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Stop trying to make social networks succeed

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Re: Stop trying to make social networks succeed

#121

Post by leereeves »

0xParlay wrote: post #85
vinyl7 wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It has really made me pessimistic about tech and products in general. There's the free and great stage, then the market is captured, then enshittification, then death. I don't get excited about new products or new tech because I know the cycle. Hype then bust. New thing comes out and I'm just meh about it, because it'll bust soon enough so it's not worth getting invested in it. Or new version will come out next year…

It's hard to overlook the role of institutional capital in shaping the landscape of nearly everything. As a teen I grinded for a few months building a b2b SaaS. A competitor launched a better version for free. The founder had a Harvard MBA and used VC funds to build this marketing tool. Growing a product organically puts you at a disadvantage to companies that can ignore market fundamentals for years at a time. And i…

I've come to believe this is just the latest version of a very old (and illegal) tactic: predatory pricing.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Predatory_pricing

Re: Stop trying to make social networks succeed

#122

Post by starbugs »

lapcat wrote: post #56
vinyl7 wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It has really made me pessimistic about tech and products in general. There's the free and great stage, then the market is captured, then enshittification, then death. I don't get excited about new products or new tech because I know the cycle. Hype then bust. New thing comes out and I'm just meh about it, because it'll bust soon enough so it's not worth getting invested in it. Or new version will come out next year…

> It has really made me pessimistic about tech and products in general. There's the free and great stage, then the market is captured, then enshittification, then death. Mark Zuckerberg an hour ago: "Our approach will be the same as all our other products: make the product work well first, then see if we can get it on a clear path to 1 billion people, and only then think about monetization at that point." https://www…

"We will figure out the business model later"

Meaning: Once we have hooked enough users, we'll make them the product.

Free lip piercing...

Re: Stop trying to make social networks succeed

#124

Post by konschubert »

mattbuilds wrote: post #19

I think the VC world's obsession with growth has tainted how we (me included) view things, especially stuff like social media. There is a fixation with growing and doing it rapidly that I believe is harmful. I don't know when this switch flipped, but I've felt it gradually building up over time. Things can just be what they are, grow naturally and then die naturally. I suspect that injecting cash and attempting to ac…

Many companies fail because they take on investment and then have to grow into their valuation. The fast growth creates enormous inefficiencies inside the company, because management and tech cannot keep up. This often mans that the company eventually has to shut down.

Re: Stop trying to make social networks succeed

#125

Post by konschubert »

0xParlay wrote: post #85
vinyl7 wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It has really made me pessimistic about tech and products in general. There's the free and great stage, then the market is captured, then enshittification, then death. I don't get excited about new products or new tech because I know the cycle. Hype then bust. New thing comes out and I'm just meh about it, because it'll bust soon enough so it's not worth getting invested in it. Or new version will come out next year…

It's hard to overlook the role of institutional capital in shaping the landscape of nearly everything. As a teen I grinded for a few months building a b2b SaaS. A competitor launched a better version for free. The founder had a Harvard MBA and used VC funds to build this marketing tool. Growing a product organically puts you at a disadvantage to companies that can ignore market fundamentals for years at a time. And i…

I think the way to do it is by growing inside a niche that is sufficiently narrow that it isn't interesting for a big competitor.

Re: Stop trying to make social networks succeed

#127

Post by duderific »

magic_hamster wrote: post #54

The author mixes services such as Whatsapp and telegram which are mostly messaging apps with "social network" features, and full blown social networks that revolve more around posts, followers and content. Meta launched a new platform today and got 10M people to sign up in the first 7 hours. I am lost for words. Not sure how anyone still wants anything to do with Meta. How can you possibly want more social platforms…

I guess people want something similar to Twitter that is not Twitter, since Twitter has become a roaring dumpster fire.

I've never much understood the appeal of Twitter, because the discussions devolve and it seems like the signal to noise ratio is extremely low. Also the UI makes it hard to follow threads; I much prefer a nested layout a la HN to whatever Twitter is.

Re: Stop trying to make social networks succeed

#128

Post by Buttons840 »

krooj wrote: post #83
vinyl7 wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It has really made me pessimistic about tech and products in general. There's the free and great stage, then the market is captured, then enshittification, then death. I don't get excited about new products or new tech because I know the cycle. Hype then bust. New thing comes out and I'm just meh about it, because it'll bust soon enough so it's not worth getting invested in it. Or new version will come out next year…

The way you get around this type of crap is by diving deep, and when you think you've gotten deep enough, go further. Academia, for all it's faults, is a fantastic way around the bullshit you get with industry hype, by mere virtue of open peer scrutiny. You want to understand whether the current "AI" hype will last? Research and understand the theory and academics behind it - therein lies your truth, and if it doesn'…

Once you've identified the grift you can rest easy knowing that eventually it will collapse and the grifters will be left with nothing but society-warping amounts of money.

Re: Stop trying to make social networks succeed

#130

Post by Buttons840 »

0xParlay wrote: post #85
vinyl7 wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It has really made me pessimistic about tech and products in general. There's the free and great stage, then the market is captured, then enshittification, then death. I don't get excited about new products or new tech because I know the cycle. Hype then bust. New thing comes out and I'm just meh about it, because it'll bust soon enough so it's not worth getting invested in it. Or new version will come out next year…

It's hard to overlook the role of institutional capital in shaping the landscape of nearly everything. As a teen I grinded for a few months building a b2b SaaS. A competitor launched a better version for free. The founder had a Harvard MBA and used VC funds to build this marketing tool. Growing a product organically puts you at a disadvantage to companies that can ignore market fundamentals for years at a time. And i…

A lot of people reject political ideas (i.e., regulations) because they have an idealized love for our free markets. Meanwhile small profitable companies are going out of business to larger unprofitable companies.

It begs the question, how did the larger unprofitable company become large in the first place? It wasn't by delivering goods and services at a fair price, it was by currying favor with those already in power. The romantic view that to succeed in a free market you sell goods and services at a fair price doesn't hold.

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