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Ask HN: Do you think the future of social media looks like Discord/Reddit?

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Ask HN: Do you think the future of social media looks like Discord/Reddit?

#1

Post by sebpra »

Discord and Reddit are great for finding interest-based communities, and for getting away from all the noise traditional social media has. Which leads me to my question, do you think the future of social media looks like that?

Discord and Reddit are great, but they have this "gamer/nerd" brand attached to them which I think prevents the general population from joining.

What do you think?

Re: Ask HN: Do you think the future of social media looks like Discord/Reddit?

#3

Post by fullshark »

Discord yes, small communities with barriers to entry, posts broadcast only to that community not the entire planet.

Reddit, no. Reddit is 15+ years old now. It is what it is, a news aggregator site with volunteer mods to police content. I don't see how they grow either revenues or users which is why they are trying to ipo and cash out.

Re: Ask HN: Do you think the future of social media looks like Discord/Reddit?

#4

Post by midwesternerer »

I think the future is going to be fake social media websites that tailor make all the content to your preferences. Aka LLM generated content.

You know how in Minecraft (and other games) how they have infinite maps? You just keep on exploring and the game generates new lands for you to explore? That is what the future of social networks will be.

Re: Ask HN: Do you think the future of social media looks like Discord/Reddit?

#5

Post by tivert »

midwesternerer wrote: post #4

I think the future is going to be fake social media websites that tailor make all the content to your preferences. Aka LLM generated content. You know how in Minecraft (and other games) how they have infinite maps? You just keep on exploring and the game generates new lands for you to explore? That is what the future of social networks will be.

Except that's not a social network. If it was open about what it was, its nature would undermine the main reason for using a social network.

Probably the only people who'd bother to engage are some geeks who've confused themselves into thinking a social network is just about generating messages for consumption.

Also, such a fake social network might be able to replicate BS political slapfights, but I'd think it would fall on its face when touching on anything that's not repetitive or baroquely self-referential. It'd get old fast.

Re: Ask HN: Do you think the future of social media looks like Discord/Reddit?

#8

Post by skybrian »

Smaller communities are great but you still need ways for people to find each other, or they just die. For example, if you write a blog, how does anyone find it who isn’t already subscribed?

Reddit has subject-based discussions, good SEO, and subreddits are distinct enough to have a sense of place. One downside is that outsiders can just drop in and post, often without reading the rules, so you will often get a constant influx of newbie questions - the eternal September problem.

Discord has no SEO, so you’d need some other way of helping people find it. It seems better for people who don’t want to be found?

Re: Ask HN: Do you think the future of social media looks like Discord/Reddit?

#9

Post by branon »

I think the future of the Internet will contain a lot of "Join to download!" so I hope the Reddit model prevails.

Discord communities are regressive in that they're not indexed by search engines so a lot of the activity and information there may as well be nonexistent.

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