Evaluation of TikTok vs. Instagram Reels(surgehq.ai)
surgehq.ai
Evaluation of TikTok vs. Instagram Reels
https://www.surgehq.ai//blog/tiktok-vs-instagram-reels-personalized-human-evaluation
273 comments
As a millennial I can tell you exactly why TikTok is better:
1. The Reels algorithm is simplistic as fuck. I was scrolling through Instagram recently and a three reel “ad” came up. I accidentally tapped on the center one and it turned out to be a pimple popping video. Now every reel I see is that. No exceptions. I am sure if I actually watched more Reels I would get better content but that’s work.
2. Reels are often poor quality. What I see is mostly life hacks that are actually really stupid or jokes that never pay off.
3. TikTok has a creator culture that seems far superior to Reels. What Facebook/Instagram seem to fail to realize is that the problem they have isn’t a lack of a video platform but rather a lack culture. TikTok somehow did foster a really cool culture of people creating content, perhaps using their stitches feature.
4. Instagram is a photo sharing platform. Imagine if every other thing you saw on TikTok was a still photo. It would be jarring. That’s the current experience with reels.
5. I don’t know if this is actually true but it feels to me that you can get a lot more exposure quickly on TikTok than with Reels. I don’t post TikTok videos but know enough people who do and it seems they are very much able to get tens of thousands of views with minimal effort and while being relatively new to the platform. I don’t think you can get those numbers with Reels.
6. TikTok nailed ads. They are obvious, easy to skip, and not jarring at all. Instagram is a mess.
7. I come to Instagram to seek specific kind of content from my friends. I get reels from total strangers. I come to TikTok to get lols from random strangers and sometimes see friends. This is very personal but this is a major reason for me to use both and to dislike Reels.
1. The Reels algorithm is simplistic as fuck. I was scrolling through Instagram recently and a three reel “ad” came up. I accidentally tapped on the center one and it turned out to be a pimple popping video. Now every reel I see is that. No exceptions. I am sure if I actually watched more Reels I would get better content but that’s work.
2. Reels are often poor quality. What I see is mostly life hacks that are actually really stupid or jokes that never pay off.
3. TikTok has a creator culture that seems far superior to Reels. What Facebook/Instagram seem to fail to realize is that the problem they have isn’t a lack of a video platform but rather a lack culture. TikTok somehow did foster a really cool culture of people creating content, perhaps using their stitches feature.
4. Instagram is a photo sharing platform. Imagine if every other thing you saw on TikTok was a still photo. It would be jarring. That’s the current experience with reels.
5. I don’t know if this is actually true but it feels to me that you can get a lot more exposure quickly on TikTok than with Reels. I don’t post TikTok videos but know enough people who do and it seems they are very much able to get tens of thousands of views with minimal effort and while being relatively new to the platform. I don’t think you can get those numbers with Reels.
6. TikTok nailed ads. They are obvious, easy to skip, and not jarring at all. Instagram is a mess.
7. I come to Instagram to seek specific kind of content from my friends. I get reels from total strangers. I come to TikTok to get lols from random strangers and sometimes see friends. This is very personal but this is a major reason for me to use both and to dislike Reels.
> 1. The Reels algorithm is simplistic as fuck. I was scrolling through Instagram recently and a three reel “ad” came up. I accidentally tapped on the center one and it turned out to be a pimple popping video. Now every reel I see is that. No exceptions. I am sure if I actually watched more Reels I would get better content but that’s work.
OMG this... a million times this :/. YouTube has similar issues--where you watch one video from some sitcom or cartoon not because it was from that particular show but because it happened to be about something interesting and suddenly YouTube is SURE you LOVE that show and want EVERYTHING IT HAS about that show--but it isn't quite so bad as Instagram, where I've heard a ton of stories about ending up pigeonholed by its algorithm into something they have a phobia for or past trauma related to, and now they are afraid to use the app, because it really does feel like you click on one pimple popping video (which has come up as the SPECIFIC issue for MULTIPLE people I've talked to, INCLUDING MYSELF a while ago) and BAM the app is now nothing but pimples being popped, 24/7.
