Instagram Is Over • Hacker News Board

Re: Instagram Is Over

#51

Post by UweSchmidt » Sat, Dec 03, 2022, 5:44 PM UTC

nowherebeen wrote: post #3

Social products all have a lifetime value and it’s incredibly short. The same thing will also happen to TikTok one day. I suspect we will learn in the coming decades that social media companies are very profitable in the short term, but not so in the long term, say 20 years, unless the keep introducing new viral social products.

I think it's the opposite: lifetimes for well-established social products are getting longer. People left digg for reddit because of a redesign, people stay on Twitter despite an ideologic shift from left to right! Nerds switch platforms over minor perceived slights and switch Linux distributions over license-philosophies or systemd-controversies; normies stay with the herd, with the audience, with the likes and clicks.

Re: Instagram Is Over

#52

Post by 0_____0 » Sat, Dec 03, 2022, 5:45 PM UTC

viburnum wrote: post #27

“In other words, Instagram is giving us the ick: that feeling when a romantic partner or crush does something small but noticeable—like wearing a fedora—that immediately turns you off forever” This was so ridiculously judgmental that I couldn’t keep reading.

If it makes you feel any better, it's not the hat's fault.

Re: Instagram Is Over

#53

Post by TylerE » Sat, Dec 03, 2022, 5:45 PM UTC

Figures.

It recently passed the mom test. My 70-something mom signing up for something is a strong signal it has peaked.

Re: Instagram Is Over

#54

Post by thekyle » Sat, Dec 03, 2022, 5:46 PM UTC

rglullis wrote: post #33

BbzzbB wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are reasons why IG has 2B people, part of which is not charging $1/month.

There are many email providers who are quite profitable by charging just that and are not afraid of Gmail's absolute dominance.

If you use one of those smaller paid email providers you can still interact with people who use Gmail. If you tried to create a small Instagram competitor it's unlikely that Facebook would ever agree to federate with you.

Re: Instagram Is Over

#55

Post by Barrin92 » Sat, Dec 03, 2022, 5:48 PM UTC

haunter wrote: post #37

The Atlantic is more over than IG

unlike most digital apps The Atlantic has been around for almost 170 years. Based on that fact alone I'd give it a good shot to outlive not one but the next five to ten successors of IG.

Re: Instagram Is Over

#56

Post by syllablehq » Sat, Dec 03, 2022, 5:48 PM UTC

I think the key to a massively successful new social network will be a fallback API of just email/text.

Why not let your shiny new social network UI parse any dumb input into a fancy thread format? Zero adoption friction. Federation baked in.

Example: You run a mastodon-like service that can receive email. When it gets an email, it publishes a twirt with the contents. Truncates as needed.

If it's a new email address, spin up new user with email username. No password needed, cause it came from the email address you own.

Conversely, in the fancy interface, you can @soandso@gmail.com and it will email them for you. Doesn't matter if they've "joined twartordon." So it has a dumb-simple user growth model baked in.

I've been promoting this idea for years in the man-yells-at-clouds format, but folks don't seem to get why it's so powerful...

Re: Instagram Is Over

#57

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Dec 03, 2022, 5:48 PM UTC

[deleted]

Re: Instagram Is Over

#58

Post by slowmovintarget » Sat, Dec 03, 2022, 5:48 PM UTC

chrischen wrote: post #42

coolbreezetft22 wrote: post #32

Maybe I'm ignorant of what TikTok is but it seems to be mostly about video sharing and less about "social networking" with friends and family?? I also think TikTok has serious risks going forward re Chinese government. Already a lot of grumbling from lawmakers in US about banning it as CCP growing more belligerent in recent years whereas Facebook products aren't at all influenced by it.

Tiktok is short addictive videos from randos. Youtube is long addictive videos. Instagram and facebook is still primarily focused on content from people you know, though they are also trying to copy some of TikTok’s randos content via the Reels feature. At the end of the day they just want to get attention by giving content, whether using friends or essentially crowdsourcing. I prefer Netflix, because I’m paying them…

This reminds me of a related article discussed earlier: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32482523

The Three Trends:

1. Medium: text -> images -> video -> 3D graphics -> VR

2. AI: time -> rank -> recommend -> generate

3. UI: click -> scroll -> tap -> swipe -> autoplay

TikTok is at the video/recommend/swipe stage.

Re: Instagram Is Over

#59

Post by jsemrau » Sat, Dec 03, 2022, 5:50 PM UTC

coolbreezetft22 wrote: post #32

Maybe I'm ignorant of what TikTok is but it seems to be mostly about video sharing and less about "social networking" with friends and family?? I also think TikTok has serious risks going forward re Chinese government. Already a lot of grumbling from lawmakers in US about banning it as CCP growing more belligerent in recent years whereas Facebook products aren't at all influenced by it.

In my eyes, TikTok is a social entertainment app where simple user-generated content is created with the purpose to provide enjoyment. It's not focused on the needs of other users, but entirely about one's own needs. Hence, I call this new version of social Eigensocial.

Re: Instagram Is Over

#60

Post by winternett » Sat, Dec 03, 2022, 5:50 PM UTC

jrm4 wrote: post #47

In a very broad sense, I'm glad to see things like this happening; I think a (relatively) high rate of turnover in social media is probably orders of magnitude better and safer than "one app to rule them all, forever." It additionally makes me bullish on federated deals like Activitypub/Mastodon. It's funny that the above presently tend to be "lefty-crunchy-hippie" -- because, I think if corporations get it through t…

They keep starting out with a free service then they focus on turning it into a paid service... In Instagram's case, just like with Twitter and even TikTok now, they charge users for visibility, or they trickle it out just enough to make users constantly and feverishly ask what they're doing wrong. It's mental manipulation that just doesn't work, and the paid advertising format leads platforms to their death, but just like users keep posting, investors are flocking to put money onto the next social media platform.

I hope that independent web communities return, and that people start making their own web sites, tracking music and entertainment across multiple platforms and dealing with their content payola schemes and repetitive marketing is ruining everything fun and useful about the Internet.