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Large shares of consumers use social media out of a fear of missing out

bfi.uchicago.edu

121–130 of 169 posts

Re: Large shares of consumers use social media out of a fear of missing out

#122
post #50

One of the contributing factors here is that we keep calling these "social networks," but that's not really what they're being used for. If you look at an average user's feed, it probably breaks down into 30% traditional advertising, 20% nontraditional advertising (via influencers and friends shilling for their employers and promoting their side hustles), 30% content by people they have no social relationship with (c…

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Re: Large shares of consumers use social media out of a fear of missing out

#123
post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have literally asked people "would you pay $5 for this?" they say yes, then I tell them to buy it and they say no. When this kept happening I realised the only thing that matters in sales is... actually making sales. Everything else is window dressing.

Stated preference vs revealed preference.

Free lunch at start up - workers: “We want healthier options!!”

A dozen catering trays of salad get tossed into compost.

All the fried chicken is gone in less than 5 minutes.

Re: Large shares of consumers use social media out of a fear of missing out

#124
Sometimes, I wear a T-shirt that shows someone snorting a line of apps with a razor blade and a mirror nearby. Addicts are addicts. Perhaps, it's a socially-acceptable form of addiction with personal, interpersonal, etc. tolls nonetheless.

Re: Large shares of consumers use social media out of a fear of missing out

#125
post #91
post #50

One of the contributing factors here is that we keep calling these "social networks," but that's not really what they're being used for. If you look at an average user's feed, it probably breaks down into 30% traditional advertising, 20% nontraditional advertising (via influencers and friends shilling for their employers and promoting their side hustles), 30% content by people they have no social relationship with (c…

It is quite bizarre we call them social networks. Actually I wonder if there’s a market for an actual social network that is restricted to only being social. Maybe you can only have 100 connections and you can’t post links or rants. Just life updates and photos.

That's fediverse. It's all run by people who can't be arsed running an ad network, and because it's federated the users can just go elsewhere if you did try something like that.

Re: Large shares of consumers use social media out of a fear of missing out

#126

I watch TikTok and read reddit religiously because I'm in my 50s, and I need to make sure I can understand what is relevant to the younger people I work with. Also understanding memes, etc. so that I don't get too old with my thinking.

As a 20-something guy I can’t imagine this strategy working

Re: Large shares of consumers use social media out of a fear of missing out

#127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Playing deliberately obnoxious music to a captive audience? Yeah that's a CIA torture technique. Unironically.

They're doing it (I presume) in the middle of the day, and for a couple of hours maybe. They're not keeping the victims up for 48 hours straight playing the music. I think it's a fine idea for a fundraiser.

Cool. I’ll set up at your work desk to kick off another one.

Re: Large shares of consumers use social media out of a fear of missing out

#128
post #5

Reminds me of a high school fundraiser where students paid for 5 minute pauses to a day of nonstop beiber music

Facebook, Twitter, etc. describe the tactics they devise to manipulate computer users as "products". "Products" that sell for zero dollars. In the real world,, one might imagine a product strategy something like

   1. Create a product that solves a problem
   2. Sell the product to those affected by the problem
Under the so-called "tech" company version of reality, the process is more like

   1. Create a "product" that creates a problem
   2. Create a "product" that purports to solve that problem
   3. Conduct surveillance and sell advertising services to someone else
To me, social media companies rarely discuss their "products" (advertising services). They discuss their free bait, calling this "products". The service being sold is not even being sold to the person using the "product" (taking the bait).

Re: Large shares of consumers use social media out of a fear of missing out

#129

I mean, yeah, that's an incredibly small amount of money to get everyone else to do something. I'd pay $1000 to have everyone lose their cars. Heck, if you could guarantee it would happen, I will pay $100k today so that everyone in the USA can no longer drive their cars. That means the opposite. The disutility is really low and the network utility is positive. If I charged you $29 to have all your peers lose Tik Tok,…

> I will pay $100k today so that everyone in the USA can no longer drive their cars.

It's nice to know that you'd happily pay a sum of money you're capable of paying to ensure ambulances can't get their patients to a hospital, people can't drive their wives in labor to have the baby delivered, trucks can't transport medicine between cities, farmers have no efficient way to get their food distributed once harvested.

Re: Large shares of consumers use social media out of a fear of missing out

#130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Actually I wonder if there’s a market for an actual social network that is restricted to only being social. There's a huge market for them. They're called private group chats, and they're popular everywhere. The problem is that you can't make much money off of that, precisely because they're socially valuable (i.e., they're strictly socially-driven, so there's no opportunity for in-line advertising, or recommending…

Group chats are such a poor substitute though. On 00’s Facebook you could post once for all of your friends to see, and they didn’t have to all know each other.

I find group chats to be a pretty excellent solution, though I am less gregarious than average. Occasionally I post something in multiple groups or create a new "temporary" group in order to share it with people from different circles; this creates some detritus but not often to the point of being much of a downside.

The problem I most often experience with group chats is that not everyone's on the same platform (excepting SMS) but old fashioned social media has that issue too. They also don't scale super well to large clubs or organizations, where I think having topic-oriented posts or threads as the default becomes valuable.

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