OMG this... a million times this :/. YouTube has similar issues--where you watch one video from some sitcom or cartoon not because it was from that particular show but because it happened to be about something interesting and suddenly YouTube is SURE you LOVE that show and want EVERYTHING IT HAS about that show--but it isn't quite so bad as Instagram, where I've heard a ton of stories about ending up pigeonholed by its algorithm into something they have a phobia for or past trauma related to, and now they are afraid to use the app, because it really does feel like you click on one pimple popping video (which has come up as the SPECIFIC issue for MULTIPLE people I've talked to, INCLUDING MYSELF a while ago) and BAM the app is now nothing but pimples being popped, 24/7.
It's the dreaded "more of the same shit" algorithm that people confuse with deep learning and AI. The sad reality is that recommendation teams in these companies maintain some ugly gobbled together if .. else logic rather than a proper recommendation engine. Proper recommendation engines are hard. That's why recommendations change dramatically if you just use a vpn or travel. The IP address based geo location trumps everything else they might know about you. That's because there's a big if else around whatever other logic they have.
Add promoted content/ads to the mix that they are paid to promote and you end up with a mix of content that is primarily based on where you are, what they want to pimp in that region, and more of the same shit you were clicking on anyway; more or less in that order. The exact same shit quite often actually. Even filtering that out seems hard.
They are incentivized by ad clicks, not by your amusement. That's the business mistake that allows Tiktok to prosper because they are still trying to grow at the expense of their competition which means that they are in fact incentivized by your amusement as observed through your addictive behavior in the form of content clicks.
Instagram was like that once. And then Facebook bought them and started messing it up. Facebook was once like that until Facebook became an advertising company. The mistake that gets made over and over again in this space is that at some point they think they've won and start milking their network for revenue. The process of doing that destroys and erodes that network and something else pops up that is more interesting for users.
Tik Tok is doomed to go there too. Just a matter of time. It's irresistible for shareholders and advertisers. They'll get dollar signs in their eyes and they'll mess it up.
Add promoted content/ads to the mix that they are paid to promote and you end up with a mix of content that is primarily based on where you are, what they want to pimp in that region, and more of the same shit you were clicking on anyway; more or less in that order. The exact same shit quite often actually. Even filtering that out seems hard.
They are incentivized by ad clicks, not by your amusement. That's the business mistake that allows Tiktok to prosper because they are still trying to grow at the expense of their competition which means that they are in fact incentivized by your amusement as observed through your addictive behavior in the form of content clicks.
Instagram was like that once. And then Facebook bought them and started messing it up. Facebook was once like that until Facebook became an advertising company. The mistake that gets made over and over again in this space is that at some point they think they've won and start milking their network for revenue. The process of doing that destroys and erodes that network and something else pops up that is more interesting for users.
Tik Tok is doomed to go there too. Just a matter of time. It's irresistible for shareholders and advertisers. They'll get dollar signs in their eyes and they'll mess it up.
>It's the dreaded "more of the same shit" algorithm
This problem of not-enough-novelty in YouTube's recommendations is exactly why I am working on a team to develop alternative YouTube recommendations. Search a channel name to get a list of similar channels.
As an example: our recommendations for Tesla's channel includes James Locke, a small channel (~10k subscribers) with a researcher working on Full Self Driving for Tesla vehicles. There are also dozens of Tesla driving, electrification, and investing channels along with channels for some of Musk's other companies like The Boring Company on the list:
https://channelgalaxy.com/id%3DUC5WjFrtBdufl6CZojX3D8dQ/
This problem of not-enough-novelty in YouTube's recommendations is exactly why I am working on a team to develop alternative YouTube recommendations. Search a channel name to get a list of similar channels.
As an example: our recommendations for Tesla's channel includes James Locke, a small channel (~10k subscribers) with a researcher working on Full Self Driving for Tesla vehicles. There are also dozens of Tesla driving, electrification, and investing channels along with channels for some of Musk's other companies like The Boring Company on the list:
https://channelgalaxy.com/id%3DUC5WjFrtBdufl6CZojX3D8dQ/
Proper recommendation engines are hard
Recommendations are hard in general, if at all possible in a meaningful way.
