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The Social Dilemma

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Re: The Social Dilemma

#191

Post by bagacrap »

01100011 wrote: post #176
mensetmanusman wrote: post #174

Is it supposed to be ironic that this show is, in effect, an advertisement for Netflix? By not mentioning that Netflix’s goal is to get consumers to watch nonsense all day, it appears so... Netflix would love people to log off of Facebook and log on Netflix :)

Does Netflix make more money when I spend more time on their platform? I'm sure there will be a day when they do, but right now I think they make a flat subscription fee from me. Maybe they can sell more of my viewing habits the longer I watch? Maybe they have content which they're paid to serve? I don't know. I think that, right now, Netflix really isn't in the same category as the big social media companies.

I'm positive there's a strong correlation between hours spent on the app and likelihood of renewing next month.

Re: The Social Dilemma

#192

Post by closeparen »

hervature wrote: post #170
dominotw wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

social contact is a need. I don't think i can actually survive without watsapp.

I'll be the first to tell you that humans are social beings that need social contact. I'll also be the first to tell you that social media is not necessary for that. I assume you're being hyperbolic with Whatsapp being vital for life, but do you honestly not know how humans got their fill of social interaction 12 years ago? And no, the answer isn't Facebook.

It’s no longer socially acceptable to make unprompted PSTN voice calls, unless you and the recipient are on very familiar terms.

Even with my parents, we always arrange a time via messaging first.

Re: The Social Dilemma

#193

Post by wrnr »

jwilber wrote: post #158

I really like this documentary/film, but if I’m being honest, it does leave a taste of typical SV virtue signaling in my mouth. The website explicitly states that their site allows cookies "set through our site by our advertising partners and may be used to build a profile of your interests and show you relevant ads on other sites." Since visiting I received two ads for “Moment” in instagram, and one for Asana on You…

Every anti-war movie ends up being a pro-war movie. I stoped watching it halfway through because I couldn't get past the cheap narrative device of begging a question and interrupting the answer with cheap drama. Sort of like cable television or youtube, "How did they build this big thing, find out after a word of our sponsor". The infamous 1 in 3 success rate to keep the user engaged with little dopamine hits. I think I'll become aware before the machine ever will.

Re: The Social Dilemma

#194

Post by vowelless »

mavsman wrote: post #186
codysc wrote: post #3

I just watched this last night. A lot of the content will already be well known to the HN audience. There was one big light-bulb moment for me. One of the speakers was clarifying the "If you're not paying then you are the product" idea. He refined it to, (rough quote), "Changes to your behavior and actions are the product" That distinction made the insidiousness much more clear than the former statement.

It never occurred to me until now that Hacker News is free and this statement could be applied here as well, though I'm not exactly sure in what way.

Of course. Remember that Dropbox started here [0]. It inspires lots of people to apply to YC. YC founders participate in these forums. It raises everyone's value in general. HN members often are the early adopters on many YC products, giving important feedback (for free) to these companies.

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8863

Re: The Social Dilemma

#195

Post by donny2018 »

mitchdoogle wrote: post #190
codysc wrote: post #3

I just watched this last night. A lot of the content will already be well known to the HN audience. There was one big light-bulb moment for me. One of the speakers was clarifying the "If you're not paying then you are the product" idea. He refined it to, (rough quote), "Changes to your behavior and actions are the product" That distinction made the insidiousness much more clear than the former statement.

This kind of wording is conspiratorial mumbo jumbo. A social media's product is it's platform and software. Their revenue comes from advertising. No one ever told someone watching network TV in the 80s, "you are the product", because that would be ridiculous. It's no less ridiculous to do that with websites and phone apps. Why can't we just have a frank discussion about advertising and privacy without this kind of ma…

In the 80s you weren’t individually targeted based on data collected on you personally.

Re: The Social Dilemma

#196

Post by jfarmer »

gkoberger wrote: post #35
clairity wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

of course everything looks rosy with rose-colored glasses on, but facebook not only encouraged those glasses, but made you believe the glasses didn't even exist. same with google. it only took a little perspective shift and foresight to realize the future dangers under a relentless profit motive. the greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn't exist.

