Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

NL Judge: Meta must respect user's choice of recommendation system

bitsoffreedom.nl

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

201–210 of 247 posts

Re: NL Judge: Meta must respect user's choice of recommendation system

#201

Post by swiftcoder »

jnovek wrote: post #149
Aurornis wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> some people do exactly that. they refuse to communicate on anything but their messenger of choice. and sometimes keeping in touch with that person is more important than my preferences. oh, and for many people i do not want to share my phone number, which limits the available messaging platforms we can still use. we'll be lucky if there is one. I’m sure there are some number of people out there who only use Faceboo…

“I’m sure there are some number of people out there who only use Facebook Messenger, do not check their email, refuse to use any other messenger” I don’t know how old you are or where you live, but I’m in my mid 40s and don’t live in a tech city. A good quarter of everyone I know in my age range uses Facebook Messenger as their primary form of texting. Most of them don’t even use Facebook itself anymore, they just ha…

Yeah, this mirrors my experience. I've managed to convince a bunch of tech friends to migrate to Signal, but the vast majority of my non-tech friends/family in the US are exclusively available on Messenger

Re: NL Judge: Meta must respect user's choice of recommendation system

#202

Post by array_key_first »

gbalduzzi wrote: post #148
delusional wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But I think every web designer knows that putting even the slightest barrier between the user and the content drives away vast numbers of people. I have a pet theory that these business models paper over the vast worthlessness of many modern technologies. That the value of Facebook is not in it's technologies or network, but rather in the arbitrage of the value of data when combined. We pay for the nearly worthless…

Even if the data collected by Meta is really worthless (and that is a big if), Meta shows content to a billion(s?) of people everyday. That alone is definitely not worthless lol

The only reason the content works, at all, is because it's completely free and ad driven.

The truth is the content on Facebook is basically worthless and basically nobody wants to watch it. But humans are stupid. If you tell them something is free, they're gonna use it, even if they don't want to use it.

If Facebook cost even 1 dollar a month, I can garuantee those videos views would fall off a cliff.

Re: NL Judge: Meta must respect user's choice of recommendation system

#203

Post by swiftcoder »

ecb_penguin wrote: post #54
inetknght wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Those people are in the app because of the social features and the feed in the first place. Well, I suppose that's one take on it. I would argue that people are in the app because Facebook gave out Facebook Messenger. Then Facebook changed how Facebook Messenger works. You could call it a rugpull, I would call it US business practices.

> Well, I suppose that's one take on it. It's the correct take. Facebook had 800M users on the day Messenger was released. > I would argue that people are in the app because Facebook gave out Facebook Messenger Why would you argue a nonsense point? Literally all you have to do is Google "when was messenger released" and "number of facebook users in August 2011" Unless you think those 800M users were just waiting for…

This judgement is about Instagram, specifically. Messenger pre-dates Instagram (and very significantly pre-dates the Facebook acquisition of Instagram).

Re: NL Judge: Meta must respect user's choice of recommendation system

#204

Post by array_key_first »

Aurornis wrote: post #42
55555 wrote: post #20

Please for the love of god make it a legal requirement that messaging must be made available as a separate app without addictive feeds. Or make it such that users can disable the feed in settings. We need to be able to message our friends without seeing a feed without having to convert all of our friends to a new platform.

> We need to be able to message our friends without seeing a feed without having to convert all of our friends to a new platform. Those people are in the app because of the social features and the feed in the first place. The messaging features were built on top of the platform. Requiring companies to make and maintain a separate app entirely if their product has messaging features is an unreasonable requirement. If…

> Requiring companies to make and maintain a separate app entirely if their product has messaging features is an unreasonable requirement.

I don't think it's unreasonable and I'll take it further - messaging should be forced to use an open protocol. No more iMessage or Facebook messenger. If you want those, great, then open them.

Now everything works with everything and the world is a utopia and also we cured cancer. Downside: Meta will make slightly less money. I can live with that.

Re: NL Judge: Meta must respect user's choice of recommendation system

#205

Post by swiftcoder »

snoman wrote: post #74
inetknght wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Those people are in the app because of the social features and the feed in the first place. Well, I suppose that's one take on it. I would argue that people are in the app because Facebook gave out Facebook Messenger. Then Facebook changed how Facebook Messenger works. You could call it a rugpull, I would call it US business practices.

This idea that if you change your app in a way that some people don’t like, then the government legislate your features for you, is just mind boggling to me.

I think this really only becomes an issue if the changes you made to your app is in some way affecting democratic elections in that country (and in that case, seems well within the purview of legislation)

Re: NL Judge: Meta must respect user's choice of recommendation system

#206

Post by array_key_first »

bitpush wrote: post #43
55555 wrote: post #20

Please for the love of god make it a legal requirement that messaging must be made available as a separate app without addictive feeds. Or make it such that users can disable the feed in settings. We need to be able to message our friends without seeing a feed without having to convert all of our friends to a new platform.

