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Stop trying to make social networks succeed

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Re: Stop trying to make social networks succeed

#171

Post by swat535 »

xeromal wrote: post #66
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…

This is a huge tangent, but I've started harboring similar feelings for video games. Go read comments for the latest game and 90% of the comments will be about item drops, skins, loot drops, whatever. It's absolutely mind boggling because all those things IMO suck the fun out of the game which it to kill something, kill someone, or explore some world.

I've basically given up on AAA titles and don't bother anymore. The only games I can tolerate now are indie and story driven games like "The Quarry"[0]. I think studios such as Ubisoft are the biggest offenders in this space, if you look at all their latest release , it is all free to play, looter shooter "live service" games. On second thought, everything related to tech is becoming junk in general: from Social Media to Games to Subscription based Note apps to Mobile apps.

[0] https://store.steampowered.com/app/1577120/The_Quarry/

Re: Stop trying to make social networks succeed

#172

Post by lapcat »

jrm4 wrote: post #168
lapcat wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I want a good replacement for Twitter because social media more-or-less succeeded where "the Rodney King story" failed. Could you please explain this? I know what the Rodney King story is, but I don't understand the relevance here.

Right -- I'm a little older than many, but to explain: When the Rodney King thing happened, black folks like myself were like "Finally, the world will see how horrible the cops can be. We will have a trial and get justice." That didn't remotely happen. It's not until social media that we got e.g. BLM and even the concept of a "Karen." IMHO, it's been absolutely instrumental.

> I'm a little older than many

This has nothing to do with age. I wouldn't recommend assuming that you're older than me.

> "Finally, the world will see how horrible the cops can be. We will have a trial and get justice."

> That didn't remotely happen.

How has that changed? The George Floyd verdict for example is an extreme rarity. Cops are almost always acquitted.

> It's not until social media that we got e.g. BLM and even the concept of a "Karen." IMHO, it's been absolutely instrumental.

How does social media affect the verdict of trials? And what does "Karen" have to do with this?

As you'll recall, the Rodney King verdict resulted in massive multi-day riots in Los Angeles, without any help from social media, which didn't exist yet. The world was paying attention.

Re: Stop trying to make social networks succeed

#173

Post by username135 »

akhosravian wrote: post #162
mym1990 wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The ironic thing is that he lists monetization last, but simply by uttering that sentiment he tells us that they are really thinking about monetization first, aka the end goal of the product.

I don't think he's ever suggested Facebook is anything but a for profit enterprise, but I think it is an extremely cynical take that "build a product a billion people would use before thinking about monetization" actually means "think about monetization first".

The literal only goal of a public company is to make money for its shareholders; shareholder wealth maximization.

I think your altruism is misplaced because they most certainly are thinking of $$$ first and foremost.

Re: Stop trying to make social networks succeed

#174

Post by smcleod »

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…

I feel like I’m talking about how harmful the insatiable desire for growth is on an almost daily now. I couldn’t agree with you more.

Re: Stop trying to make social networks succeed

#175

Post by renegade-otter »

konschubert wrote: post #124
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.

On more than one occasion I've worked in places where we were asked to be at our tidied up desks because VCs were about to be paraded through the office.

Every time there were more of us. Basically, "look at how we are burning through your money by hiring all these people. Growth!"

Now, the actual growth, daily active users and all, that is an area of rampant fraud, but VCs seem to be OK with it until the company runs out of runway. THEN it's a total scandal, even though all they need to do is pop the hood for 5 minutes to see how the numbers are arrived at.

Re: Stop trying to make social networks succeed

#176

Post by PM_me_your_math »

local_crmdgeon wrote: post #145
paxys wrote: post #140

Not everyone is looking for a small self-hosted space for their friends and family and local community. Heck why do I even need an online social network for that when I can just go out and talk to them? The vast majority of users on networks like Twitter are looking to connect with a wider world. And "success" in those terms simply means having a critical mass to make such a network sustainable and interesting (and m…

Mental illness. A big chunk of people on Twitter are not well up top. Normal people go to the bar to watch baseball or play boardgames or something. It's not normal to be a Krassenstein or a BrooklynDadDefiant or whatever - those people are nuts.

It is important to point out that people like the krassenstein brothers or brooklynDadDefiant are not real people in the same sense as any Joe off the street is with an opinion. They are front-men for SuperPACs and they get paid by orgs like ActBlue. None of their ideas are ever their own, and they closely follow the daily order of battle from the DNC. Their engagement is also less-than-organic. Krassenstein were originally banned for paying for engagement from east asia and using custom software and fake accounts to artificially inflate their reach. The point is never to influence anyone. Their game is manufactured consent.

Re: Stop trying to make social networks succeed

#177

Post by Given_47 »

flangola7 wrote: post #103
lapcat wrote: post #56

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. 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…

It is so foreign to me, to choose greed as your personal identity. These individuals will gleefully stride onto a stage with a microphone and boast about ideas and actions that 1/100th of would fill my mind with such incalculable guilt and embarrassment that I would never sleep or show my face in public again.

Love this. And it’s very disheartening how society fetishizes how much personal wealth one accrues, so much so that it’s natural for the youth to grow up idolizing that and not once step back and consider the larger effect it has on the community.

An interesting thought is how many people are inadvertently bad, simply as a byproduct of what I touched on above

Re: Stop trying to make social networks succeed

#179

Post by pxoe »

gochi wrote: post #7

I agree with most of what was said except one tiny piece, I don't think we should give up on a universal social network. We have some of the pieces, but the puzzle still isn't solved and I like seeing people challenge that. The rest is definitely true though, all social networks are doomed for the same result: disappear into the void or become riddled with ads and so many additional services that the core network mov…

internet is kind of The universal social network.

Re: Stop trying to make social networks succeed

#180

Post by pxoe »

lapcat wrote: post #27
colesantiago wrote: post #14

This is like saying stop trying to make humans communicate with each other.

No, it's not. "Try to achieve small and local successes instead of pursuing an imaginary universal one."

a bigger, widely accessible success can directly translate into people having small and local successes with it/on it. people have their smaller groups, local stuff, their own success, which may be smaller in scale, within bigger communication platforms.
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