The sooner social media becomes unpopular the better.
The slow death of authenticity in an attention economy
101–110 of 347 posts
Re: The slow death of authenticity in an attention economy
#102Same reason why Wikipedia contributors do not want to be paid, and why cryptocurrency-based wikis failed.
Money is not always the best incentive. It is leaking in every part of our society, sometimes in a destructive way. It's great for innovation and infrastructure, but not for our social life and human rights.
Re: The slow death of authenticity in an attention economy
#103You don't have to wait long until the next story comes out about some famous person who commits suicide or hits rock bottom in some other way. The average person thinks 'why would they do that when they have so many friends?'. The reality is that even though they might have thousands (or millions) who know their name or will act really excited to see them at their next cocktail party; they have no one to turn to in t…
I'd say it even magnifies it to borderline cartoonish extremes. Twitter in particular is the loneliest place on Earth.
Re: The slow death of authenticity in an attention economy
#104>And yes, on the surface this incentivizes people to create better content. The better your content is, the more it gets seen, and the more money you make. And yet, my felt experience of this change is the exact opposite—as people seek more engagement, their content gets worse. What’s going on here? It always tickles me when terminally online people realize that human connection doesn't scale . It's valuable precisel…
I agree 100% with what you are saying, but I don't think you need a human connection to have good content. The encyclopedia Brittanica didn't establish a human connection, but it was a valuable resource. An ugly problem with an attention economy is that you are rewarded for seeming useful and interesting, but once the attention has been given, there is no incentive to actually deliver. So we get clickbait headlines a…
> An ugly problem with an attention economy is that you are rewarded for seeming useful and interesting, but once the attention has been given, there is no incentive to actually deliver
> To be fair, most web users are happy with the arrangement - they get an endless feed of free tiny doses of dopamine while they avoid the real responsibilities of life.
I'd argue it's mostly the latter. Most creators produce content to make money, catering to demand.
Ancient Aliens BS, TikTok reaction videos, blatant staged animal rescues, celebrity drama... this is what the general populace regards as interesting and useful. These are all genuinely popular and sought-after content.
It is a dopamine trap. People want to feel good knowing something special, feel a shared emotional bond, feel the world has good, or that they are almost a socialite... and they'll fight tooth and nail if that perception is challenged.
Re: The slow death of authenticity in an attention economy
#105>And yes, on the surface this incentivizes people to create better content. The better your content is, the more it gets seen, and the more money you make. And yet, my felt experience of this change is the exact opposite—as people seek more engagement, their content gets worse. What’s going on here? It always tickles me when terminally online people realize that human connection doesn't scale . It's valuable precisel…
You win the internet for today.
human connection doesn't scale
Before they tried to figure out why certain schools were always failing (curriculum, etc), they honed in on another very simple cause. Overcrowded classrooms. Soon as you go from 18 kids per room, to 28, you’re in trouble.
The internet didn’t become any more or less of anything. It just scaled the base initial value of numofHumansInvolved to 8 billion. But’s the only thing that scaled, that number.
It’s like scaling water pipes out throughout the city without scaling filtering system also. You are still basically circulating dirty water.
Re: The slow death of authenticity in an attention economy
#106Earlier quoted context omitted.
I agree 100% with what you are saying, but I don't think you need a human connection to have good content. The encyclopedia Brittanica didn't establish a human connection, but it was a valuable resource. An ugly problem with an attention economy is that you are rewarded for seeming useful and interesting, but once the attention has been given, there is no incentive to actually deliver. So we get clickbait headlines a…
Reputation is still valuable over time. Some YouTube creators I ignore irregardless of the thumbnail, while other content creators get a click automatically. The same happens with websites and everywhere else in the attention economy.
> while other content creators get a click automatically.
A number of times now Youtube has shown me a video recommendation that I ignored for days. The thumbnail with that stupid "gobsmacked" expression of the creator (:-O) with some dumb headline in big block letters ("IS GRAVITY A LIE?"). You know what I'm talking about.
Then I finally get around to looking at it closer, and it turns out it's one of my favorite channels with an awesome video! They went with the stupid title and thumbnail because "the algorithm demands it". The actual video itself is great.
