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

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

#351

Post by berniedurfee »

bmacho wrote: post #173
nicbou wrote: post #49

An online community should feel like an online pub. It should have a vibe, some regulars, inside jokes, and a decorum that is somewhat well enforced. They're cosy places where a sense of belonging encourages participation and good behaviour. HN is like that. Small subreddits are like that. Group chats are like that. But now every social media website became like that one pedestrian street with the H&M and the McDonal…

> An online community should feel like an online pub. It should have a vibe, some regulars, inside jokes, and a decorum that is somewhat well enforced. They're cosy places where a sense of belonging encourages participation and good behaviour. > HN is like that. HN is the only place that is not a pub: jokes are frowned upon, and even moderated out. Post Valuable Content, or GTFO. You can joke and feel belonging liter…

That’s the thing I appreciate _most_ about HN. The focus is on shop talk. Discuss science, tech, philosophy and other interesting topics without a constant stream of nonsense.

I find it very difficult to not reply on HN with a quick joke or pun or flame with no substance, but I don’t, usually.

I really like the high S/N ratio. It’s why I come here every day.

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

#352

Post by mulberry_seas »

koofdoof wrote: post #333
mulberry_seas wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have a reference for where Benjamin wrote about this? I found this excerpt from "Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction": "With the emancipation of the various art practices from ritual go increasing opportunities for the exhibition of their products. It is easier to exhibit a portrait bust that can be sent here and there than to exhibit the statue of a divinity that has its fixed place in the interior of a…

Yes, thats the piece I was referencing. There are some other relevant sections too: "a situation which Paul Valéry pointed up in this sentence: “Just as water, gas, and electricity are brought into our houses from far off to satisfy our needs in response to a minimal effort, so we shall be supplied with visual or auditory images, which will appear and disappear at a simple movement of the hand, hardly more than a sig…

Excellent, thanks! I've been meaning to read it, this is a helpful nudge to get around to it.

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

#353

Post by ozim »

paganel wrote: post #234
brap wrote: post #215

My Facebook feed is about 40% sponsored posts, 30% suggested posts, 30% group posts (usually from very large groups), and then maybe 1% actual friends (and it’s usually just something that they’ve shared or commented on, almost never actual content). If we could go back to the days when 80% of the stuff you see is from friends with the remaining being ads, I would happily use FB more frequently and I’m sure most of m…

> How did we end up like this? Because sharing personal stuff privately, on group chats, groups made up of close friends, family etc., is the normal thing to do, sharing our personal stuff on FB, IG and the like was the exception. No, it was definitely not ok to share photos of one's unborn baby on FB/IG for almost anyone to see, that was creepy. Glad that things are returning to a sort of normal.

Well idea was that everyone could become influencer.

Reality check came and now we have cast of influencers whose lifestyle is “being influenced”.

Local Karen is left disappointed that she is not that funny/hot/interesting and she is left with watching pro influ stuff only.

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

#354

Post by ozim »

bluetwo wrote: post #140
zirgs wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most niche subreddits are still good. Just avoid big/default subs and anything related to politics and culture wars. That's what disappointed me when I tried reddit alternatives. Politics and culture wars were there too, but niche subs were nowhere to be found. They don't seem to understand what made reddit worse in the first place. So I went back to reddit.

The problem I have with Reddit is every subreddit seems filled with amateurs posting the same starter questions daily, never looking at the feed to see these questions have been asked and answered daily.

That is not only Reddit issue any professional forum will get that problem.

That is basically what stackoverflow solves by aggressive moderation and closing duplicates also aggressively.

But then you get “people on this site are bad and don’t like me” where only thing they do is dealing with amateurs.

So for me it is interesting problem to solve and I hope GPT will be able to solve it by dealing with amateurs questions and leaving forums for professionals to have better space for discussion.

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

#355

Post by madacol »

epolanski wrote: post #307
zeta0134 wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Probably the nicest bonus feature of Mastodon is that I can subscribe to a friend's original posts but unsubscribe to their "boosts," which is Mastodon's way to quickly share content. This way I can follow artists that make cool stuff I want to keep up with, but I don't have to see their political reblogs and other interactions, which helps to cut down considerably on the noise. It's great because it's granular at th…

This is what made me delete my Twitter account. I may follow a software engineer that writes books on functional programming but I just don't care about his stupid dogs or his alt right political ideas.

You can do that too in Twitter

"Turn off reposts"

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

#356

Post by ProllyInfamous »

thefz wrote: post #184

Best definition of "content" I ever heard: https://youtu.be/kHe4wwF9O6Q?t=149 "content is a commodity that fills social media feeds so we can be sold as a collection of preferences [...] attention but not understanding, engagement but not exploration" Every time I hear "content creator" I perceive it as Styrofoam. Filler used to convey a product.

Thank you for this link to "Aphew Twin wouldn't become popular, today."

