Live data from Hacker News

The End of Social Media

miikavonbell.com

91–100 of 120 posts

Re: The End of Social Media

#91

Here is my take: content creators are the problem. When Friendster, MySpace,Facebook, et al started, it was about connecting friends online. People that already had a connection. When you shared something, you wanted to share something personal with friends. YouTube was about sharing your home videos. Not for money, but for actually sharing. What a strange concept! Then people noticed you can monetize their content.…

Nothing bad with creating fun stuff for profit. And over the last decade youtube creators has been providing content with quality way superior compared to what more traditional entertainment industry has been producing (mainly marvel junk food, low effort remakes and SNL)

>Nothing bad with creating fun stuff for profit.

I think that's an oversimplification of the issue. OPs main point (as I read it) was that once a profit motive became dominant, it pushed out enthusiast/passion-motivated content creators, and as a result the output is distorted towards that which is profitable.

Re: The End of Social Media

#92
post #30
post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But do we really need to know breaking news, instantly? It becomes addicting; it especially was for me during the last administration. I’m completely fine finding out a few hours later about a breaking news story that doesn’t have a material effect on my immediate safety (ie wild fires). If Twitter’s biggest justification is that it lets you stay up to speed on news in real-time, I’d still agree we are better off wit…

> do we really need to know breaking news, instantly? There are good reasons, although I share your general concern. E.g., if you believe that you may be affected by an event, or if it's important/relevant enough that others will start to frame how it's perceived, it's generally good to find out about it as it's happening. On the other hand, the vast majority of trending events aren't worth being concerned about for…

If I need to know as it is happening there should be sirens going off outside in my town to alert me to that. Everything else can wait.

Re: The End of Social Media

#93
post #86

I believe blogging will have a Renaissance since it has all the benefits from "social networks" but excluding the ads, the unnecessary "likes", and focus on the fundamentals which are sharing and discussing, just like forums, but blogs will be about individuals mainly.

The issue is that its not 2005 anymore. An organic blog that doesn't play the SEO game will just be buried by the millions of junk websites that play that game, and won't get traction like they did in the era where searching for a topic on the internet brought up relevent nonspam results.

That is a bug in search engines though, not in blogs.

Re: The End of Social Media

#94

Most instagram ads are more entertaining and insightful than this article. Advertising is actually about educating the consumer for many products, and I think we're moving more toward personal ads that don't feel like ads. Sometimes you come across an ad that helps you or even changes your life. Things like new games, books or ideas. This article has nothing to do with the end of social media.

> Advertising is actually about educating the consumer for many products, and I think we're moving more toward personal ads that don't feel like ads.

They try to make consumer to buy the product in all means. Which means, that this education is often very far away from facts in the most of the cases.

Re: The End of Social Media

#95
post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> and you probably don't want to see it. Hard disagree. I want to see everything from everyone I follow in a specific newest-to-oldest order. I also don't want to see other shit in my feed (X liked Y, who to follow, whatever), but I'm fine with having it outside of the main feed (be it a sidebar or a click away). I also want to "tag" my follows into lists (family, close friends, topic X, topic Y), allowing me to filt…

Exactly this. I WANT to see all those pictures friends and family are posting of their kids going back to school, or of their dog doing whatever. That is the point of social media, to someone keep in touch with the goings-on of family that lives far away. I actually like to read their personal opinions and thoughts they write on things, even when I disagree with them. (its interesting to see things from others point…

At least Instagram algorithm is going towards direction where this is not possible. It might hide content from persons which you have followed, if you haven’t liked or reacted their posts in the past. It wants to show the most appealing content.

Re: The End of Social Media

#96
post #92
post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> do we really need to know breaking news, instantly? There are good reasons, although I share your general concern. E.g., if you believe that you may be affected by an event, or if it's important/relevant enough that others will start to frame how it's perceived, it's generally good to find out about it as it's happening. On the other hand, the vast majority of trending events aren't worth being concerned about for…

If I need to know as it is happening there should be sirens going off outside in my town to alert me to that. Everything else can wait.

Plenty of these ”breaking news” are also heavily missleading. Causing side effects and heavy opinions, regardless if truth comes later. It is too late then.

Re: The End of Social Media

#97
post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This book [1] argues that average IQ has been significantly increasing over the past century, and supports the claim with a wide variety of evidence. However the author also posits that whether intelligence is increasing is still controversial and difficult to prove conclusively. [1] Are We Getting Smarter?: Rising IQ in the Twenty-First Century https://books.google.com/books?id=Z_-ykOVpRccC

I wonder how well we are able to maintain focus relative to years past, what with the mental damage of consuming content in thirty second or so intervals for long chunks of time for years and years. My internet addiction as a teenager 15 years ago was bad enough, if I grew up with fast paced junk like TikTok I feel like I would probably develop ADD just from the rewiring process that happens while growing up coupled…

Adult with ADHD here: You would not develop ADD from media. That's not how this works. The fact that devs have found ways to design sites that mimic patterns for addiction doesn't mean it's the people. It's the things. If you suddenly found yourself removed from the stimuli, you'd be fine, no longer the exposure period. I will not.

Since our jumping off point was "people are getting dumber"(they aren't) I just want to point out people aren't also developing ADHD, they just have more things vying for their neurtypical brain's attention.

Re: The End of Social Media

#98
post #93
post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The issue is that its not 2005 anymore. An organic blog that doesn't play the SEO game will just be buried by the millions of junk websites that play that game, and won't get traction like they did in the era where searching for a topic on the internet brought up relevent nonspam results.

That is a bug in search engines though, not in blogs.

It's the way the internet is now, though, and it makes it so that is harder for average people to find and read and write blogs than it was years ago. In other words, it's tough going back to horses when all the stables in the city are gas stations now.

Re: The End of Social Media

#99
I completely agree with the author's rants on machine learning algorithm.

> consuming content through internet has become more and more manipulative.

This is 100% true. With those ML-based "personalized" info feed, users keep getting pushed biased information that matches their prejudice and is not a reflection of the true picture.

I'm actually dubious that what fraction of the pro-Trump conspiracy theorists had developed their conspiracy views "thanks to" Facebook et al's ML-based info suggestion algorithms.

Re: The End of Social Media

#100
post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> and you probably don't want to see it. Hard disagree. I want to see everything from everyone I follow in a specific newest-to-oldest order. I also don't want to see other shit in my feed (X liked Y, who to follow, whatever), but I'm fine with having it outside of the main feed (be it a sidebar or a click away). I also want to "tag" my follows into lists (family, close friends, topic X, topic Y), allowing me to filt…

RSS works well for this. I follow youtube channels and other media on RSS and its chronological, all in one place, and I can group or filter them however I like.

I'm gonna be honest, I do use RSS, but I dread it due to a) not every website supporting it, b) random sites having feeds that are way too noisy, c) liking one category of posts or one author and failing to extract those posts only, or d) random people I like publishing on multiple websites.

Now I can get around it with a ton of effort, but it will break sooner or later, which is why why I find Twitter/Mastodon lists far more useful and flexible.

Post reply on HN