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FB feed is 98% suggested pages and barely any friends' posts

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Re: FB feed is 98% suggested pages and barely any friends' posts

#431

Post by tsol »

danaris wrote: post #429
swores wrote: post #423

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nope, even with items like fridges it's intentional. Most people have not bought a fridge in the last month. Most people will not buy one in the next month. Taking your estimated 99%, that leaves 1% who just bought a fridge but it doesn't work, or didn't fit their room, or for whatever other reason they've sent it for a refund... and are about to want a fridge again! 1% might sound low, but if you look at the group o…

But if I've bought a fridge from Amazon , and it doesn't work, surely the first thing I'm going to do is try to return it to Amazon ? Most people, after all, don't really have the spare money to buy two fridges at once, so they're going to want their money back from the first one before they buy the second. Once they've started the return process, then Amazon can start recommending new fridges to them. Again: this is…

>Again: this is all data Amazon totally has access to. Whether they are failing to gather it, failing to recognize its value, or simply choosing not to use it when they know it's creating a lot of bad recommendations, is unclear.

I'm not sure as to their reasoning. But maybe this decision is in fact based on their data? They're a pretty data driven company

Re: FB feed is 98% suggested pages and barely any friends' posts

#432

Post by alistairSH »

birdyrooster wrote: post #297
alistairSH wrote: post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mid-2021, I stop using FB for anything beyond Marketplace. Mid-2022, I find Instagram to be just as useless as FB. I find I'm spending far less time on big social platforms. And a little more time in niche web forums. And I mostly feel better (sanity-wise) for it.

Discord has completely displaced the need for other social media in my experience. And they get hundreds of dollars per year from me. If this isn’t a winning model, I don’t know what is.

A few things that make Discord unfeasible for general purpose messaging...

The need to host a server somewhere. It silos info, makes that info less permanent and less findable. I've gone to all iDevices at home, so can't self-host.

It also doesn't have great visibility outside the tech worker and gaming worlds. I'm happy to use it if somebody sends me a link, but it's not the default for most people I know (except for those that game). Slack is a bit more common, mostly because of broad adoption at workplaces.

Re: FB feed is 98% suggested pages and barely any friends' posts

#433

Post by beej71 »

midoridensha wrote: post #393
birdyrooster wrote: post #297

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Discord has completely displaced the need for other social media in my experience. And they get hundreds of dollars per year from me. If this isn’t a winning model, I don’t know what is.

Discord is completely useless for socializing with anyone who isn't in the IT industry. My mom, for instance, is NOT going to use Discord, but I can get her to use Facebook Messenger.

I have 50% success. Mom is on discord in our family channel, but dad isn't.

Re: FB feed is 98% suggested pages and barely any friends' posts

#434

Post by cptnapalm »

Not really related, but the last time I was on Facebook, its ads were so wrong I actually tried to improve it. It targeted me for endless hip hop ads. I don't like hip hop; nothing I've ever liked on FB had anything to do with hip hop. So, I told it I don't like these ads. Instead of trying to show me things that I might actually be even mildly interested in, it fed ever more hip hop ads to me. It was so aggravating, that I just closed FB out and I don't think I've ever logged in again.

Re: FB feed is 98% suggested pages and barely any friends' posts

#435

Post by DIARRHEA_xd »

TrackerFF wrote: post #111

Youtube is also turning into garbage. First 10 or so results are relevant vids, then it becomes a mishmash of "people also watched" , "for you" , shorts, and similar suggested vids. EDIT: As for FB. The other day I watched three Studio Ghibli movies on Netflix. The last time I watched anything anime related, was Akira some 30 years ago. Now the feed is being bombarded with anime and manga meme content. I click "hide…

I use a FF Add-On called DF (Distraction Free) Youtube. I turn off everything but the subscriptions tab.

Search on Youtube is dead, recommendations all but. At this point I discover creators on other platforms, then subscribe to them on Youtube.

