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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

#401

Post by yazzku »

JohnFen wrote: post #147
indigochill wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There's a tragic dimension that a system which connected so much of humanity to itself How would you say Facebook connected humanity differently from what MySpace was doing before Facebook ate their lunch with a more consistent UI? I also am increasingly of the opinion that humanity is not wired to connect globally. Our local social networks give us a buffer against centralized bad actors. When everyone was connect…

> I also am increasingly of the opinion that humanity is not wired to connect globally. Sociologists generally agree.

We are in agreement that we don't want to hear from one another. This is the last you will hear from me.

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

#403

Post by almostkorean »

ok123456 wrote: post #83
ineptech wrote: post #61

Crazy idea: FB should stop trying to lure people back from Tiktok with weird features and just lean in to its one remaining strength, which is that among social media sites, it's the most generic and boring and ubiquitous. Being the default place for non-influencers to do quotidian stuff like hearing about school closings, joining the PTA or HOA, coordinating family gatherings, see your nephew's school photos, etc wo…

Marketplace is the only reason a lot of people still use the site. This is since especially true for people looking for beater cars since Craigslist started charging $5 to post ads for cars. If Apple or someone else with an ax to grind with Facebook really wanted to bust Meta's kneecaps, they could off to subsidize this charge. Maybe also help them out with fraud and spam detection, since that's where most of the ove…

> Marketplace is the only reason a lot of people still use the site.

Do you have any data to back this claim?

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

#404

Post by thaumasiotes »

indigochill wrote: post #70
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.

> There's a tragic dimension that a system which connected so much of humanity to itself How would you say Facebook connected humanity differently from what MySpace was doing before Facebook ate their lunch with a more consistent UI? I also am increasingly of the opinion that humanity is not wired to connect globally. Our local social networks give us a buffer against centralized bad actors. When everyone was connect…

> When everyone was connected directly to everyone else, what we used to call "chain letters" before social media took off won the information war because they could bypass fact checkers that would refuse to pass them to their network

But chain letters didn't spread any information and therefore couldn't participate in information wars.

A chain letter is just a letter that tells you to send it out to two or more new recipients.

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

#405

Post by foobarbecue »

JohnFen wrote: post #347
foobarbecue wrote: post #322

I really miss having a way to talk to my friends online. It was possible in the early 2000s with multi-network instant messaging clients, and then in the late 2000s to a few years ago with Facebook. And then Facebook destroyed itself (as described in this thread) and now I honestly can't find a frictionless way to get in touch with people. My most common use case was posting "hey I'm going climbing / surfing / caving…

But there are a ton of replacements for the use case you describe. Telegram and the like (even WhatsApp), or just plain old email are useful for what you're describing.

They all either have friction (email) or lack critical mass in my communities (telegram, Whatsapp, signal, etc.)

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

#406

Post by propogandist »

ycta2334209 wrote: post #159
duped wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which companies were killed by ads?

Tumblr - banned 18+ content in 2018(?) in an attempt to make their site more advertiser-friendly and lost most of their userbase within a couple of months. Site was thriving before that.

it's a good thing Marissa Mayer came in to buy Tumblr as a strategic acquisition for Yahoo! for 1 Billion dollars (after Tumblr imploded).

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

#408

Post by 9935c101ab17a66 »

AOsborn wrote: post #391
fairity wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, this isn't a consequence of the status quo newsfeed algorithm. This is a consequence of Facebook making a purposeful strategic shift away from in-network content to suggested content. This strategic shift was highlighted in their last earnings call as a way to compete with TikTok, whose success is partly explained by their focus on suggested content. On the earnings call, they signaled that they were shifting mor…

Anecdotally, I don't think this reflects reality. A 'strategic shift' to present suggested content may be what Facebook wants to do (or would like to tell investors it is doing). However, the amount of real content being posted appears to have fallen off a cliff. This is obviously very subjective but holds true for both my own experience and friends/family who have commented. So there isn't just a similar level of co…

The drop in real content is astounding. It used to be the case that I’d never ever come close to the end of the content from people I actually follow when I checked Instagram, and 5-6 years ago I interacted with the app daily. (Note: I deleted my FB account 7 years ago but kept insta).

Now I’m in my early thirties and I maybe open it two or three times a week — I hit the “you’ve run out of content from your friends” message in less than five minutes (and I follow ~400 people). It’s even worse because half of that five minutes is spent scrolling past the INSANE number of ads and suggested posts (most of which are terrible ads as well).

My friends are still actively posting “stories,” but I can’t imagine that will last forever (stories are also littered with ads, it’s insane).

Facebook has been out of ideas for a while, but it wasn’t so apparent until recently since they faced relatively soft competition, and they either acquired popular social media start ups or if they couldn’t, stole from them wholesale (snapchat). They now have a real competitor in TikTok and on the last earnings call it became clear they have no plan for regaining users / organic engagement, so they’ve decided to pump the short term financials by serving everyone a shit load of ads. Facebook’s long term prospects are bleak imo.

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

#409

Post by ok123456 »

almostkorean wrote: post #403
ok123456 wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Marketplace is the only reason a lot of people still use the site. This is since especially true for people looking for beater cars since Craigslist started charging $5 to post ads for cars. If Apple or someone else with an ax to grind with Facebook really wanted to bust Meta's kneecaps, they could off to subsidize this charge. Maybe also help them out with fraud and spam detection, since that's where most of the ove…

> Marketplace is the only reason a lot of people still use the site. Do you have any data to back this claim?

Yes. I know several people who only have Facebook accounts because they need it to buy and sell things on Marketplace.

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

#410

Post by max51 »

ok123456 wrote: post #225
max51 wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>No one over 40 would be caught dead of facebook otherwise. Until their HOA or their sports club start using Facebook as their official platform for announcements and communication. I know there are other free platform that could fill the same role, but you will never find one where literally more than half the adult population already has an account and is familiar with the interface/features. Lots of groups use it…

Enough people don't have or won't use facebook in 2022. Email is still the lowest common denominator.

>Enough people don't have or won't use facebook in 2022.

It is top 3 most visited after google and youtube. Literally every other service/website you can imagine is worse in terms or popularity.

If >2.5B active monthly users is too low, I can't imagine that anything will ever be enough for you.

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