Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Stop trying to make social networks succeed

ploum.net

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 226 posts

Re: Stop trying to make social networks succeed

#41

Post by vinyl7 »

mattbuilds wrote: post #19

I think the VC world's obsession with growth has tainted how we (me included) view things, especially stuff like social media. There is a fixation with growing and doing it rapidly that I believe is harmful. I don't know when this switch flipped, but I've felt it gradually building up over time. Things can just be what they are, grow naturally and then die naturally. I suspect that injecting cash and attempting to ac…

It has really made me pessimistic about tech and products in general. There's the free and great stage, then the market is captured, then enshittification, then death.

I don't get excited about new products or new tech because I know the cycle. Hype then bust. New thing comes out and I'm just meh about it, because it'll bust soon enough so it's not worth getting invested in it. Or new version will come out next year and break what I was used to, or it'll be an implicit subscription of having to buy new thing every year. But it's not really going to fix itself because it seems like everyone else loves the dopamine rush from the hype cycle, and they don't really seem to care about how ephemeral everything is.

Re: Stop trying to make social networks succeed

#42

Post by skizm »

mattbuilds wrote: post #19

I think the VC world's obsession with growth has tainted how we (me included) view things, especially stuff like social media. There is a fixation with growing and doing it rapidly that I believe is harmful. I don't know when this switch flipped, but I've felt it gradually building up over time. Things can just be what they are, grow naturally and then die naturally. I suspect that injecting cash and attempting to ac…

> I suspect that injecting cash and attempting to achieve an unnatural growth is probably not good for both the quality of the product and the long term stability of it.

Right, but that's not the point. VCs (and most founders / anyone holding equity) just want to get our before the hockey-stick graph starts turning into an S-graph. The product itself is mostly irrelevant (to everyone except the users that is).

Re: Stop trying to make social networks succeed

#43

Post by lapcat »

dspillett wrote: post #30
lapcat wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I want a good replacement for Twitter because social media more-or-less succeeded where "the Rodney King story" failed. Could you please explain this? I know what the Rodney King story is, but I don't understand the relevance here.

I read that as “the Rodney King story” being the story in the traditional news or later documentary format. Without the social media explosion, the situation might not have got the attention it needed meaning the story fizzled out (or, more cynically, the police would have been able to control the narrative long enough for the general public not to pay attention because something else was happened elsewhere to take o…

I don't understand this comment either, because the Rodney King beating was in 1991, long before "the social media explosion".

Re: Stop trying to make social networks succeed

#44

Post by add-sub-mul-div »

gochi wrote: post #7

I agree with most of what was said except one tiny piece, I don't think we should give up on a universal social network. We have some of the pieces, but the puzzle still isn't solved and I like seeing people challenge that. The rest is definitely true though, all social networks are doomed for the same result: disappear into the void or become riddled with ads and so many additional services that the core network mov…

We blame ads and bad decisions by the ownership, but also the users are responsible for turning each social network into its own eternal September and I don't know if human nature can be solved.

Can't we enjoy the Twitter replacements being smaller communities and leave it at that, enjoy it while we can? Since it's a long understood pattern that a community will degrade as it gets larger, even without Musk type shittery.

Re: Stop trying to make social networks succeed

#45

Post by dahwolf »

lapcat wrote: post #27
colesantiago wrote: post #14

This is like saying stop trying to make humans communicate with each other.

No, it's not. "Try to achieve small and local successes instead of pursuing an imaginary universal one."

Which is silly. The reason we have giant social networks is because quantity is a quality in its own right. It increases the likelihood that your friends/family are there as well the various interest one might have.

Re: Stop trying to make social networks succeed

#46

Post by lapcat »

colesantiago wrote: post #29
lapcat wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, it's not. "Try to achieve small and local successes instead of pursuing an imaginary universal one."

We know in this world that isn't possible anymore unless you're, you know, actually their friends. Again, today's social networks want to grow in users, so it is not up to the author to say that we should stop making social networks succeed.

"We know in this world that isn't possible anymore unless you're, you know, actually their friends."

"We" don't know any such thing.

Re: Stop trying to make social networks succeed

#47

Post by ActualLupu »

My strongly held belief is still that Messenger apps and SMS are still the dominant social media apps and are the only ones worth investing in the success of. At the end of the day, no one can or wants to manage a gigantic social media presence outside of commercial applications. Most people are really only invested in social media so they can make better connections off of social media.

Re: Stop trying to make social networks succeed

#48

Post by lapcat »

dahwolf wrote: post #45
lapcat wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, it's not. "Try to achieve small and local successes instead of pursuing an imaginary universal one."

Which is silly. The reason we have giant social networks is because quantity is a quality in its own right. It increases the likelihood that your friends/family are there as well the various interest one might have.

> It increases the likelihood that your friends/family are there

This is silly. You don't need social media to keep in touch with your friends and family. Pick up the phone, or at least write an email.

Re: Stop trying to make social networks succeed

#50

Post by sneak »

mattbuilds wrote: post #19

I think the VC world's obsession with growth has tainted how we (me included) view things, especially stuff like social media. There is a fixation with growing and doing it rapidly that I believe is harmful. I don't know when this switch flipped, but I've felt it gradually building up over time. Things can just be what they are, grow naturally and then die naturally. I suspect that injecting cash and attempting to ac…

Public social media is one to many publishing.

Mass publishing is more useful and valuable the more people you can publish to at once.

It has nothing to do with VC. "Don't pick fights with people who buy ink by the barrel" long predates vulture capitalists.

Post reply on HN