These creators get an automatic click from me as well, except when I'm mislead by the thumnail and title into not even realizing it's one of them. Then it takes time for me to discover it. There's been a couple of times where the video I'm mentally spam-filtering appears on the HN front page, and it turns out to be a great video. But had I not seen it here, I would never have clicked on it.
Re: The slow death of authenticity in an attention economy
#107It was clear when IG made this cutover ~5 years back. It was a fun platform for photographers to share work and make connections with random people throughout the world I'd never know. I even met a few IG friends IRL while traveling oversees.
Slowly with the algorithmic feed and influencers, it became fairly hard to "reach" the people who had organically followed me, or to see the photos of the people I organically followed. Became less of an outlet for my hobby and more of a chore.
Was interesting seeing my "follower" numbers double or triple while my "engagement" numbers went down 90%. Eventually was just family/friends I knew pre-IG, plus random bots.
Seems like the curve of all social media platforms as they monetize & popularize.
Re: The slow death of authenticity in an attention economy
#108Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think the ugly truth of it is, just like there's a noticeable difference between shopping at costco and shopping at walmart (because of the annual fee at costco), there's just some people that are going to have an undesirable influence on your community. The temptation to try and rope in those extra users is often irresistible but to get them you have to tank your content to appeal to the lowest common denominator.…
> difference between shopping at costco and shopping at walmart Could someone please explain to me what is implied here? I've been to the USA only once, and I didn't visit neither a Costco nor a Walmart. The only difference I could point to between them, is that no "Costco people" phenomenon exists on YouTube. Sincere thanks in advance!
One of your replies got some of it but I think it misses some other factors so I'll take a swing:
Costco requires a yearly membership to shop there, which along with the shopping (if you go for the more expensive membership anyway) also gives you yearly cash back on all your purchases, which if you go there for the essentials you can, really does add up quite a bit. My wife and I get basically everything we can from there and usually end up with about $250 of essentially free money per year, and despite being Costco cash, if you go there and don't spend it all, you just get cash in return. Clearly they want you to use it there, but it is required.
Additionally there's an element of curation, though this is more subjective. Walmart will sell anything they can get their hands on, and Costco by comparison has a reputation for selling not exactly the top end bespoke stuff, but at least good stuff. I can recall maybe 2 times in the entire time I've shopped there for the last 6 years or so that I've gotten something I was disappointed in the quality of.
In addition you have the other things like the free samples everywhere, there's much less impulse buying on offer, it just feels... I don't know, you just feel like they actually give a shit? Maybe not a huge shit but a shit and finding businesses that give even a microscopic shit is pretty hard these days. And along with that, they pay their employees extremely well (in the context of retail anyway).
And also like, it's a bit classist for sure, but I do enjoy that there are no "people of Walmart" there, for the same reason I go to Target instead of Walmart for whatever I can't get at Costco. It seems at times Target's entire business model is knowing people who can will pay about 11% more for everything so they can not go to Walmart, I certainly do and will continue to.
Re: The slow death of authenticity in an attention economy
#109Earlier quoted context omitted.
Reputation is still valuable over time. Some YouTube creators I ignore irregardless of the thumbnail, while other content creators get a click automatically. The same happens with websites and everywhere else in the attention economy.
some content creators I click on _despite_ them having to do the click-bait stupid YouTube thumbnails. As an aside - word you may have been looking for is irrespective, or perhaps just plain old regardless. irregardless is not a word.
> irregardless is not a word.
Lots of dictionaries disagree. But not me! I'll join you on this hill, regardless of what those dumb dictionaries say.
The misuse of "literally" and the common use of "irregardless" are the red pills that have turned me into a crotchety old ... prescriptivist.
Re: The slow death of authenticity in an attention economy
#110>And yes, on the surface this incentivizes people to create better content. The better your content is, the more it gets seen, and the more money you make. And yet, my felt experience of this change is the exact opposite—as people seek more engagement, their content gets worse. What’s going on here? It always tickles me when terminally online people realize that human connection doesn't scale . It's valuable precisel…
There may be exceptions ( MMO guilds may be an examle ), where it is not meatspace, but authenticity may be higher.
Some of those do have RL meetings, such as BlizzCon. Or they're comprised of RL friends.