Idk why everyone is so focused on feeding a user from a spoon when they are adult and can explore by themselves. Just give them the option to explore North-West instead of a stupid slit facing 312° which they accidentally picked as an initial direction.
Recommendations are hard in general, if at all possible in a meaningful way.
Idk why everyone is so focused on feeding a user from a spoon when they are adult and can explore by themselves. Just give them the option to explore North-West instead of a stupid slit facing 312° which they accidentally picked as an initial direction.
I’ve always wondered why they are so bad at learning such an obvious lesson from their supposed biggest threat. TikTok seems to always mix it up; even if you do actually want to watch pimple popping 24/7, they seem to throw in some totally unrelated thing once in a while. Turns out people easily find things they didn’t even know they would enjoy this way, and when they have many interests, their feeds are way more engaging.
What’s so hard about randomizing 10-20% of the time?
What’s so hard about randomizing 10-20% of the time?
TikTok seems the only one who actually put thought about it, because that's exactly the beef I have with Spotify as well. You play a "song radio" and find a new song so you move to that other song radio but only to get exactly the same list maybe shuffled a bit. Somehow they create bubbles of content and that's it, no way out. At least on Spotify you can change bubbles, while on YouTube good luck.
It's probably really easy, it's just crazy that they don't seem to want to. I could imagine them chasing the local maximum.
> you watch one video from some sitcom or cartoon not because it was from that particular show but because it happened to be about something interesting and suddenly YouTube is SURE you LOVE that show and want EVERYTHING IT HAS about that show
Extremely relevant Ryan George Youtube skit about this[1]. Once you click it, Youtube will probably want to show you nothing but Ryan George videos, but that's not a bad thing.
[1]: https://youtu.be/d8fJPvXyfc0
Extremely relevant Ryan George Youtube skit about this[1]. Once you click it, Youtube will probably want to show you nothing but Ryan George videos, but that's not a bad thing.
[1]: https://youtu.be/d8fJPvXyfc0
I actually used this accidentally to my advantage on Insta. I accidentally clicked on a fashion ad and now EVERY ad is fashion-something, which is the last thing I would ever care about.
Now I can easily spot any ad instantly because Insta is too stupid to realize NOTHING else I interact with has to do with fashion but because of that one time a year ago, they keep trying and I can quickly skip it.
Now I can easily spot any ad instantly because Insta is too stupid to realize NOTHING else I interact with has to do with fashion but because of that one time a year ago, they keep trying and I can quickly skip it.
I had one of those crop up in the reels carousel and freaked out because I very nearly tapped it by accident because there's no way to undo algorithm views on IG*
I'm as disgusted with the managers who think it's ok to push that content to people as I am with the content itself.
* FYI on YouTube I've had decent success correcting the algorithm if you go in and remove the video that started it from your watch history.
I'm as disgusted with the managers who think it's ok to push that content to people as I am with the content itself.
* FYI on YouTube I've had decent success correcting the algorithm if you go in and remove the video that started it from your watch history.
The reason I haven't deleted Instagram yet is because the algorithm is so bad it's as if there isn't one at all. It makes it much easier to break the dopamine cycle and not feel addicted. I spend half my time on there telling it that I don't like what it's showing me and I still get the same crap in my feed over and over.
> 6. TikTok nailed ads. They are obvious, easy to skip, and not jarring at all. Instagram is a mess.
Did they really nail ads or could it perhaps just be that they still consider themselves in a growth phase (perhaps depending on market) where they deliberately try to not use them as hard as they think they could?
Did they really nail ads or could it perhaps just be that they still consider themselves in a growth phase (perhaps depending on market) where they deliberately try to not use them as hard as they think they could?
A lot of the TikTok users that I follow are now getting sponsored to do ads as part of their regular content, and I will typically watch it because I am interested in the person and therefore interested in how they execute an advertisement. Win/win/win.
> I don’t think you can get those numbers with Reels.