Grew up listening to brother's albums, and laughed realizing chair-squeaks are music, too =P

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

#357

Post by ToucanLoucan »

hgomersall wrote: post #343
ToucanLoucan wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is the incentives for any ad-supported profit-driven social network and the incentives on "what makes a social network good for users" are basically a venn diagram that's two circles that touch about 2% in the center.

I don't really believe it isn't possible to make the relatively small amount necessary to have a stable and useful business. The problem is VC forced drive towards enshitification.

Agree mostly. The problem is the trends all seem to favor short-form video and streaming now (I cannot express enough UGH but alas) and video is just the worst in every aspect for web development. Big files, big and fast storage needed, big content management tools, big applications to support it, big fat internet pipes to move it out, and none of that comes cheap. To make a social network that's going to ding the mainstream, you basically need VC money and a shit-ton of it at that.

Personally if I and the rest of people like me could just get a nice Facebook circa 2010 somewhere to chill on while the rest of the internet burns these sites down over and over on the altar of wanting to stream video, that'd be lovely.

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

#358

Post by pmarreck »

JohnMakin wrote: post #336
pmarreck wrote: post #334

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's absolutely NOT difficult. I've been a Reddit user for decades (I think 2006 was my first account)... if I was actually an asshole, I would have gotten banned a long time ago, instead of 2 months ago. Step 1, have multiple Reddit accounts for anonymity (hey, look, I don't want everyone knowing my medical problems that I seek help on, for example). Step 2, encounter 1 mod on 1 subreddit who misinterprets 1 comment…

how do you violate the TOS on accident? are you alleging that multi-accounting results in a fingerprinting ban? because that isn’t the case. you’ve given plenty of indication and hinted you were actually banned for something else - if you got a ban and then attempted to circumvent it, that’s a very obvious site-ban on any site that’s run remotely sensibly and your grievance is pretty silly.

> how do you violate the TOS on accident

Because it's been months since you've read it, and you're a human who makes mistakes?

> are you alleging that multi-accounting results in a fingerprinting ban

Multi-accounting where just 1 of those accounts was banned from 1 subreddit results in a fingerprint ban across all accounts if any of those accounts is found posting to that subreddit. There is no warning, and I was not banned for something else (except originally, from the 1 subreddit, which was based on a highly debatable mod decision). Not sure what part of "I actually experienced this" you're failing to understand.

> if you got a ban and then attempted to circumvent it

Again, you're not understanding the problem. IT CAN LOOK LIKE I was "attempting to circumvent" a ban, when I simply forgot that I had been banned from 1 subreddit on some other account. I was not "attempting to circumvent" anything, I simply failed to unsubscribe from that subreddit across all my accounts. And AFTER THAT POINT, when Reddit has already "warned" you or whatever, you sign in with another account, it is IMMEDIATELY flagged as a "ban circumvention account" and then THAT account gets banned. It is a runaway explosion, basically. And if you try to at least leave a single account unbanned by removing cookies, etc. then those actions are seen as adding further guilt, which is hilarious because you're actually trying to avoid violating the ban any further but being penalized simply for using another account to not step on the same toes!

Feel free to peruse my comment history on HN, which is pretty representative of my online presence in general, and see if you can detect any personality flavor that is worthy of a sitewide ban. Remember that on HN, I can't delete past comments, so I can't now game my history to try to misrepresent myself.

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

#359

Post by OfSanguineFire »

ahartmetz wrote: post #342
markjonsona989 wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My instinct was to agree with the comment above, but after giving it a few minutes I think I'd rather have a moderated "soulless" HN. It seems to me that there is a fine line between innocent jokes and full-blown juvenile behaviour. The amount of effort you would need to invest into sustaining such a place is not worth it, best to just not allow it at all. There are plenty of places where you can get your dose of jok…

The library, the café or the debate club maybe. The café was the first pub-like place where people did mostly not drink alcohol. Reportedly, it was an inportant place for the enlightenment period of history. Let's not oversell HN here, though...

Central European cafes sell spirits, too. A cognac makes a fine accompaniment to a coffee. It is foreign franchise coffee places like Starbucks don't sell alcohol at all, and that is a major part of why they feel so foreign.

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

#360

Post by pradn »

googlryas wrote: post #199
thefz wrote: post #184

Best definition of "content" I ever heard: https://youtu.be/kHe4wwF9O6Q?t=149 "content is a commodity that fills social media feeds so we can be sold as a collection of preferences [...] attention but not understanding, engagement but not exploration" Every time I hear "content creator" I perceive it as Styrofoam. Filler used to convey a product.

I've heard content creators either say explicitly in videos, or in text under videos, things along the line of "Sorry I made a mistake here but I need to get this video out". Imagine reading an essay where the author tried to pull something like that.

YouTube penalizes video creators who don't post regularly. So it's hard for them to take breaks. If a video takes a week to make, how will you have enough of a backlog built up to take a two week vacation?
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