Is this the end of social networking? • Hacker News Board

Re: Is this the end of social networking?

#31

Post by beebmam » Thu, Aug 11, 2022, 9:08 PM UTC

moreira wrote: post #27

dont__panic wrote: post #17

> [TikTok]'s addiction-based advertising machine is probably close to the theoretical maximum of how many advertisements one can pour down somebody’s throat. Well put. It's interesting that we pivoted in my adult lifetime from: 1. Myspace's emphasis on sharing things on your own webpage, essentially a hosted blog 2. Facebook's evolution from "hosted blog" to "friend update aggregator" to "chat client" to "friend upda…

I think it might just be that that’s not needed anymore. The social networks of the past were useful as a way to keep in touch with people. MySpace, early Facebook, and the countless others from back then. Now everyone’s online 24/7, and accessible on multiple services all at the same time, all the time. You don’t need social networks to keep in touch with anyone anymore, their original raison d'être is gone. What’s…

> People want their bubbles. We’re all here on HN for that exact purpose.

100% disagree. I'm here to find ideas I disagree with and tell people how they're wrong. I'm not looking for an agreeable experience here. I'm also here to learn about new tech.

Re: Is this the end of social networking?

#32

Post by mulmen » Thu, Aug 11, 2022, 9:11 PM UTC

dont__panic wrote: post #17

> [TikTok]'s addiction-based advertising machine is probably close to the theoretical maximum of how many advertisements one can pour down somebody’s throat. Well put. It's interesting that we pivoted in my adult lifetime from: 1. Myspace's emphasis on sharing things on your own webpage, essentially a hosted blog 2. Facebook's evolution from "hosted blog" to "friend update aggregator" to "chat client" to "friend upda…

IMHO Social Media is a toxic mutation of the capabilities offered by the Internet and is the opposite of federated, open communication. I don't consider blogs, forums, or IRC to be "Social Media". When you add the idea of followers and audience and attention seeking (both from participants and the platform) that's when you get "Social Media".

We live in the Infinite September. Scale is not conducive to valuable or fulfilling communication. Decentralization, variety, and focus are. When I want to read about motorcycles I have a forum for that. When I want to plan a vacation with the family we use email. When I have a question about a software project I get on their IRC channel. At no point is my racist uncle (or yours!) involved. This is the potential of the Internet and it is not social media.

When I want to be depressed by all the things that other people have better than me I go to Social Media. I can't think of a single fulfilling experience I ever had on Facebook or any other social media platform. It's just not possible when you put everyone in a room. It's like studying philosophy on a bus.

Social Media is by (my) definition the valueless corruption of the Internet. In that sense I am glad it is dead, I hope it stays that way. Facebook and Tik Tok are the inevitable end-state of "Social Media". There's no "good" social media and there never was. Anyone who builds a platform for "everyone" is doomed to die the death of social media.

Re: Is this the end of social networking?

#33

Post by AlexandrB » Thu, Aug 11, 2022, 9:11 PM UTC

forgotmypw17 wrote: post #9

I think it is only the beginning of a new age of maturity and de-dinosauring of social networks. Just like the dinosaurs, today's most used social networks kept growing larger and larger until they were too big to sustain themselves. And just like the dinosaurs, they will go extinct and be replaced by smaller, more nimble and competitive social networks, with accessible maintainers, consensual relationships with thei…

Sounds great, but no one is willing to pay for it. And as long as it has to be ad funded, there will always be pressure to track, monetize, and increase engagement.

Re: Is this the end of social networking?

#34

Post by mulmen » Thu, Aug 11, 2022, 9:13 PM UTC

beebmam wrote: post #31

moreira wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it might just be that that’s not needed anymore. The social networks of the past were useful as a way to keep in touch with people. MySpace, early Facebook, and the countless others from back then. Now everyone’s online 24/7, and accessible on multiple services all at the same time, all the time. You don’t need social networks to keep in touch with anyone anymore, their original raison d'être is gone. What’s…

> People want their bubbles. We’re all here on HN for that exact purpose. 100% disagree. I'm here to find ideas I disagree with and tell people how they're wrong. I'm not looking for an agreeable experience here. I'm also here to learn about new tech.

Bubbles don't need to be harmful. HN is a bubble. There are ideas that are not allowed here. There are other ideas that are explicitly promoted. This is the value proposition of HN. You are free to go elsewhere to get other perspectives or interactions. This is as it should be.

Re: Is this the end of social networking?

#35

Post by wwweston » Thu, Aug 11, 2022, 9:15 PM UTC

moreira wrote: post #27

dont__panic wrote: post #17

> [TikTok]'s addiction-based advertising machine is probably close to the theoretical maximum of how many advertisements one can pour down somebody’s throat. Well put. It's interesting that we pivoted in my adult lifetime from: 1. Myspace's emphasis on sharing things on your own webpage, essentially a hosted blog 2. Facebook's evolution from "hosted blog" to "friend update aggregator" to "chat client" to "friend upda…

I think it might just be that that’s not needed anymore. The social networks of the past were useful as a way to keep in touch with people. MySpace, early Facebook, and the countless others from back then. Now everyone’s online 24/7, and accessible on multiple services all at the same time, all the time. You don’t need social networks to keep in touch with anyone anymore, their original raison d'être is gone. What’s…

> You don’t need social networks to keep in touch with anyone anymore, their original raison d'être is gone.

In what sense? The underlying social motivation/interest is still present. And it's not like fundamental communications capabilities have actually changed. Chat's been around since the 90s and SMS is the new email. And social network applications grew and thrived in those situations because pull-and-scan-social-feed across multiple circles has some distinct effort-reward profiles.

