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Stop trying to make social networks succeed

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Re: Stop trying to make social networks succeed

#191

Post by Myles65 »

xeromal wrote: post #66
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…

This is a huge tangent, but I've started harboring similar feelings for video games. Go read comments for the latest game and 90% of the comments will be about item drops, skins, loot drops, whatever. It's absolutely mind boggling because all those things IMO suck the fun out of the game which it to kill something, kill someone, or explore some world.

Yes, it's a disaster. A lot of industries are out to maximize profits, even if it means destroying their own product. What economic forces would drive you to ruin their product? Are these corporations looking ahead economically and concluding it's best to destroy their product and just accept the money?

Re: Stop trying to make social networks succeed

#192

Post by tarsinge »

username135 wrote: post #173
akhosravian wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think he's ever suggested Facebook is anything but a for profit enterprise, but I think it is an extremely cynical take that "build a product a billion people would use before thinking about monetization" actually means "think about monetization first".

The literal only goal of a public company is to make money for its shareholders; shareholder wealth maximization. I think your altruism is misplaced because they most certainly are thinking of $$$ first and foremost.

> The literal only goal of a public company is to make money for its shareholders; shareholder wealth maximization.

No it’s only a theory that emerged in the 70’s (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friedman_doctrine).

Re: Stop trying to make social networks succeed

#193

Post by kelnos »

wunderland wrote: post #3

Incredibly reductionist argument. Success is impossible to define therefore all social networks are failures? There are clearly properties of a social network that users would like to see: ease of use, reach, quality of content and moderation while also allowing for openness and free speech. Working toward a future where something like this exists at scale is worthwhile and a workable-enough definition of success.

That's not what the article is saying at all. The author is saying that any social network can be a success as long as it meets whatever metrics they care about.

A tiny private forum that only serves two people is successful if those two people only care about talking with each other.

Zuck will consider Threads a success if it gets to 1 billion users; that's still "only" an eighth of the world population, but that doesn't matter because the people running it get to define what success means to them.

Re: Stop trying to make social networks succeed

#194

Post by kelnos »

magic_hamster wrote: post #54

The author mixes services such as Whatsapp and telegram which are mostly messaging apps with "social network" features, and full blown social networks that revolve more around posts, followers and content. Meta launched a new platform today and got 10M people to sign up in the first 7 hours. I am lost for words. Not sure how anyone still wants anything to do with Meta. How can you possibly want more social platforms…

First, understand that not everyone is like you. Many people are vastly different, and have attitudes and things they care about that do not match your preferences.

Some people seem to be totally fine with the idea of a platform that sells data about them to third parties, and tries to track them all over the internet. Because they believe they get value out of the platform, but are unable or unwilling to pay for it with their own money.

I'm not like these people, but I understand that they exist, and more or less understand why they want what they want.

Re: Stop trying to make social networks succeed

#195

Post by somethingreen »

carlosjobim wrote: post #88
Apreche wrote: post #13

Social networks wouldn't have any users if they didn't solve a problem and/or fulfill a need that people have. What problem is it that they solve? IMO they solve exactly two problems. 1) People with no technical skills or knowledge (can't setup their own web site) want to be able to publish text, photo, and video content to the public, to a community, and/or to their direct contacts. They do not want to have to use a…

The cost per user to maintain these kinds of platforms is extremely low. That's why advertising supported models work. So that means if you charged for a platform, you wouldn't need to charge each user very much on a monthly or yearly basis. Such a platform could still be one that require no technical skills or knowledge from the users, who just want to publish their stuff. Many people (especially tech people) have a…

> The cost per user to maintain these kinds of platforms is extremely low

> Many people (especially tech people) have an almost psychotic adversity against any kind of paid online services.

I'd guess it is exactly because we know how cheap running base social network is, how little value is in all the feature and fidelity overhead and realize that ultimately we aren't invited to pay for the service, but for the whole bullshit business built on top of it.

Re: Stop trying to make social networks succeed

#196

Post by rchaud »

wavemode wrote: post #62
lapcat wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. Mark Zuckerberg an hour ago: "Our approach will be the same as all our other products: make the product work well first, then see if we can get it on a clear path to 1 billion people, and only then think about monetization at that point." https://www…

lol it's so explicit at this point he's the world's leading expert on the enshittification cycle

It will always be a fascinating piece of historical trivia that Zuckerberg was represented as an iconoclastic hacker in The Social Network, when he had already turned into a turgid adtech executive by the time the movie came out.

