41–50 of 52 posts
good, hopefully they'll shut down and we'll get back to having communities
Hmm, sounds like you want to destroy my nice-happy-niche social media communities there - Please don't throw my baby out with the bathwater when you do :) (This was intentionally flippant , to point out the lack of nuance in parent)
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I agree with pretty much everything you said; I don't argue too much on HN but I do occasionally. My life improved substantially after I dropped Facebook, but the frustrating part now is that LinkedIn (more or less a necessity to find a job in 2023) has started to attract the same morons posting their conspiracy theories, and now I feel like somewhat of a hostage audience. At that point I'm in this kind of uncomforta…
Why do you feel LinkedIn is a necessity these days? What exactly does it provide that makes getting a job without it so difficult? I'm genuinely curious; I ditched LinkedIn a few years ago as I didn't see it providing any value for anything in my professional life and haven't suffered for it (as far as I know). And I've been involved in the hiring several people; linkedin has never been involved.
I really hope I never have to look for a job again without a recruiter helping me through the process.
Why would I? Whenever I do it gets buried by the algorithm unless I specifically tag someone.
Social media was literally what it was named - a way to interact, socially, with rich media. Post a photo, all your 'friends' would see it. Write something, all your friends would see it.
Now they don't see it because the algorithm doesn't show them anything that doesn't either push the platform agenda or make money. There's not (enough) money in showing people pictures that their friends took while out for a walk. You can make a buck or two, but you can make 10x as much if you show them celebrity crap instead. Or just straight up push genocidal urges.
You want people to see your pictures? Make a livejournal or a blog and email it to your friends.
I don't want to sound like a drama queen but If you use these platforms in any way shape or form you are aiding and abetting some of the most heinous crimes and your hands are literally soaked in blood.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
A lot of the enshittification is a result of the drop in organic content from friends and needing to maintain engagement numbers. It’s a vicious cycle, possibly a death spiral.
I don’t think enshittification entirely explains it. At least for me, social is exhausting because rage bait drives engagement and I’m tired of being angry all the time. It’s 1984 and the Two Minutes Hate. Instagram was a lot more fun when it was just food and travel. Even without algorithmic feeds, the introduction of revenue sharing and sponsorships means that creators would eventually make the same hateful content…
Even disregarding privacy concerns (which you shouldn't!), I stopped posting on social media largely because I'm too argumentative of a person for it. When arguing is limited to people I see in person, it's a somewhat time-boxed and constrained operation. I typically can only argue with one person for N minutes, and eventually both of us get tired of it and we move on with our lives, but there's always someone wrong…
I feel like this is an addiction, the high from noticing "Oh my god, you god damn idiot, let me write why you're so stupid, oh I'm so glad I'm not as stupid as this person!". Getting the validation from other people is even more thrilling. I guess it's why social media mobs are so "popular" too, there's even a book: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/So_You've_Been_Publicly_Shamed
Or should that be "were popular"? Luckily Twitter is close to death now.
I have a feeling it's related to loneliness epidemic ( https://duckduckgo.com/?q=loneliness+epidemic ) and people looking for their connections not through friends ("I need to be vulnerable? no way!") but by anonymous participation in online communication/shit-flinging-fest of every comment section.
Covid was also interesting, you got to walk around in public and think "What a fucking idiot, I'm glad I'm better than that person", and it worked both ways, someone wearing a mask? What a sheep! Someone with no mask? "Must be a stupid Trump voter!". Someone with their nose showing outside their mask? Etc, etc...
Even disregarding privacy concerns (which you shouldn't!), I stopped posting on social media largely because I'm too argumentative of a person for it. When arguing is limited to people I see in person, it's a somewhat time-boxed and constrained operation. I typically can only argue with one person for N minutes, and eventually both of us get tired of it and we move on with our lives, but there's always someone wrong…
It can help to practice compassion for strangers and equanimity. They might be wrong but they are just acting in the way they believe is best, and even if they have some impact it's ultimately just a tiny effect in a vast universe.
This was my view when I was younger. People acting/saying stupid things will just be stupid people and it doesn't really matter.
Then I realized many of these same people were ending up in positions of power...
I feel like posting has become simply uncool in time for few major reasons: - older gens (50+) getting on socials (cool kids club vanishes) - raise of influencers and post quality (comparison anxiety) - change to algos (fewer people will see it) I can't but think that plain old vBulletin/PhpBB topic-based forums are still the pinnacle of internet discussions. I don't like the fact, e.g. that interesting discussion on…
I agree largely with all of the posts here, but the nagging concern in the back of my mind is always: isn't social media still valuable for businesses? Or rather, are you leaving customers "on the table" by ignoring it? Maybe less so for B2B or "serious" things like WSJ, but for B2C it still sounds like a serious contender. For your dropshipping doohickies or crafted niche fandom doodads, where else do you go? Etsy a…
Even disregarding privacy concerns (which you shouldn't!), I stopped posting on social media largely because I'm too argumentative of a person for it. When arguing is limited to people I see in person, it's a somewhat time-boxed and constrained operation. I typically can only argue with one person for N minutes, and eventually both of us get tired of it and we move on with our lives, but there's always someone wrong…
> Before I knew it, a not-insignificant percentage of each day was being dedicated to responding to idiocy on social media. I feel like this is an addiction, the high from noticing "Oh my god, you god damn idiot, let me write why you're so stupid, oh I'm so glad I'm not as stupid as this person!". Getting the validation from other people is even more thrilling. I guess it's why social media mobs are so "popular" too,…
I am 33 years old, born in 1990. My parents were kind of geeks so we got the internet pretty early, around 1992~1993 (give or take a year…it was 30 years ago!), so for pretty much my entire life I have had the internet and have been using it for about as long as a person can have used it. As a result, while cool, I think the internet isn’t as cool to me as it might be to nearly anyone older than me.
Social media came to prominence when I was around 15 (~2005/2006), and it was a novel and unique thing that 15 year old Tom thought was pretty cool, but I wonder if the people born into a world with social media are somewhat immune from the novelty of it.