I wonder whether Google+ and its Circles would have seen better success if it was launched now.
If Gmail was launched today would you bother?
Social media decline: Users are shifting to messaging apps and group chats
61–70 of 378 posts
Re: Social media decline: Users are shifting to messaging apps and group chats
#62Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yeah, I used to call enshittification "Black and Deckering".
Interesting comparison, do you mean this because B&D now come up with things people don't need?
I think they were a brand known for fairly high quality equipment that had a good reputation. They capitalised on their brand by producing increasingly inferior products
Re: Social media decline: Users are shifting to messaging apps and group chats
#63It might not be for everyone, but I'm posting more on social media than ever and seeing more engagement than ever... it's on the fediverse where smaller and safer communities are leading to much higher valuable engagement. I'm also finding it a lot more common for people to have multiple profiles / personas... the social one, the work one, the furry one, whatever is how you want to present yourself and to whom, witho…
Where are you posting? I find so little quality content.
If they post it publicly then it won't be small and close-knit any more
Re: Social media decline: Users are shifting to messaging apps and group chats
#64It might not be for everyone, but I'm posting more on social media than ever and seeing more engagement than ever... it's on the fediverse where smaller and safer communities are leading to much higher valuable engagement. I'm also finding it a lot more common for people to have multiple profiles / personas... the social one, the work one, the furry one, whatever is how you want to present yourself and to whom, witho…
Yes it's striking how much smaller user base Mastodon has yet better engagement than Twitter.
Re: Social media decline: Users are shifting to messaging apps and group chats
#65Simultaneously twitter is breaking records in number of users (if Elon is to be believed)
Simply not true https://www.similarweb.com/blog/insights/social-media-news/t...
The link you provided is from April. When I click on the article, then click on the cited Twitter stats “visits to Twitter.com”, then scroll to “Total visits in last 3 months” (for Twitter of course), the report appears to indicate that traffic is up 1% MoM and currently at a high for the trailing 3 month period (which is all they provide). It is just shy of Instagram (which I was surprised to see).
Re: Social media decline: Users are shifting to messaging apps and group chats
#660. It's been 15 years and I still don't know how to use Twitter. 1. Most of my online social interactions come from people interacting with my work (writing, code, drawings) through: - my say hi calls ( https://sonnet.io/posts/hi ) - Mastodon Quality > quantity ("the Internet is big. Really big. You just won’t believe how vastly hugely mindboggingly big it is.", i.e. small niches are big enough) Not every company nee…
You don't know how to use twitter but you know how to use mastodon? Aren't they basically the same thing?
There is a bit of nuance in how these two are different and I'd say Mastodon feels more like early Twitter or early Facebook. On the consume side, that means your home feed has no algorithm.
Practically, it means you only see what you want and you only see it linearly. You never wonder "why am I seeing this and how do I make it go away?" (e.g. Elon constantly in my feed for some reason) Content can only enter your home feed via your followed tags or handles. The home feed is linear like the early days of FB.
Early FB was great; I used it as a news feed as I only "liked" sources I wanted news from. Today? The feed is algorithmically assembled and full of content that is indistinguishable from ads (because of course, both FB and X make their money from ads and algorithmically enhanced engagement). Am I seeing this because someone paid to boost the views? How do I get this feed to behave? (Hypothetical question; maybe it's possible with a lot of tuning and config -- Mastodon just does exactly what I want/expect out of the box: follow these tags + follow these people = see this content in a linear flow)
To me, this simplicity makes it much more approachable on the consume side.
On the publish side, it lets you see the activity level of tags in the past week. This makes it easier to decide "how should I tag this content?".
One other aspect that I think the HN crowd can appreciate is that you don't have to figure out the platform settings for privacy and opt out of ads, tracking, and so on. Yes, there are still some privacy settings to toggle, but Mastodon isn't an ad platform and doesn't make money from being able to track you across the web and feeding you ads.
More intuitive on both the pub and sub sides, IMO. If you liked early FB and early Twitter, you'll instantly find Mastodon more pleasant and intuitive to use.
Re: Social media decline: Users are shifting to messaging apps and group chats
#67Earlier quoted context omitted.
I feel this misses just one adjective: "nobody interesting comes here anymore, it's too crowded". A similar feeling I get from overtouristed places, initially they are interesting because of some attraction: the nightlife, the art scene, the food scene, or any combination of these (and other factors I'm too lazy to list) with some quirkiness that attracts people who are interested in the twist. Over time it becomes a…
https://meaningness.com/geeks-mops-sociopaths
Woah. I had never crossed paths with this, it's great. It describes really well an experience I had with a few subcultures... And it hurts I can see it happening in real time to a subculture I've been part of since the early 2000s.
Thanks a lot for sharing.
Re: Social media decline: Users are shifting to messaging apps and group chats
#68An online community should feel like an online pub. It should have a vibe, some regulars, inside jokes, and a decorum that is somewhat well enforced. They're cosy places where a sense of belonging encourages participation and good behaviour. HN is like that. Small subreddits are like that. Group chats are like that. But now every social media website became like that one pedestrian street with the H&M and the McDonal…
I really like this metaphor
Re: Social media decline: Users are shifting to messaging apps and group chats
#69I loved Facebook during 2010-2014. Everyone would post their silly photos or some super inside joke that only people in our classroom could relate to. It was soo refreshing. Crush liking your photo etc. Now I don't even remember my Facebook password and the last time I logged in I remember it was just some shitty hyper local meme/news page with crass content. And I dont have an instagram account. Feels good to just connect one on one with people directly on Whatsapp nowadays.
Re: Social media decline: Users are shifting to messaging apps and group chats
#700. It's been 15 years and I still don't know how to use Twitter. 1. Most of my online social interactions come from people interacting with my work (writing, code, drawings) through: - my say hi calls ( https://sonnet.io/posts/hi ) - Mastodon Quality > quantity ("the Internet is big. Really big. You just won’t believe how vastly hugely mindboggingly big it is.", i.e. small niches are big enough) Not every company nee…
I had Twitter around ten years ago to talk with content creators, like youtubers or writters. Outside that is mostly a politics and celebrities echo chamber.