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Social media decline: Users are shifting to messaging apps and group chats

businessinsider.com

11–20 of 378 posts

Re: Social media decline: Users are shifting to messaging apps and group chats

#11
post #3

> no one is posting on social media anymore "Nobody comes here anymore, its too crowded".

Yeah but who's in the crowd?

It used to be my friends. Now it's a bunch of **s trying to piss me off for engagement clicks, or scam me.

I feel worst for the vulnerable - older or less cynical people, who get caught in the layers and layers of bullshit that constitute the poisoned well. There are people who live and die warped by it.

Re: Social media decline: Users are shifting to messaging apps and group chats

#12
I think this is an eternal cycle. Maybe related to what has been called "enshittification", but not the same:

Users will flock to a platform, make it their own. The platform will grow. Then the advertisers, professionals, and hucksters will swoop in, do their thing, and slowly overshadow the old "normal" users. Then old users will leave, leaving a wasteland of ads and glossy shiny.

I'd like to call it "glossification".

Re: Social media decline: Users are shifting to messaging apps and group chats

#14
post #12

I think this is an eternal cycle. Maybe related to what has been called "enshittification", but not the same: Users will flock to a platform, make it their own. The platform will grow. Then the advertisers, professionals, and hucksters will swoop in, do their thing, and slowly overshadow the old "normal" users. Then old users will leave, leaving a wasteland of ads and glossy shiny. I'd like to call it "glossification…

[deleted]

Re: Social media decline: Users are shifting to messaging apps and group chats

#15
post #12

I think this is an eternal cycle. Maybe related to what has been called "enshittification", but not the same: Users will flock to a platform, make it their own. The platform will grow. Then the advertisers, professionals, and hucksters will swoop in, do their thing, and slowly overshadow the old "normal" users. Then old users will leave, leaving a wasteland of ads and glossy shiny. I'd like to call it "glossification…

How is this not the same? It sounds exactly like I understand enshittification. Literally:

> First, they are good to their users; then they abuse their users to make things better for their business customers; finally, they abuse those business customers to claw back all the value for themselves. Then, they die.

(Source: https://www.wired.com/story/tiktok-platforms-cory-doctorow/)

Do you mean that the context here is not user/business, but personal/curated?

Re: Social media decline: Users are shifting to messaging apps and group chats

#16
post #10

I have an addiction to Twitter, but I am the first to admit that top-quality tweets are one in a million in my timeline. The big advantage is that I follow so many different kind of people at once that there is a HUGE diversity of infos. On the contrary, I follow very specific topics on Reddit. And as far as I am concerned, the quality of info is top-level, and the signal/noise ratio is VERY good. Regarding Facebook,…

I took a 2 year break from Facebook. It just got to be too much. I just rejoined, as kids' schools send messaging and announcements regularly there and other groups of local interest use it to coordinate. Outside of that, no one is posting anything but meme reshares that echo 1990s email forwards.

Re: Social media decline: Users are shifting to messaging apps and group chats

#19
There are a number of reasons. One big one is that a lot of content is now generated by professional outfits.

Why would you post something you’ve made yourself when you are competing with big budget production companies or well funded creative marketing teams?

Re: Social media decline: Users are shifting to messaging apps and group chats

#20
post #12

I think this is an eternal cycle. Maybe related to what has been called "enshittification", but not the same: Users will flock to a platform, make it their own. The platform will grow. Then the advertisers, professionals, and hucksters will swoop in, do their thing, and slowly overshadow the old "normal" users. Then old users will leave, leaving a wasteland of ads and glossy shiny. I'd like to call it "glossification…

It’s not advertisers that keeps users from posting. Plenty of people doom scroll on Facebook and instagram. ads hasn’t scared users away all that much.

It’s that the platforms have been invaded by professionals coupled with an expanded “suggested for you” posts with a little bit of platforms pushing users to grow their graphs endlessly.

This creates a combination where posting isn’t really for your friends, it’s for everyone and do you really want to share with everyone? While at the same time the platforms are pushing towards being a content delivery platform and not a content creation platform.

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