I could see the argument that the algorithmic and advertising imposition eventually drive out enough of the value that people opt out, but that's a statement about the business lifecycle of a social network app, not the underlying reason people might use / like them.

Re: Is this the end of social networking?

#36

Post by theshrike79 » Thu, Aug 11, 2022, 9:15 PM UTC

saidinesh5 wrote: post #3

I think the "social" part of social networks just moved to group chats. All my friends share updates of their family events, kids' stuff etc.. over Whatsapp and Telegram. Strangers gather over topics that interest them and want to talk about it seem to have moved to discord, slack etc. The whole "broadcast yourself to the world" part of social networks just moved to Tiktok, Twitter, Instagram etc.. I think.

Some people are moving back to anonymous communication with limited audiences.

Twitter is anonymous, but 100% public. There is no way to limit your audience to a smaller group.

FB is not anonymous and mostly public. Private groups do exist, but you still mostly need to have an actual name on your account.

TikTok & Snapchat are mostly for people who show their faces, not anonymous.

WhatsApp shows everyone everyone's phone numbers if they are in the same group, not anonymous. You can also be forcibly added to a group of hundreds of people you don't know without permission.

Telegram and Discord are more like old-school IRC was. Just a nickname and that's it, no personal info needed. (IRC did have the hostname, but some networks masked it)

Re: Is this the end of social networking?

#37

Post by subpixel » Thu, Aug 11, 2022, 9:16 PM UTC

moreira wrote: post #27

dont__panic wrote: post #17

> [TikTok]'s addiction-based advertising machine is probably close to the theoretical maximum of how many advertisements one can pour down somebody’s throat. Well put. It's interesting that we pivoted in my adult lifetime from: 1. Myspace's emphasis on sharing things on your own webpage, essentially a hosted blog 2. Facebook's evolution from "hosted blog" to "friend update aggregator" to "chat client" to "friend upda…

I think it might just be that that’s not needed anymore. The social networks of the past were useful as a way to keep in touch with people. MySpace, early Facebook, and the countless others from back then. Now everyone’s online 24/7, and accessible on multiple services all at the same time, all the time. You don’t need social networks to keep in touch with anyone anymore, their original raison d'être is gone. What’s…

I’d go further - it’s not just that we don’t need a way to ‘connect’ with people on a platform today (you can ping them in myriad ways).

It’s that we don’t much want to anymore.

The novelty of general-purpose social networking was twofold, in order depending on your circumstances at the time:

- a new angle to seeking a mate

- wow, a way to see what someone you don’t really know anymore is up to and say hi

The former market opportunity is now filled by specialist apps.

The latter, while it was fun for a while, and might still hold some prospect for thrills, is nothing to build a business around.

Re: Is this the end of social networking?

#38

Post by egypturnash » Thu, Aug 11, 2022, 9:16 PM UTC

hello_newman wrote: post #15

egypturnash wrote: post #12

Ending this with "tweet your comment" and "discuss this on twitter" is amusingly ironic, given that Twitter has always been a place that's actively hostile to any kind of rich, subtle discussion, and has pivoted away from "keep up with people you want to follow" to an official stance of "keep up with the news" and an actual stance of "here is an endless scroll of engaging content, mostly things to get angry about, th…

I think that’s entirely dependent on who you follow and if you’re not actively utilizing your blocked/muted accounts and/or muted keywords from your feed. The amount of value I’ve gained from threads on people I follow on how to do something or learning something is insane and the “rich, subtle discussion” in those threads on that topic is sometimes just as good if not better than the thread itself. No denying the de…

If you're willing to spend a while figuring out how to make Twitter stop showing you conversations your friends are having/stuff they're faving/popular posts/etc then it doesn't suck as much as the default, true, but you're still stuck in a conversational medium that makes it impossible to emit an entire paragraph at one go. I run a Mastodon instance whose post length limit is set to roughly 7k and it's amazing how much I could feel a part of my mind unclenching after years of Twitter as I got used to it.

Re: Is this the end of social networking?

#39

Post by csours » Thu, Aug 11, 2022, 9:17 PM UTC

switchbak wrote: post #28

csours wrote: post #14

Users of social media will learn how to deal with righteousness. Until we do, social media will suck big league. Social Media strongly encourages Hot Takes, because those get clicks. I found myself examining how I comment on reddit, and what people call "The Hivemind". You can't have nuanced discussions on social media, someone will infer what kind of asshole you exactly are, and that's the end of the discussion. Som…

So what you're saying is ...? :) I have often wondered if we can turn gamification on its head, so we can optimize for engaging discussion instead of outrage? There's a lot less money in that, so it'll get way less attention, but I wonder if it's doable? Of course you're still playing in a game theoretic landscape, so it'll be taken advantage of for sure, but it might still be better than this local minima we're in.…

I think authentic and engaging discussion requires a small audience. I'm reminded of an essay "Do things that don't scale"

Re: Is this the end of social networking?

#40

Post by mgraczyk » Thu, Aug 11, 2022, 9:18 PM UTC

TikTok is winning because it is video first. The more immersive the media, the more profitable the ads. Facebook is having trouble pivoting it's products to video. Facebook is betting big that the next more-immersive medium after video will be VR. That's basically the whole story.

Notice I didn't use the word "algorithm" or "social"? These takes are tired and naive, TikTok isn't addictive in any operationally useful sense of the word, people just like it and use it. You may as well write a blog post saying "TV is addictive and it's dying because of commercials". It's just not an accurate conceptualization if the landscape.