111–120 of 283 posts
If Sam Kriss spent two years to write any of his blog posts into a book, he'd be Nietzsche. Still makes for a sparkling bit of thought, easily reread.
What makes you think if Nietzsche lived today, he wouldn't be a blogger?
What a bunch of drivel. Do not even know what to say. "predictions that the Internet would revolutionise the way society works have proved wildly inaccurate." To me it fucking wildly accurate. It did revolutonize a lot for me. Yes I know some people would get a heart attack if they could not show to the rest of the world what did they have for breakfast. Not my problem. I only had good from the Internet so far.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm not sure if the examples you bring make the point you're trying to make. For most practical intents and purposes, printed press is but a small shadow of its former self. Pretty much all outlets focus on the digital and many have stopped printing altogether. Radio is the same, as a fraction of the population, the numbers are hitting record lows. Most people listen to Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube, podcasts, etc, n…
And yet they persist. And continue to evolve. And TV, now streaming over the internet. The way humans communicate evolves. And so will the internet, and social media and all the rest to come. Think of it like this... Radio didn't die, it evolved, into streaming music. TV didn't die, it evolved to streaming TV> The printed medium did not die, it evolved into HTML and web pages, a fancier form of type setting. The tele…
We got the Internet that advertising built. This was not how we (well some of us early 90s and before) users assumed it would pan out. It has been my experience that private Internet communities (groups, forums, messaging chats) are where the quality discussion happens these days. Away from the advertising and the controversy seeking (and anti-tech) mainstream media reporters.
Like this site, one of the highest signal to noise ratios on the internet because no one has any incentive to game it.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Like this site, one of the highest signal to noise ratios on the internet because no one has any incentive to game it.
There are plenty of incentives to game this to distribute your whatever. It’s just that the moderation is pretty good
My take on declining online social engagement is; a lot of people like to consume online content passively e.g. just reading Facebook posts or watching a YouTube video without actually liking or commenting. Another thing is; increasing number of people came to realize that privacy does matter and they refuse to participate in online dramas that can damage their reputation or harm their mental health.
Business cycle wise:
- it starts out mellow, with lots of positive ROI and few downsides. Few know about it at first.
- as awareness grows, so does competition. While there is a ton of room to grow, this isn’t a problem. Growth doesn’t have to be at the cost of a competitors market share, there are tons of available untapped opportunities.
- eventually, it starts to become crowded. Now competition starts to become more heated and cut throat. Old tricks to stay competitive stop working, and there is an arms race to develop new ones.
- at some point, some/many players don’t feel they can compete based on fundamentals (positively), and it starts to become a race to the bottom. With some/many players starting to scam or commit fraud, be scary/manipulative, squeeze suppliers to a destructive degree, etc. Zero sum game instead of green field.
- this causes demand side restrictions and additional costs as customers start to get scared/overwhelmed, and cut back or get more demanding on quality.
- this causes a downward spiral that worsens the situation industry wide, eventually bankrupting marginal suppliers and maybe even big ones, until things stabilize or change.
On the social side, a lot of people population wide are flat out not doing it anymore. Including women. Similar to dating apps.
Which is why some advertisers, politicians, businesses keep getting even more insane and craven trying to extract even more value from the remaining people - to keep the numbers going up and right. So they don’t have to ‘look down’ and be potentially bankrupt. The loudest players in this type of environment are almost always the ones in the worst position.
This is also playing out in American Politics and Media right now.
It isn’t just engineer or blue collar types, who IMO were already predisposed to not engaging with it.
Pluses: in 20-30 years, there will be a lot of older folks who are very hard to fool or manipulate.
Minuses:
- there are going to be a lot more deeply traumatized people with a profoundly negative outlook on human nature, now and even more in the future.
- society is going to get a whole lot poorer while this plays out.
We got the Internet that advertising built. This was not how we (well some of us early 90s and before) users assumed it would pan out. It has been my experience that private Internet communities (groups, forums, messaging chats) are where the quality discussion happens these days. Away from the advertising and the controversy seeking (and anti-tech) mainstream media reporters.
Like this site, one of the highest signal to noise ratios on the internet because no one has any incentive to game it.
If you want to find a platform with true signal to noise golden ratio, you either have to find one on the rise, NOT made by a well known name, and place a timer on it, or you have to find one people think is long dead.
I am old enough to remember when people said TV was a passing fad. And the radio. And the printing press. And the telegraph. And the written word. I mean come on you lazy shlubs, memorize Beowulf like we had to back in my day. OK, I am not actually that old. My point is, that with every technology that has been invented to improve, or expand the ability of humans to communicate, there have been the detractors and nay…
Maybe this time it will be different, eh?