The first time you loaded up TheFacebook in high school and saw your friend set his status to "Greg is making dinner!", you thought "ah yes, someday this will topple governments due to disinformation campaigns"? Are you sure you aren't conflating "it's obvious" with hindsight bias?

In 2008, I made an app go viral on Facebook by posting pro-LGBT / anti-prop-8 ads within a 20 mile radius of SLC. Hundreds of millions of dollars as been invested into the FB platform ecosystem by that point.

Plenty of people understood the implications.

Re: The Social Dilemma

#197

Post by breuleux »

un_montagnard wrote: post #151
swyx wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

i think the more accurate answer is Engagement. we made it maximize paperclips, it maximized paperclips. sadly the most engaging is the most extreme.

I agree with that. I think the question that's left unanswered is "why can't we make educational/scientific/historic content that drives up engagement?"

Probably because reality is complicated, confusing and boring. What drives up engagement are clear, coherent stories and narratives with twists and turns that leave us shocked or awed. If you want educational content to be engaging, you have to find a way to make a good narrative out of truth. That's what this documentary and all other successful documentaries attempt to do.

But sometimes (most of the time, really) truth just doesn't fit this structure, so to make it engaging, you have to deform and twist it a bit. And if reality is really, actually, mundane, there's not much you can do to make it engaging, whereas it's extremely easy to make engaging, convincing falsehoods about nearly any subject.

Re: The Social Dilemma

#198

Post by hervature »

closeparen wrote: post #192
hervature wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll be the first to tell you that humans are social beings that need social contact. I'll also be the first to tell you that social media is not necessary for that. I assume you're being hyperbolic with Whatsapp being vital for life, but do you honestly not know how humans got their fill of social interaction 12 years ago? And no, the answer isn't Facebook.

It’s no longer socially acceptable to make unprompted PSTN voice calls, unless you and the recipient are on very familiar terms. Even with my parents, we always arrange a time via messaging first.

Ok, and where exactly is Whatsapp a vital life necessity in your world of messaging before calling? Those also aren't forms of meaningful social interaction. I assume you again use messaging and/or voice to set up the actual interactions such as Christmas (or whatever you celebrate) and family get-togethers. I'm assuming you don't show up to those events and talk to your loved ones via Whatsapp.

I don't have social media, barely text (my plan has 100 texts per month), and hardly talk by phone (100 minutes per month). However, I have multiple friends and family that can claim that I'm the only one to have ever come to visit them at their house. This is either so strange or such a positive impact on them that I somehow hear it from other friends/family even though I'm surrounded by ether. The moral of the story, the ether isn't as thick as you think and the vast majority of people's "social interactions" are so shallow that showing up to a friend's door to drop off a bottle of wine will be a highlight of their year.

Re: The Social Dilemma

#199

Post by cmehdy »

mitchdoogle wrote: post #190
codysc wrote: post #3

I just watched this last night. A lot of the content will already be well known to the HN audience. There was one big light-bulb moment for me. One of the speakers was clarifying the "If you're not paying then you are the product" idea. He refined it to, (rough quote), "Changes to your behavior and actions are the product" That distinction made the insidiousness much more clear than the former statement.

This kind of wording is conspiratorial mumbo jumbo. A social media's product is it's platform and software. Their revenue comes from advertising. No one ever told someone watching network TV in the 80s, "you are the product", because that would be ridiculous. It's no less ridiculous to do that with websites and phone apps. Why can't we just have a frank discussion about advertising and privacy without this kind of ma…

Nielsen ratings[0] have been a thing since the 1930s, so in a way people's attention has indeed been commoditized for a while now - only with an increasing granularity that has now reached some of an individual's metrics (and we're continuing to go along that path with smart devices and addition of sensors).

I'm not sure why saying to people that their attention and subsequent changes in behaviours were the fundamental parts of entire markets would be conspiratorial, but I might be misunderstanding you.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nielsen_ratings

Re: The Social Dilemma

#200

Post by maerF0x0 »

I laughed how the industry folks were all product and exec. Like 0 engineers. Talk about a zero social status career choice, and people wonder why people want to be managers.
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