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Anti-social: It's fads, not friends, which now dominate social media feeds

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Re: Anti-social: It's fads, not friends, which now dominate social media feeds

#491

Post by trumpdong »

grvdrm wrote: post #305
tekla wrote: post #291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

HN is literally an ad.

I don't think of Show HN as quite the same. Nor Ask HN. I know that otherwise there is plenty of "advertising" within posts/comments/etc. Where I think the argument that it's not social falls down is aligned with some of your comments. The feeds, upvotes, downvotes, etc. Let's not forget the spam. Those mechanisms are pervasive across many social platforms, so why are they so different here? Don't think they are.

HN is literally an ad for Y Combinator.

Re: Anti-social: It's fads, not friends, which now dominate social media feeds

#492

Post by trumpdong »

titzer wrote: post #32
everdrive wrote: post #3

Social media is now exactly what cable television used to be, but worse; it exists solely to coerce you. You make you feel insecure, you leverage your emotions for someone else's aims. Due to the changes in technology, social media is far more effective at this than cable TV ever could be, but the concept is the same. It's some remote person attempting to manipulate you by also packaging something enticing along with…

Ads became the default business model of the web. When people started to get sick of blaring in-your-face blinking banners, it mutated into search ads and placement. The same thing happened to mobile apps and games, YouTube, Facebook, instagram, even Tik Tok. When it becomes too blatant then it embeds itself one level deeper as placements and endorsements. It will never stop because the parasitic ads are the only thi…

According to Cory Doctorow, Proctor&Gamble - one of those giant corporations that each owns 20% of the food supply but doesn't use their own name as branding - cancelled $200m of online ad spend and saw no change in sales.

If more companies realise this, what happens?

Re: Anti-social: It's fads, not friends, which now dominate social media feeds

#493

Post by trumpdong »

snowwrestler wrote: post #301
exabrial wrote: post #41

A new game: determine when you meet someone if they use tik-tok or not without asking them. People's opinions are groomed and programmed. It's pretty hilarious how small minded people are.

Nah, this is the same self-congratulatory dismissive mindset humans have been having about each other for years. “Wake up, sheeple,” “NPC,” etc. We’re not lacking for opportunities to believe the worst of each other. It’s not something TikTok invented.

The scale is different.

Re: Anti-social: It's fads, not friends, which now dominate social media feeds

#494

Post by trumpdong »

duxup wrote: post #242

I remember trying bluesky and realizing it isn't just the services I don't like. I don't like ... what all the social media users like. The heavy memeification / gamification for attention. Trite posts, posts that seem like the middle of a conversation ... really all negative bits about internet discourse. But most everyone there likes it that way...

When I joined Bluesky (late 2024) it felt like Fox News from the opposite side. Every second post was saying how we have to hang in there through Trump, or Trump is #NotMyPresident, or a cartoon of Trump doing something stupid, or saying the Democrats should just do XYZ. I got bored quickly.

Re: Anti-social: It's fads, not friends, which now dominate social media feeds

#495

Post by mcmoor »

trumpdong wrote: post #489
mcmoor wrote: post #460

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it can be argued that, because human interests are so different and fractal, there's only so much damage that can be done with non-personalized algorithm. Ads for a certain demographic will just alienate the other demographic. But with personalized algorithm, the poison can be customized for each person and be more fatal.

We can imagine 100 different websites each with different non-personalized algorithms - another algorithm decides which one is best for you and directs you to that site. That's effectively a personalized algorithm with extra steps. That's where we are. HN is one of those sites.

Yeah but then each of those websites would only have 1 audience, which would be economically ruinous. Even HN has >1M daily view which is quite a lot of eyes to cater.

I guess there can be a sweet spot in a certain amount of MAU. And this is why I prefer medium-sized subreddit.

Re: Anti-social: It's fads, not friends, which now dominate social media feeds

#496

Post by xerox13ster »

hmmmmmmmmmmmmmm wrote: post #206
exabrial wrote: post #41

A new game: determine when you meet someone if they use tik-tok or not without asking them. People's opinions are groomed and programmed. It's pretty hilarious how small minded people are.

Anti-social take. People are being exploited by some of the smartest people in the world who use natural human desires against people but somehow they are at fault for being small minded?

Noting the existence of the small minded state does not imply blame or lay blame with those who exude that state.

The opposite is stated in the comment: “People are groomed and programmed”.

You’re revealing yourself. No one said they were at fault but you.

Re: Anti-social: It's fads, not friends, which now dominate social media feeds

#497

Post by red-iron-pine »

anitil wrote: post #415
kachurovskiy wrote: post #389

I've stopped using YouTube and Reddit since early April and it's been a mixed bag. On one side my interest level has adjusted so that normal activities make sense again - like sitting in the garden or playing a game with my kid. I've also completed dozens of projects like replacing old silicon in the entire kitchen or updating the garden playground. On the other side I'm feeling more isolated and lacking information…

I've effectively dropped reddit because they've made the mobile web version near-unusable (and I find old.reddit.com difficult on mobile). Honestly, it's an improvement in my life. I don't know how I found myself spending so much time on it for so little benefit

yeah same. old.reddit still works okay sometimes but it is annoying for regular use

the mobile options are terrible.

happy to be done w/ it tbh.

Re: Anti-social: It's fads, not friends, which now dominate social media feeds

#498

Post by Atheros »

trumpdong wrote: post #484
trollbridge wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Comment threads are not “social media”, no matter how badly anyone wants to redefine that they are. They date back to the 1970s on USENET and mailing lists.

Why can't those things be social media?

Because the phrase 'social media' was coined to describe a very specific thing: people who know each other in real life communicating online about things happening to them in real life. There were and are plenty of other words you can use to accurately describe other things, like 'chat room', 'forum', or 'link aggregator'.

Re: Anti-social: It's fads, not friends, which now dominate social media feeds

#499

Post by duxup »

trumpdong wrote: post #494
duxup wrote: post #242

I remember trying bluesky and realizing it isn't just the services I don't like. I don't like ... what all the social media users like. The heavy memeification / gamification for attention. Trite posts, posts that seem like the middle of a conversation ... really all negative bits about internet discourse. But most everyone there likes it that way...

When I joined Bluesky (late 2024) it felt like Fox News from the opposite side. Every second post was saying how we have to hang in there through Trump, or Trump is #NotMyPresident, or a cartoon of Trump doing something stupid, or saying the Democrats should just do XYZ. I got bored quickly.

Somehow my typical filtering avoided the politics.

But it didn't really matter, the medium was just as bad.

Re: Anti-social: It's fads, not friends, which now dominate social media feeds

#500

Post by Atheros »

close04 wrote: post #82
dust-jacket wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

if you think social media just means any space online with multiple people in it, then I guess we just disagree on what social media is. Is the linux kernel mailing list social media? was usenet?

> if you think What do you think social media is? What are the clear criteria that make something social media, or make it not social media? If you know HN is not social media that you have a clear demarcation of what is.

Social media is a service where people who know each other in real life communicate mostly about things happening to them personally.

Online Publishing is process by which people, who largely don't know each other in real life, publish their content for others to consume via an online service.

A Link Aggregator is a service where people publish links to outside web services and users vote to establish the ranking on the aggregator.

The only reason any of this is debatable is because old social media sites like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter stopped being Social Media and switched to Online Publishing and people are having trouble updating their vocabulary.

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