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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

#451
post #400

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> uses the Google index behind the scenes Does it give better results than Google? I find Google's results to be pretty horrible, and worry that if Kagi is using Google's index, then I wouldn't get better results with them.

It does give better results. The filters can also be quite powerful. The problem is paying a steep fee to proxy Google's index... It benefits you and Kagi in the short term, but strengthens the Google/Bing/Yandex index oligopoly [0] long term. Bad search results are the symptom - scarcity and opaqueness of viable indices is the root cause https://seirdy.one/posts/2021/03/10/search-engines-with-own-...

> but strengthens the Google/Bing/Yandex index oligopoly

The way we look at it as that it gives Google a non-ad based source of revenue, which is a good thing for the future of the web. If one day that revenue could displace all ad-based revenue, by Google selling data to providers like Kagi, we would reverse the current state of the web.

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

#452
post #368

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Never thought I’d see the day, but I actually use Yandex for image search now because they basically deliver the google image search experience of a decade ago. While Google Images has had no one with Vision in charge and been tweaked, buffed and downgraded to the point of uselessness. And you can tell no one on the team actually uses it. Google Search could honestly be dethroned if someone really wanted to. The usag…

I still weekly make the mistake to try to find something that I know to exist. Sometimes I know there are hundreds of pages on the topic. I type query after query, again and again, nothing shows up. It's like in the 90's, I tell stories about.. I forget his name and the place, when it happened but it was something like this and that. pfft! edit: I just attempted to look up what kind of taxes on has to pay if one rece…

I find it very fascinating: I'm in Switzerland, and the 4th result to [what kind of taxes on has to pay if one receives donations] links me to a good result: https://www.irs.gov/newsroom/money-received-through-crowdfun....

But when I connect to Google on VPN "from the US", I can't find it in the first 3 pages. Very strange.

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

#454

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn't seem dishonest to me; chasing those ad dollars are what led to the supremely stupid decision of banning one of their core niches.

We are talking about platforms where the ads themselves caused users to leave. This is not what happened with Tumblr and it is not a good faith view to say so.

I only see you attempting to constrain the topic that far, rather than just the ways that advertising based models in general can pervert a company's incentives by turning away their core user base. Sometimes it's just changing the UX until your userbase no longer wants to show up. Sometimes it's literally just banning a huge chunk of your userbase for some reason.

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

#455

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 s…

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…

It makes sense tho for them to go for suggested content, because the can make you like stuff. That's their thing. It's no random thing they've been hiring psyops veterans of the afghanistan war. They can push things

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

#456
post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m not so sure about that. My mom posts on Facebook and gets a few likes with pictures of Jesus with text in them, and my wife posts every day with political hot takes, literally just text posts and gets hundreds of likes on virtually every post she makes with tons of comments and engagement. My high school peers post pictures of their kids all the time. I like their pictures and they like mine. My grandparents all…

> My mom posts on Facebook and gets a few likes with pictures of Jesus with text in them, and my wife posts every day with political hot takes I'm so sorry. I hope you can get help.

No post body was provided.

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

#457
Pretty much same here, and that's why I don't log on as my much anymore. Most of my active social network is primarily on Instagram. However there is an aspect of growing out of social networks, especially when you have kids.

The more surprising thing is that Facebook still has a lot of current information on me with out me ever logging on with off_facebook_activity. And of course there were a few HN posts on it.

https://www.facebook.com/off_facebook_activity/ Open the link below to see your third party data and opt out if you want to.

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

#458

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…

That's GNU/President Stallman
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