Can you even watch a reel without an account? Because I know I can't watch stories and after clicking one or two pictures my IP is blocked entirely from Instagram for x hours.
I don't have this problem if someone sends me a TikTok link.
Can you even watch a reel without an account? Because I know I can't watch stories and after clicking one or two pictures my IP is blocked entirely from Instagram for x hours.
I don't have this problem if someone sends me a TikTok link.
5. You can get a lot of exposure on tiktok whereas on Instagram they intentionally lower your organic exposure down to where it's now 1% or so of people who follow you who actually see your posts. Of course people are not going to post on Instagram then.
> Reels are often poor quality. What I see is mostly life hacks that are actually really stupid or jokes that never pay off
I keep seeing obviously reposted popular tiktok videos. The same ones, over and over again but with different accounts. Same on YouTube shorts.
I keep seeing obviously reposted popular tiktok videos. The same ones, over and over again but with different accounts. Same on YouTube shorts.
I agree with all of this and I think the only thing I would add is that Tiktok understood the assignment was to be a mobile app. Everything about Tiktok is streamlined for mobile from the menus, to the time allotments, to a myriad of other design choices. Mobile is the future and, while I don't mean this to be snide towards pc enthusiasts, I find that a lot of people in my generation (millenials) and farther back just cannot comprehend how enjoyable a well designed mobile experience can be because they're stuck in old mindsets and habits. But Gen Z is growing up with phones that don't suck in their hands and the status quo of 'good enough' mobile apps is eventually going to be subverted by apps like TikTok imo that actually embrace mobile as a valid primary medium and not just as a lucrative lowest-common-denominator market.
> a lack culture. TikTok somehow did foster a really cool culture of people creating content
they were the only place you could post and share a video of yourself dancing / lip-syncing along to licensed music without getting DMCA'd
they were the only place you could post and share a video of yourself dancing / lip-syncing along to licensed music without getting DMCA'd
> I am sure if I actually watched more Reels I would get better content but that's work.
Yes, you in fact get better recommendation as you use it more.
Reading HN, sometimes it feels like I must be the only one in the world enjoying good recommendations from both YouTube and Instagram. I do have many thousands of watches and likes on YouTube and Instagram, but it didn't feel like work, because I accumulated them over years of use.
Yes, you in fact get better recommendation as you use it more.
Reading HN, sometimes it feels like I must be the only one in the world enjoying good recommendations from both YouTube and Instagram. I do have many thousands of watches and likes on YouTube and Instagram, but it didn't feel like work, because I accumulated them over years of use.
1. Is on point. I’m just a hobby photographer and follow some people for inspiration. I clicked on a comic from the discover page at one point and after that all the recommendations were just random Reddit like comics and posts. Same was when I randomly saw a picture of a tattoo and after that I only had tattoo pictures and reels in the discover section. It’s insane how bad it is.
I agree with all of this except for TikTok ads being obvious. To me, it is not at all obvious which ones have the little "sponsored" at the bottom.
I feel like TikTok took the Vine idea to its natural extent. Meanwhile Facebook/Meta shoehorning Snap & TikTok features into Instagram ruined Instagram and wasted their lead.
Many big tech companies don't perform real R&D, instead they're fast-followers - piggybacking off whatever their competitors do, but the truth is that "disruption should come from within" because letting a competitor design your next product feature is f'n foolish (we see this a lot with consumer hardware too).
Imagine if Facebook/Meta actually focussed on Instagram's core strengths, and had cultivated a proper community or reason for being (e.g like YouTube or Twitch), rather than just spending all that time thinking about how they can squeeze more ad revenue: sure they might have not have had such big short-term ad sales, but Instagram would have found its feet and not have been so easily disrupted - heck, this might have led to innovative ways of advertising: two-birds-with-one-stone imagine that! (/s)
I think I speak for many when I say this is a core frustration with Facebook/Meta. There is nothing exciting coming out of their company because they don't make new ideas* and that leaves themselves open to disruption. By being too focused on ad revenue their acquisitions haven't progressed since day one, instead each looks like a Frankenstein's monster of the same app but with loads of ads and competitor's features bolted on.
