Social media decline: Users are shifting to messaging apps and group chats • Hacker News Board

Re: Social media decline: Users are shifting to messaging apps and group chats

#101

Post by everybodyknows » Thu, Aug 31, 2023, 1:50 PM UTC

salawat wrote: post #89

Angostura wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

This is called "cashing out the goodwill of the brand". A steady decrease in quality of output while optimizing for minimum inputs in seek of alpha. A.k.a Welching. Gettin' the juice out.

IIRC the private equity operators prefer the phrase "maximizing brand value". Such a nicely positive ring about it, yes?

Re: Social media decline: Users are shifting to messaging apps and group chats

#102

Post by gnu8 » Thu, Aug 31, 2023, 2:00 PM UTC

salawat wrote: post #89

Angostura wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

This is called "cashing out the goodwill of the brand". A steady decrease in quality of output while optimizing for minimum inputs in seek of alpha. A.k.a Welching. Gettin' the juice out.

What we need is a way to objectively quantify the reduction of quality over time so that people will have a clear idea of what they’re actually buying rather than relying on a hazy and outdated idea of the brand’s reputation. People would know that the drill B&D is selling in 2023 is a 40% drill, not the 80% drill they were selling in 1993.

Reducing quality and coasting on goodwill isn’t really alpha, it’s actually just stealing. They used information asymmetry to sell the customer less drill than they thought they were getting and it shouldn’t be allowed.

Re: Social media decline: Users are shifting to messaging apps and group chats

#103

Post by sylware » Thu, Aug 31, 2023, 2:04 PM UTC

collaborative wrote: post #83

sylware wrote: post #77

Will social media use AI to post content in order to keep attracting advertisers, showing that "stuff" is happening on their platform? Advertisers who should only trust One Metric: the correlation of the actual sales with an online advertisement campaign.

That metric is never important. Brands have always lost money advertising. Spending on ads is seen as burning extra budget to stay ahead of the curve and remain relevant They are simply digging trenches for survival and domination. That is why I believe brands with profits above average should be banned from spending on ads. They polute the market and decrease competition

I disagree, this metric is the only one which matter, and this is not related to loss or not of money on advertisement from brands.

Re: Social media decline: Users are shifting to messaging apps and group chats

#104

Post by CM30 » Thu, Aug 31, 2023, 2:30 PM UTC

c4mpute wrote: post #25

quchen wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is this not the same? It sounds exactly like I understand enshittification. Literally: > First, they are good to their users; then they abuse their users to make things better for their business customers; finally, they abuse those business customers to claw back all the value for themselves. Then, they die. (Source: https://www.wired.com/story/tiktok-platforms-cory-doctorow/ ) Do you mean that the context here i…

I see the difference in that "enshittification" is what the platform owner does. "Glossification" is what the users do. Of course both are closely related. To elaborate, with an example: ebay has once been a platform to find things non-professional people would sell from their attic on the cheap, as an auction. Then professional sellers came in, first with auctions (either more expensive ones, or by using sockpuppet…

Yeah, they're two related yet distinct issues. Take Medium or Quora for example. The whole 'login to view any content at all' issue would be enshittification, since its the platform owners trying to screw over users for their own benefit. The flood of low quality, crappy articles and answers by people trying to make a quick buck would be this other phenomenon, since its the users trying to make a buck at everyone else's expense.

Re: Social media decline: Users are shifting to messaging apps and group chats

#105

Post by CM30 » Thu, Aug 31, 2023, 2:45 PM UTC

pxmpxm wrote: post #85

buro9 wrote: post #40

It 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…

Seems like the majority of mastodon content is mastodon enthusiasts posting about how good it is to post on mastodon... https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Rembrandt-Wolpert/publi...

Nah that's more like Threads now. Though that's quietened down enough that the 'this is so much nicer/better than Twitter' talk has at least calmed down a tad.

Re: Social media decline: Users are shifting to messaging apps and group chats

#106

Post by tfgg » Thu, Aug 31, 2023, 2:53 PM UTC

c4mpute wrote: post #12

I think this is an eternal cycle. Maybe related to what has been called "enshittification", but not the same: Users will flock to a platform, make it their own. The platform will grow. Then the advertisers, professionals, and hucksters will swoop in, do their thing, and slowly overshadow the old "normal" users. Then old users will leave, leaving a wasteland of ads and glossy shiny. I'd like to call it "glossification…

What was remarkable is how Facebook's Threads app jumped straight to being full of advertisers and hucksters - they didn't think that maybe the right way to bootstrap a social network would be to make it full of authentic conversations, at least to start with.

Re: Social media decline: Users are shifting to messaging apps and group chats

#107

Post by seydor » Thu, Aug 31, 2023, 3:01 PM UTC

They went full circle and now they are back to passive TV zapping , but now it's called doomscrolling on tiktok and watching mr beast

It wasn't good while it lasted, in fact in retrospect we will see it was one of the most insane, narcissistic periods of modernity. good riddance

I really hope people re-re-discover forums

Re: Social media decline: Users are shifting to messaging apps and group chats

#108

Post by seydor » Thu, Aug 31, 2023, 3:04 PM UTC

buro9 wrote: post #40

It 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…

TBH i don't get the point of mastodon. Social media is primarily "media", broadcasting, so they must be megaphones, which by necessity includes large scale commercial and entertainment activity. Mastodon's purpose of small cozy chats is better served by ... chat which is more self-selective and fit for the niches or countercultures

Re: Social media decline: Users are shifting to messaging apps and group chats

#109

Post by chromakode » Thu, Aug 31, 2023, 3:06 PM UTC

nicbou wrote: post #49

An 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…

This is often termed a "Third Place" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_place

Re: Social media decline: Users are shifting to messaging apps and group chats

#110

Post by nicbou » Thu, Aug 31, 2023, 3:09 PM UTC

rpastuszak wrote: post #47

0. 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…

Our personal websites are so similar! (https://nicolasbouliane.com) I thought "wow that font is beautiful" then realised that it was also EB Garamond. The art really brings it together. I wish I sketched as often or as well as you do.

Potato.horse is a work of art. How do you syndicate to Instagram and Twitter? I'd love to do something similar. I like your art and the way you chose to present it.

I also met a lot of people through my work, including close friends. I love when people reach out and I try to reward it whenever it happens. What you describe seems like being a participant in a small community, instead of a person on a soapbox.