Easy to criticize, much more difficult to provide solutions
> Easy to criticize, much more difficult to provide solutions
Easy to say it's easy to criticize, much more difficult to write a substantial comment ;-)
RealAboutInstagram – a replica highlighting harmful strategies
11–20 of 34 posts
Re: RealAboutInstagram – a replica highlighting harmful strategies
#12While the site is pretty cool I don't think it will convince anyone because it argues both from the perspective of someone who isn't on IG to people who aren't on IG. Nobody who's on IG actually thinks about IG like this. As crazy as it sounds to people on HN people seem to generally like the ads on IG. Stories are about posting and seeing what your friends are up to just like Snap stories, Reels are just IG posts bu…
> This kind of content is dangerously close to "kids today and their rap music" or "it's those violent video games."
Agreed - several statements on this page seem to stem from disliking what Instagram does and favoring what it doesn’t, seemingly assuming that you should automatically agree to that world view. For instance, this site seems to argue against short reels and for long form videos. I for one find videos generally inaccessible, I seem to lack the necessary attention span, and reels or shorts are the only video format that works for me. My point being - neither is better than the other, and preferring one over the other, even as a platform, isn’t inherently bad, as this page seems to suggest.
Re: RealAboutInstagram – a replica highlighting harmful strategies
#13While the site is pretty cool I don't think it will convince anyone because it argues both from the perspective of someone who isn't on IG to people who aren't on IG. Nobody who's on IG actually thinks about IG like this. As crazy as it sounds to people on HN people seem to generally like the ads on IG. Stories are about posting and seeing what your friends are up to just like Snap stories, Reels are just IG posts bu…
> "kids today and their rap music"
I feel like teens are on other platforms? Many 30 and 40-somethings I know spend a ton of their idle time scrolling instagram, sharing reels with each other, and buying random stuff that pops up
Re: RealAboutInstagram – a replica highlighting harmful strategies
#14Earlier quoted context omitted.
You expect single open source developers to provide solutions. That’s like telling you to lay off plastic straws to save the planet.
What's the issue with single open source developers providing solutions? I would expect they'd have an easier time than married ones because of the time commitment married people should give to their family.
Some problems are not solvable in software. They are emergent human behavioral issues that are not obvious until larger scales are reached. When you reach scale you have issues with threat actors at different levels. One is the platform operator itself, scale costs money to run and exploiting human weakness is one way to pay for the operation. Others would be scammers/spammers in a system. Then you have the users in the system that can be threats to each other.
There is no easy time for anyone to provide solutions to these problems and it's possible there are not solutions at particular larger scales.
Re: RealAboutInstagram – a replica highlighting harmful strategies
#15Earlier quoted context omitted.
You expect single open source developers to provide solutions. That’s like telling you to lay off plastic straws to save the planet.
What's the issue with single open source developers providing solutions? I would expect they'd have an easier time than married ones because of the time commitment married people should give to their family.
Was Zuck married when he started Facebook? Cuz it's done fairly well for itself.
Could lightning strike twice?
As for this fellow's approach: I like it! If this could be turned into a popular meme attacking all evil corporations/phenomena, I think it could make the world a better place.
Re: RealAboutInstagram – a replica highlighting harmful strategies
#16While the site is pretty cool I don't think it will convince anyone because it argues both from the perspective of someone who isn't on IG to people who aren't on IG. Nobody who's on IG actually thinks about IG like this. As crazy as it sounds to people on HN people seem to generally like the ads on IG. Stories are about posting and seeing what your friends are up to just like Snap stories, Reels are just IG posts bu…
> "kids today and their rap music" I feel like teens are on other platforms? Many 30 and 40-somethings I know spend a ton of their idle time scrolling instagram, sharing reels with each other, and buying random stuff that pops up
Gen Z (like actually in high school still) are on Instagram still, at least in Australia; they do use discord a huge amount, and TikTok obviously. This is what I’ve observed of the younger people in my online gaming group (Valorant Premier is a lot of fun, as an aside), but then that’s also likely got some selection bias.
Re: RealAboutInstagram – a replica highlighting harmful strategies
#17Easy to criticize, much more difficult to provide solutions
Ok, here's a set of solutions:
- Don't build systems intentionally designed to be addictive or make people feel worse about themselves.
- When you are told that the things you've built make people feel worse about themselves, don't keep building them.
- When choosing where to work, don't work for places that don't follow the above.
- Stop equating 'not making as much money as possible' with an unbearable or inconceivable personal sacrifice.
- Stop looking at the incentive structures around you and pretending you don't have any personal agency.
- In general, stop fobbing off personal responsibility on the collective crowd, especially when choosing where to apply your skills and what impact you can make on the world as a relatively privileged and well-to-do tech worker.
(with the obvious, HN-required caveat that if your child is dying because they need an infusion of Meta stock every 3 months or their heart will explode or your parents inadvertently crossed the Cali cartel and the only way you can keep yourself and everyone you've ever met alive is by working for as many Zuckerbucks as you can afford, I'm not speaking to _you_ specifically. The rest of you need to stop pretending you're morally obligated to build shit that makes society worse, though.)
Re: RealAboutInstagram – a replica highlighting harmful strategies
#18I feel like this would be 100 times cooler if it was a fake “feed” scroll with posts that are made to mirror the techniques and dark patterns they abuse to keep you hooked.
Re: RealAboutInstagram – a replica highlighting harmful strategies
#19It looks like you're using a demo font, so it's missing some characters and is probably in violating of its license. Karla is a free font that's somewhat similar to the design of Meta's corporate font: https://fonts.google.com/specimen/Karla
Might this use be protected and allowed since this is a parody?
Re: RealAboutInstagram – a replica highlighting harmful strategies
#20Great work! I think I'm on the right path because I've read, or saw mentions, to most of the links in the footer, specially the book from Cal Newport. A small CSS detail: there's a horizontal scrollbar, which you can fix by removing the width property from #nav.