward short videos and algorithmic recommendations of content that doesn’t come from friend groups." I agree with the authors perspective that if Facebook and Twitter try and capture the TikTok market they will only in the end up hurting themselves. In fact the reason I don't use Facebook much anymore is because of the changes they have made... When I login I may see a fun…

I've posited before on HN that Facebook is dying based on my observations as a long time user. A lot of people said I was wrong and it's strength is in it groups and marketplaces. I wouldn't know because I don't get a lot of satisfaction from groups and I don't use the marketplace, but people say that they serve as a small town gathering place in a lot of locations, sort like Craigslist was for awhile. I don't see ho…

> I don't see how introducing flashy short videos that produce a dopamine hit in the easily amused is going to grow Facebook

I can easily see this pivot lead to a short term growth, but I don't get why this metric is so blindly trusted, when it's clearly more complex. (If there is one thing I really appreciate about engineers, is that most of us understand trade-offs, and our null-hypothesis is that almost everything is a tradeoff. Growth is NO exception)

Concretely, Facebook sits on arguably the most valuable asset in ad-tech today: the most complete real life social graph that has ever existed. Secondary, they have been very successful with mindless doom-scrolling that drove up the value of their business like crazy.

Now, Tiktok has come along and likely by chance found an even more powerful doom-scroller, the dopamine 9000, and they've been spreading like crazy. Of course that takes away ad-views from FB. FB is in panic mode and going on a meth-like crunch to copy-paste-rebrand tiktoks engagement machine. This may seem sound, doom-scrolling makes a lot of money after all.

But here's the problem: there will be more tiktoks in the future, and the barrier of entry isn't insane anymore. Building a social graph, however, one that includes uncles and grandmas for the entire world? That's a LOT harder. If I were Facebook (and a cynical douche) I would weather out the storm, carefully learning from tiktok and others, slowly evolving the product while "respecting" (low bar) the current user base.

Now I have no doubt that FB and IG can pivot to become a worse tiktok and yet still call it a success, making engagement shoot up short term. But by doing so, they dilute their product even more. Lots of people, like me, have primarily left because of this ongoing pivot - others are less sensitive and stay, for now. But pivoting so aggressively is a very risky move. If 20% of the local pottery/yoga/parent group refuses to use fb, the next casual group will go somewhere else instead. At the end of the day, FB is making itself more and more replaceable.

Re: TikTok and the Fall of the Social-Media Giants

#384

Post by [deleted] »

baby wrote: post #147
someonenice wrote: post #52

Tiktok here does not force you to login for watching the videos (unless you want to like / comment / subscribe etc.. ). And also allows downloading the videos right from the app (if the creator has enabled download for the video), so I download the ones that are to be bookmarked. This is in stark contrast to what the FB and Insta like companies do. Since I don't login, I use multiple devices to access tiktok. And I n…

Surely Tiktok will change to do exactly this in the future, that's what they all do.

[deleted]

Re: TikTok and the Fall of the Social-Media Giants

#385

Post by seydor »

timeimp wrote: post #19

I've heard (anecdotally) that the attention span of all the younger users has taken a dramatic shift south. Educators and employers are noticing they cannot keep students / new employees engaged. Makes me wonder what damage is happening, long-term, with all these short bursts of dopamine that TikTok gives it users.

I have heard that (anecdotally) every 20 years or so

Re: TikTok and the Fall of the Social-Media Giants

#386

Post by seydor »

freecodyx wrote: post #346

Influencers culture has killed social media platforms, most ppl want to be influencers today to make easy money. Back in the days social media platforms were used to connect with friends and maybe strangers just for the sake of socializing. Not anymore

mobile phones set us on a trajectory from the internet back to TV. No doubt the next big social network will be an auto-advancing video feed, i.e. a TV channel that won't be called a tv channel. It's what people want, nothing was killed, just people played with the toys for a while, got bored and moved elsewhere

Re: TikTok and the Fall of the Social-Media Giants

#387

Post by ajhurliman »

gretch wrote: post #369
labrador wrote: post #367

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've posited before on HN that Facebook is dying based on my observations as a long time user. A lot of people said I was wrong and it's strength is in it groups and marketplaces. I wouldn't know because I don't get a lot of satisfaction from groups and I don't use the marketplace, but people say that they serve as a small town gathering place in a lot of locations, sort like Craigslist was for awhile. I don't see ho…

>I've posited before on HN that Facebook is dying based on my observations as a long time user. A lot of people said I was wrong and it's strength is in it groups and marketplaces. People said you were wrong, not because you were technically wrong, but because what you said was dilute to the point of being meaningless. All great things die. Look at the great companies of old: GE, Sears, IBM. They all suck now. One da…

It seems like you've hijacked the definition of the word "dying" to justify an existentialist screed. People generally use the word "dying" to indicate that something is close to death, not that it will eventually die.