I don't know why you want a government agency to dictate product strategy.

Because most products are not only shit, they're designed in such a way to be as shit as possible. Because that legitimately works.

Even if the government agency makes the worse decision possible, which they probably will, that's still an improvement, because we're completely maxed out on shit levels. That's how bad many products are today.

Re: NL Judge: Meta must respect user's choice of recommendation system

#207

Post by doctorpangloss »

lbhdc wrote: post #135
Workaccount2 wrote: post #68

They need to just ban the ad model and make subscriptions (including free with no ads, if the provider wants it) mandatory. I don't think people understand how the economics of these apps (and websites) work, and it's been so long now that their incorrect assumptions (the feeds are free and the greedy providers shove ads in them) have turned into bedrock beliefs. You pay for instagram with your personal data, which i…

https://about.fb.com/news/2024/11/facebook-and-instagram-to-... Don't they already offer this? Did it get canceled?

people didn't choose to subscribe... kind of a no brainer

basic history one google search away for the top ranking comment on Hacker News

Re: NL Judge: Meta must respect user's choice of recommendation system

#208

Post by array_key_first »

ecb_penguin wrote: post #121
alkonaut wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That would be the sensible idea in a free market. But that ship sailed LONG ago. Now there are apps and "markets" that are so important and dominating (Amazon, Facebook, ...) that the only alternatives are basically to split them, control them or regulate them in detail. The problem isn't lack of "innovation". Anyone can make any social app work the way they want to. But that doesn't mean the same rules and laws appl…

> That would be the sensible idea in a free market. Absolutely nothing stopping you from starting a social network > But that ship sailed LONG ago. I'm pretty sure there are hundreds? thousands? of startups ready to launch that all do some variant of FB. Why are you on YC if you think free market tech is dead? > But that doesn't mean the same rules and laws applies - or should apply - to one with 1B users as one with…

Facebook doesn't exist in a free market. It IS a market. And an unfree one ruled by a dictatorship that you can't vote on.

That's what platforms are. They're markets. Its not like making a couch or something.

That's why those other apps are literally worthless.

It doesn't matter if the other apps are super amazing and they walk your dog and suck your dick and make you live forever. Literally does not matter.

The app, itself, does not matter. Which is why Facebook is allowed to be as shit as humanly possible.

What matters is what the app proxies, which is a market. Those other apps will always fail, forever, because they can't compete with facebooks market because they're not even allowed into that market.

Re: NL Judge: Meta must respect user's choice of recommendation system

#209

Post by hnuser123456 »

quotemstr wrote: post #155
hnuser123456 wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, the issue is forced algorithm-based feeds, where Meta is free to profile as deeply as they want and exploit what should be private knowledge about you. A "most recent" feed (of things you already chose to subscribe to/follow) should be a standard option on any social media app, and the app shouldn't switch back to their toxic algorithm automatically anytime you look away. This behavior itself shows how much Meta…

There are probably people on this thread who were born after algorithmic feeds became ubiquitous and they seem to have turned out fine. The moral panic over feed ranking models will seem to history as quaint as the moral panic over the telegraph and the train. If your new technology isn't attracting a swarm of moral gnats buzzing about it corrupting the youth, are you even making something impactful?

Okay, but that doesn't mean we should throw up our hands and say "guess chronological sorting is too much to ask for." I flip between the homepage of HN, the /newest section, and the /active section, and frequently find interesting content at the top of each that is missing from (or buried in) the other views. Similar with facebook. The default feed to find bigger posts that might be a few days or a week old, and the recent feed for what's happening right now.

How does it hurt you by requiring social media to offer a working chronological sort?

I think even casual users understand the appeal of having both options and wouldn't want to lose it, assuming they discover it.

I agree with the judge. We are not obligated to suffer the degeneracy of the hyper-optimized algorithm with no alternative.

Just because you have never experienced the utility of working chronological sort doesn't mean it doesn't exist.

Re: NL Judge: Meta must respect user's choice of recommendation system

#210

Post by array_key_first »

ajsnigrutin wrote: post #79
55555 wrote: post #20

Please for the love of god make it a legal requirement that messaging must be made available as a separate app without addictive feeds. Or make it such that users can disable the feed in settings. We need to be able to message our friends without seeing a feed without having to convert all of our friends to a new platform.

Why not just use SMS messages? No feeds, literally all phones support them, with MMS you also get photos and stuff... you don't need another party involved for the messages to work, and you're already paying for them.

1. You do need a third party.

2. SMS is probably the most insecure protocol created for anything, ever.

3. The experience is as close to as shit as it can get.

4. Most modern messaging features aren't supported.

5. Most devices don't support SMS.

6. You can't sync SMS across devices.

Post reply on HN