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

businessinsider.com

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

#281

Post by mrkramer »

I kinda understand this because in the first 10 to 15 years of the commercial internet people were eager and hyped to get connected and share everything what they do and think. Later on this backfired with security and privacy issues like numerous hacks, leaks and privacy fiascos and now they seek more private space to get connected. Nowadays only influencers, content creators and "public personas" want get as much exposure as they can plus private businesses and public institutions.

Ordinary people "hide" behind pseudonyms or rarely post with their real names unless I will say it again, they are aspiring content creators/influencers or whatever they want to become in their professional life.

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

#282

Post by dahwolf »

philipov wrote: post #97
FrustratedMonky wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are definitely related. The social media 'enshitification' is a subset of all tech/industry 'enshitification' Think the Doctorow 'Enshitification' was more broader than just social media, and was all technology, even non-social apps eventually turn bad as the goals switch from being focused on the user and providing value, to corporate greed trying to extract money from the user.

Isn't enshittification simply the business cycle? It's describing in detail the why of the bust portion of the cycle.

It's an annoying word in itself, and yes, it's simply business as usual in startup land. Invest aggressively at a loss to accelerate growth, then later monetize, if you get that far.

Can't we do better? Have a stable business, organically growing and profitable from the start?

No. Tech is winner takes all. You need to be first and grow the fastest or somebody else will.

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

#283

Post by mrkramer »

mancerayder wrote: post #154

I've been observing a pattern that I've been trying to articulate here and I can best describe as a framework where stuff 'comes to you' whereas the Internet for a long time was an enabler of 'you go to stuff'. The pendulum swung back, thanks to ad tech, and centralization, that have or are trying to orchestrate a culture shift. Okay, here are some concrete examples. 1. Television/cable (absent a TiVo type device), t…

>Google search. Before, it was a resource for you to customize and find what you wanted: information about medicine, a product, or a store. Now, it Comes To You. You search for thing X, you end up in a rabbit hole of Y and Z topics or things, and a lot of things seem algorithmically generated or manufactured to steer you rather than help you.

This is because "recommendations" are a big business. For example YouTube generates billions of views from recommended videos and God knows how much revenue. But I think recommendation algorithms are counterproductive from the business point of view because you will sell less ads if your platform content creators figured out how to get recommended by recommendation algorithms.

On the other hand recommendations are good for users because they will hopefully discover new content that they like. Platforms just need to be more flexible and offer their users tools to tweak recommendation algorithms according to their preferences.

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

#284

Post by dahwolf »

steveBK123 wrote: post #28
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…

It is also an age/generation thing. FB was cool until your aunt was there. Then IG was cool until the same. TikTok probably well through that cycle. etc.

I think my aunt is great and much cooler than my peers.

I object to this weird anti-family culture. I don't give a shit what is "cool". It's a made-up concept, unlike family. Family has my back, and I have theirs. But I guess on "social" media being social isn't cool.

There's nothing more natural and important than socializing with your family.

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

#285

Post by soerxpso »

jarjoura wrote: post #253
nitwit005 wrote: post #212

If social media means a way to communicate with friends, family, and extended community online, it's pretty clear Meta and Tiktok don't want their products to be that. They've made sure you can't get a feed of just your friends. It's natural the people who want that sort of thing will go elsewhere.

Meta and I'm sure TikTok as well, would be MORE than happy to follow wherever users want to take the platform. The problem is, time and time again, users do not want what they say they want.

What you mean to say is that time and time again, users do not want what causes them to maximize engagement levels and click on the most ads. "Users said they wanted this feature, but we implemented it and engagement didn't go up," doesn't mean that the users lied about what they wanted, it just means that they don't want to use the product in a way that requires a lot of wasted time.

TikTok users say all the time that they want the option to see a feed of videos from people they're following, in reverse-chronological order. They're not lying. The issue is that the reason they want that is so that they can use TikTok for a short (30 minutes or less) session to check for updates on things they actually care about and then close the app, which would be entirely contrary to TikTok's fiscal goals.

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

#286

Post by dahwolf »

mrkramer wrote: post #281

I kinda understand this because in the first 10 to 15 years of the commercial internet people were eager and hyped to get connected and share everything what they do and think. Later on this backfired with security and privacy issues like numerous hacks, leaks and privacy fiascos and now they seek more private space to get connected. Nowadays only influencers, content creators and "public personas" want get as much e…

Even the public personas are having a rough time. Twitter is falling apart and then there is Mastodon, Bluesky, Threads and just generally a very fractured yet crowded space where you're up against dirty tactics of your peer influencers.

I don't feel sorry at all for commercial grifters, but there's also genuine publishers. Institutes that just want to share a message and get it out to the public, as a service. That model is now quite broken.

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

#287

Post by dahwolf »

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...

[flagged]

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

#288

Post by dahwolf »

seydor wrote: post #108
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

True. And Mastodon's paranoid safety culture is why they could have just used chat.

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

#289

Post by dahwolf »

rpjt wrote: post #236
sznio wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But then you'd just come in for 10 minutes a day and be done. Can't earn money on such healthy engagement.

People say they want this but I'm not actually sure that they do. Didn't FB do some study about this?

People don't want this. They say they do but they don't.

Social media is 15 years old now. Watching what your friend had for dinner or some other mundane non-event is just not that exciting anymore.

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