Re: Stop trying to make social networks succeed

#197

Post by chmod600 »

Buttons840 wrote: post #130
0xParlay wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's hard to overlook the role of institutional capital in shaping the landscape of nearly everything. As a teen I grinded for a few months building a b2b SaaS. A competitor launched a better version for free. The founder had a Harvard MBA and used VC funds to build this marketing tool. Growing a product organically puts you at a disadvantage to companies that can ignore market fundamentals for years at a time. And i…

A lot of people reject political ideas (i.e., regulations) because they have an idealized love for our free markets. Meanwhile small profitable companies are going out of business to larger unprofitable companies. It begs the question, how did the larger unprofitable company become large in the first place? It wasn't by delivering goods and services at a fair price, it was by currying favor with those already in powe…

“A lot of people reject political ideas (i.e., regulations) because they have an idealized love for our free markets.”

No, it’s that regulation is often used as a political tool to wield power over the players in the market.

Free markets are far from ideal. But they do make it a bit more difficult to game the system because there are fewer ways for a third party to interject itself. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying it doesn’t happen or even that it’s rare. Just more rare than if you turn politicians loose on the system.

I’m always amazed that people implicitly trust politicians, as though they’re unbiased referees trying to keep the game fair. Nope. The reasonable regulation you pass today will turn into some bizarre fiefdom in 10 years.

Re: Stop trying to make social networks succeed

#198

Post by rcarr »

kelnos wrote: post #189
rcarr wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> first the infrastructure to run a billion (real) people is going to cost you an epic fuckton I highly doubt that the actual essential infrastructure required to run it is going to cost more than 8 billion dollars/year. Twitter costs about $5 billion a year. Let's charge $2/year to be on the safe side. We've now raking in $16 billion a year, enough to cover the costs, offer some dividend, and put some money aside fo…

>> the infrastructure to run a billion (real) people is going to cost you an epic fuckton > Let's charge $2/year to be on the safe side. We've now raking in $16 billion a year With 1 billion users, $2/year gives you $2B/year, not $16B/year. > offer some dividend Honestly, I think we explicitly don't want this. We should go for a non-profit model, where the company is required to put most/all of its revenue toward run…

> With 1 billion users, $2/year gives you $2B/year, not $16B/year.

I was doing the max theoretical if we had all 8 billion humans signed up. The better approach would be to do something pegged to the minimum wage in the country but it's pointless trying to create completely theoretical finances for an imaginary company in a forum thread. The general idea I'm trying to get across is we could charge a vastly lower price for these things if there weren't such greedy and power hungry motivations underlying their financial and corporate structures.

> This is not at all the model we should strive for when it comes to a social-network-as-utility.

I agree it does seem like something that it would probably be better served via a non-profit but it's probably a tough sell. Maybe something like a cooperative might be a nice compromise.

Re: Stop trying to make social networks succeed

#199

Post by rcarr »

kelnos wrote: post #187
rcarr wrote: post #74

I really want someone to make BoringBook - it's free until a billion people have signed up and then after that it costs $1 a year. It gives you a page you can post to and customise like myspace, an encrypted messaging client, local group pages and business pages. There are no ads, other than whatever businesses post on their pages. There are three feeds: your immediate network (which is the default), your local netwo…

How do you pay for infrastructure and employees before getting to that 1-billion-user mark? If you take on VC funding, they're going to expect you to shoot for the moon; $1/user/year is not going to cut it for them. So where else will you get the money? Do you really think you can get a loan for that? Sell bonds? I doubt it.

You find people who see the long term benefit. Maybe they don't exist. Maybe they do.

Wikipedia is a giant global website that runs entirely on donations. I'd wager there are alternatives out there to the MBA/VC orthodoxy.

Re: Stop trying to make social networks succeed

#200

Post by dspillett »

lapcat wrote: post #43
dspillett wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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".

To be honest, I was completely mixing up the timeline of police attrocities against minorities and other communities/individuals. I'm not sure if that says more about the number of those matters making the is a lot to remember, or about my own privilege of being so far removed from most of it that I don't need to keep track in any detail.
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