Re: FB feed is 98% suggested pages and barely any friends' posts

#436

Post by peacefulhat »

I pitched to an engineer that worked on Facebook newsfeed ranking that they make a setting to let me hide all reposts because my feed was entirely political links and meme images. He didn’t buy that life updates from friends was what I wanted to see, very adamant that if I used the “I don’t like this” button, eventually it would find content I liked.

Re: FB feed is 98% suggested pages and barely any friends' posts

#437

Post by selfhoster11 »

projektfu wrote: post #353
benjaminwootton wrote: post #326

Earlier quoted context omitted.

LinkedIn went through the same algorithm led spiral of decline. Initially, they seemed to stop pushing out good on topic content. Instead, they rewarded and promoted Facebook style posts and made up stories probably due to metrics and A/B tests. The good authentic posters then either stopped posting or had to feed the beast by pushing out the same crappy content in the house style which the algorithm rewards. Almost…

When LinkedIn arrived, it seemed like a good idea -- sort of a way for people who aren't great at networking to see how to expand their network. Then, like any dating site, you needed to buy credits to participate, and only "players" are willing to do that. Then, they erased any additional value brought by their thought leaders by promoting third-rate content with catchy headlines like you mentioned. Now, why would I…

I treat LinkedIn as I treated Facebook: a way to keep in touch with people you know or once knew, as a way to keep track of a list of these people, and as an easily findable public handle. For Facebook, it was of course less oriented towards money making.

Now LinkedIn still does the same job. As far as I’m concerned, while “thought leaders” and other spam is more prominent, dealing with egos is the price to pay for making it easier to find a job, and to be found as a candidate. It’s not materially different to IRL corporate world.

Re: FB feed is 98% suggested pages and barely any friends' posts

#439

Post by kevstev »

Vrondi wrote: post #168
kevstev wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was actually going to post vacation photos a few months ago, after my first real trip post Covid. But... it just felt really awkard to do so all of a sudden. My feed is just stuffed with shared content and other crap, it no longer felt like something I would be welcome doing. Its been making me wonder if its time to sell my shares, which I have held since the IPO. It just feels like FB errr "Meta" is really losing…

This makes absolutely no sense, and is totally your own mental trip. Your friends (at least some of them) want to see stuff from their friends. Now, Facebook might not show your photos in their feeds, but most people would rather have that than more ads.

My FB feed no longer feels like walking down a hall with my friends in it, it feels a lot more like walking through a mall with advertisements constantly in my face and strangers screaming from every store front with their "content." It just feels like a very different place than even a few years ago- and showing your vacation photos in the mall is the wrong place to do it (I know the analogy isn't perfect, but its the best I can do to reflect on why it felt weird to me).

They are pretty much at the tipping point where the signal to noise ratio has gotten so low that it seems futile to add more signal. There is also a component to it as well where is it really worth it to give FB even more data about my life?- what am I even getting in return for it these days? And even more recently, I woke up one morning recently and the feed felt really stale, I was seeing posts from the previous day. I tried to look at just my friends, and then sort by most recent, and you could see that just the number of people actually posting what they are up to is just way down.

Instagram is better for this these days, but its headed in the same direction it seems.

Re: FB feed is 98% suggested pages and barely any friends' posts

#440

Post by thehappypm »

vineyardmike wrote: post #420
thehappypm wrote: post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes! Exactly this. Facebook is your online second life. It’s actually you. With that, it doesn’t make as much sense to be the place to mindlessly scroll dance videos, or discuss politics with strangers. It does, however, make for a great place to discuss local things, discuss hobbies, buy and sell things, message people, keep up with friends and family

> Facebook is your online second life. It’s actually you. Does anyone want that anymore?

I think there are plenty of cases! Groups, especially. There are lots of local community groups where your real identity is useful. Like “I need a dog walker, any recommendations” or “anyone a math tutor?” Or “looking to buy a car”.
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