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FB feed is 98% suggested pages and barely any friends' posts

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Re: FB feed is 98% suggested pages and barely any friends' posts

#31

Post by Melatonic »

bluetidepro wrote: post #12

Same. This also stems from the fact that no one I know (outside of my Boomer parents) even uses Facebook anymore, so Facebook has next to no "real" data to use like they used to. I've even started noticing this on Instagram, as well. Back in the prime of Facebook there was so much content to use from friends they could fill a feed and even "curate" it, but now I think majority of my friends post AT MOST 1 time a YEAR…

Very true. There was a segment where the news asked a bunch of kids (like actual kids - not 25 year olds people just want to shit talk about) and hilariously this one little boy just yells "FACEBOOK?!?! THATS FOR OLD PEOPLE!!!"

Re: FB feed is 98% suggested pages and barely any friends' posts

#32

Post by Eleison23 »

I first created a FB account in 2008. I amassed a huge number of so-called "friends", I posted a lot, I was active, and it was detrimental to my mental health, so I destroyed that account.

I crept back on last year or so with a blank slate. My "friends" list now consists of an eclectic mix of 100% people I will never meet in person. It's small and selective, so my actual feed is likewise small and runs out quickly. As a consequence, it's not possible for me to waste much time there. I like it that way.

I post very little and don't get too personal or dramatic. I had a good series of photos and blurbs about my home cooking projects for awhile, but it's always been sporadic output from here.

Re: FB feed is 98% suggested pages and barely any friends' posts

#33

Post by tpmx »

My feeling/understanding: Because of the culture wars and privacy concerns, many regular people who used to be quite active on FB stopped posting things altogether on Facebook. The risk outweighed the benefit. So most people were left with a handful of people in their network who would crank out generally quite uninteresting posts.

This combined with FB's agenda to monetize the service... here we are.

I now only use FB to check in to a few very local groups (population of 7k) once in a while. The signal-to-noise ratio is really bad, even there.

Re: FB feed is 98% suggested pages and barely any friends' posts

#35

Post by avgDev »

FB is complete trash and a joke.

I have issues seeing older FB comments. The UI doesn't work properly on my safari browser. Fb freezes, images fail to load. It is an extremely frustrating experience on safari on my phone.

The platform is dying and it cannot come soon enough.

Re: FB feed is 98% suggested pages and barely any friends' posts

#36

Post by BitwiseFool »

dleslie wrote: post #29
ravenstine wrote: post #7

I almost never log in to Facebook anymore, but the feed was hilariously bad the last time I checked it out. Almost entirely ads for random crap, eyecandy videos, exotic Asian street food videos, etc. Nothing even remotely related to my interests. At least Facebook seems to have figured out that I'm not a Star Wars fan. For years, their algorithm somehow decided that I liked Star Wars and that I wanted my feed to be f…

For years Facebook fed me interesting local pages and national news from (usually) reputable sources. About six months ago Facebook decided that what I really need to see is an endless stream of lingerie and female-focused sex toys; I've never clicked on these things, or lingered long over them, as far as I am aware. Coincidentally, it was around six months ago that I disabled the browser from my phone; so perhaps th…

Some product manager misunderstood the concept of 'generating buzz'. /s

Re: FB feed is 98% suggested pages and barely any friends' posts

#37

Post by darth_avocado »

Yes it’s a negative feedback loop created by the very bad product decisions they made to optimize for local maxima of getting more ads revenue. You inject more and more ads followed by more and more suggested content, thereby reducing the in network content. The in network content doesn’t get as much of traction, therefore people stop posting. This in turn forces the feed to have more and more suggestions and a few stale in network posts from days ago. This drives engagement down from people who want to see in network content and they leave. So what is left is people who do engage with suggested content, pushing the product to make decisions to push even more suggested content. All of this continues till eventually fatigue sets in and a sudden rapid drop in engagement kicks in because your global maxima of a quality product was lost long time ago and your product dies.

Re: FB feed is 98% suggested pages and barely any friends' posts

#38

Post by drc500free »

Tao3300 wrote: post #23

I suspect part of it is that Real People are posting less. Since the feed doesn't have a bottom anymore it makes up the difference with sponsored and suggested junk rather than going empty.

Yup, it's in a death spiral. As each feed gets less real content, that person disengaged and posts less. So their friends' feeds get less real content.

Re: FB feed is 98% suggested pages and barely any friends' posts

#39

Post by pfortuny »

YouWhy wrote: post #14

Knowing the beast firsthand, there's no trace of doubt in my mind that the convergence to a junk product outcome involved a monotonous increase in ad revenue and likely, engagement metrics. There's a tragic dimension that a system which connected so much of humanity to itself so well would be rendered so toxic as a product and as a community in just a few years.

Ordinary people put up with a lot of inconvenience just to stay connected (in some way). This is why fb has not collapsed yet.

I left it years ago when I realized it was just annoying me.

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