My social media experience nowadays:
- Twitter post-Musk: most of the interesting people i followed moved to Mastodon and stopped posting interesting content on Twitter. Plus App and Site went slower, same old trolls and Musk now is the center of attentions. No removed, since i go there once in a while to read what the Crypto community has to speculate.
- Facebook: I refuse to use, i have absolute no interest to see content from "friends" in that form. I used FB groups a while ago but the read format was horrible. I only keep the account because its the only way to keep somekind of contact to old co-workers.
- Whatsapp: I do use, for some friends. I like it. I miss general content infomation, therefore i use more Mastodon or Instagram.
- Tiktok: The recommendation engine is brilliant. Its like an addition, but i barely use it due to Privacy reasons. Also i have no interest to post any content on Tiktok.
- Signal: I use to contact my family. Apple Messages as well.
- Reddit: I go to some subreddits to keep me informed about some hobbies, but i take the information and comments with a huge grain of salt. My experience tells me Reddit cannot be used for serious exchange of information.
- Instagram: I use it for some hobbies, I was able to find interesting content but the Experience itself Meta wants to provide to the users is bad. Ads everything, useless suggestions often show and lack of identity. What does Meta want to do with Instagram ? Does it have an identity right now ? Does it want to be Tiktok, the old photos based Instagram, Facebook replacement or what else ? Also i hate the fact its difficult to access external links and the comments system.
- Youtube: its ok, it is what it always is. The amount of Ads its annoying, maybe I need to pay premium at some point in time.
- Linkedin: Its horrible in everyway. I have an account to check some old colleagues.
- Discord: I don't like the concept, its difficult to keep track of information and its too chaotic. I use it to keep up with some friends for Gaming. Its also fun to interact with Bots.
- Pinterest: my wife loves it, but i never found a use for it.
- Mastodon: is the only Social Network i can safely say i have been having a very good experience. The Apps are great, most of the interesting users from Twitter are now on Mastodon, descentralized, Privacy friendly, no Ads, no Algorithm to sell you ads.
Bonus:
- HN: I like it, moderation works great! Lots of interesting content! :)
So yeah, social media in 2023 its not a good experience. It seems everybody wants to exploit something out of their users and fight for their time. In addition they are breaking search engines because the average user posts content on social networks instead of open websites which could be seached from Search Engines.