Nobody would look at a healthy young man on his first day at college and say he's dying. So no, the original point does not appear to be dilute.

Re: TikTok and the Fall of the Social-Media Giants

#388

Post by askafriend »

imgabe wrote: post #212
askafriend wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why default to blaming the students/employees? The educational system and employers have a responsibility to be engaging and enriching if they want interest and passion back from their students/employees. I'm not saying there's no problem with overconsumption of cheap media. But I think we're too quick to jump to blaming individuals. We can just as much flip the question around and ask what educators and employers ar…

This just reeks of entitlement. “Entertain me and engage me! Let no moment of my life ever be touched by confusion or struggle! Spoon feed me everything I can ever want or need!” Ultimately, it’s not the school’s problem if you don’t learn, it’s yours. You’re the one who’s going to have to go through life not understanding math and whatnot. So if you care to have any agency and control over your own life you better f…

Don't worry about me. I work very hard, made it through difficult programs at top schools, made (and continue to make) significant contributions at leading companies and my compensation is probably top 0.01% in the world.

I'm familiar with hard work and struggle, having come from nothing. In fact the only thing that was handed to me was values around education and how important it is - I still believe in that deeply.

I still disagree with your framing.

Let's take this example:

> As for jobs, they’re hiring you to do work, not to be entertained. Don’t like it? Move along to something else then.

You don't see the problem here? Losing talent is not a winning strategy. If I'm a company leader, I take it as MY responsibility to create a place where people want to work and work hard towards goals they see as meaningful. If people don't see personal growth and a path to bettering their life or others' through work - what is the purpose of sacrifice and hard work? There is none. Having employees that are working purely from a place of fear and not being able to pay bills is scraping the bottom of the barrel.

In short - I will bet against your version of leadership any day. I think it's anti-leadership and I would love to have you as a competitor company.

> The people who feed you an endless stream of engaging content that keeps you mindlessly consuming are not doing it with your best interests at heart.

I don't disagree with you here. We're in complete agreement. I just think this point gets over-emphasized and my original point doesn't get talked about enough - which is why I originally commented.

> Ultimately, it’s not the school’s problem if you don’t learn, it’s yours. You’re the one who’s going to have to go through life not understanding math and whatnot.

Also want to respond to this. I agree with you here as well. However I think there is a distinction between school and education. It is the environment of school that I'm talking about in particular and the way some subjects are taught (History is a pet peeve of mine. As an adult, I LOVE history and learning about history - I do it in my free time. In school, history education is fundamentally broken IMO).

Re: TikTok and the Fall of the Social-Media Giants

#389

Post by WA »

harpersealtako wrote: post #343
mrkramer wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You get fast, powerful and easy to use communication tools for free when you use Facebook and its family of apps. Why do you think Whatsapp is so popular now and not SMS anymore?

>Why do you think Whatsapp is so popular now and not SMS anymore? Is this actually the case? I've heard Whatsapp is popular outside the states (something about differences in phone plans, in the US unlimited SMS texting is basically universal) but it's definitely still in the minority here. Anecdotally I feel like each friend group here has a different, idiosyncratic method of text communication in the US. Some peopl…

In Germany, it is absolutely the case, yes. We have unlimited SMS as well, but I think we didn’t have it back in 2011 or whenever WhatsApp launched.

Almost everybody is on WhatsApp. Groups for local stuff, extended family, parents of kids classes, whole school classes etc.

Some people are also on Instagram, but not as a first for communication.

Telegram is a thing, but more in working class circles.

Nobody uses Snapchat. Some kids might use TikTok, but hardly as a replacement for WhatsApp. It’s really that strong.

Re: TikTok and the Fall of the Social-Media Giants

#390

Post by dimitrios1 »

decafninja wrote: post #375
dimitrios1 wrote: post #354

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps from your vantage point. My vantage point is more and more people are ditching the social sites for real connections again. A few years ago when privacy issue after privacy issue came out, and the revelations on how manipulated we all are on social media by algorithms, my circle decided to ditch social media. I was always the "pioneer" in this front, having ditched it around 2015 or so. The craziest thing sta…

I too see people in my circle ditching social media, but the transition seems to have been to messenger apps. People will message directly to each other, or in group chatrooms.

Yes I have definitely seen signal use increase by my very non academic estimate of 10x. I see a "so and so contact has joined Signal!" notification every few days consistently for a while now.
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