* Even the much hyped metaverse isn't offering anything new.
Many big tech companies don't perform real R&D, instead they're fast-followers - piggybacking off whatever their competitors do, but the truth is that "disruption should come from within" because letting a competitor design your next product feature is f'n foolish (we see this a lot with consumer hardware too).
Imagine if Facebook/Meta actually focussed on Instagram's core strengths, and had cultivated a proper community or reason for being (e.g like YouTube or Twitch), rather than just spending all that time thinking about how they can squeeze more ad revenue: sure they might have not have had such big short-term ad sales, but Instagram would have found its feet and not have been so easily disrupted - heck, this might have led to innovative ways of advertising: two-birds-with-one-stone imagine that! (/s)
I think I speak for many when I say this is a core frustration with Facebook/Meta. There is nothing exciting coming out of their company because they don't make new ideas* and that leaves themselves open to disruption. By being too focused on ad revenue their acquisitions haven't progressed since day one, instead each looks like a Frankenstein's monster of the same app but with loads of ads and competitor's features bolted on.
* Even the much hyped metaverse isn't offering anything new.
Kind of funny when somebody talks about having PM experience from Meta... Bro, you didn't do anything at all.
Yeah, what happened to Vine? I haven't heard that name for quite some time.
Twitter just turned it off one day a few years ago. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
It actually blows my mind how Twitter decided to kill Vine when it was very clear that they had an amazing opportunity. Vine was still very popular when they axed it especially considering how many of the popular TikTok and YouTube creators today were originally big on Vine.
Starting to wonder if it was bias towards what they consider "valuable" users on Twitter e.g increasingly irrelevant celebrities, literal twitter addicts and journalists and how they didn't use it. Rather than understanding they could build the breeding ground for the next round of creators/celebs/influencers.
I wonder if that is part of the reason @jack is no longer the CEO
> I think this effort to chase TikTok isn't going to pan out because "regular" people aren't posting to Instagram.
For me that isn't the case - I follow mostly "regular" people and enjoy it, but...
The problem I have with Instagram is that when I open the app I want to see the photos that people I've followed have posted since I last opened, it in time order. Yet It's quite a struggle not to see reels or suggested posts or people posting spam. 50% of the time I open IG the first post shown to me is from a hashtag I follow but its an image of an attractive young women with a very loose connection to the hashtag.
By copying other successful paradigms within IG and FB, Meta are destroying what remains of the products and users they have. I occasionally use TikTok but don't want to see a weak version of it on IG
For me that isn't the case - I follow mostly "regular" people and enjoy it, but...
The problem I have with Instagram is that when I open the app I want to see the photos that people I've followed have posted since I last opened, it in time order. Yet It's quite a struggle not to see reels or suggested posts or people posting spam. 50% of the time I open IG the first post shown to me is from a hashtag I follow but its an image of an attractive young women with a very loose connection to the hashtag.
By copying other successful paradigms within IG and FB, Meta are destroying what remains of the products and users they have. I occasionally use TikTok but don't want to see a weak version of it on IG
This is an issue that is killing FB/Insta and I am not sure why nobody in Meta seems to get this. Apps attract people with certain expectations and mindset. When I want to login to FB/Insta, I want to see posts from people I know. Unfortunately, I made a mistake to like posts from few groups and that was basically the end of my newsfeed. Now all I get is posts from the grops from random people. Eventually it becomes same-old same-old and you quit.
But here's the most braindead thing FB has done: They actually have feature called "show first" which I tried to use it to force FB show posts from friends and not from groups. But some PM there probably made decision that this is not a good idea and forced to limit to only 30 people! So, now when I log in to FB, I get few posts from 30 people and then it's garbage from groups again.
It is beyond me how no one can see these issue there.
But here's the most braindead thing FB has done: They actually have feature called "show first" which I tried to use it to force FB show posts from friends and not from groups. But some PM there probably made decision that this is not a good idea and forced to limit to only 30 people! So, now when I log in to FB, I get few posts from 30 people and then it's garbage from groups again.
It is beyond me how no one can see these issue there.
Ironically by pushing Reels so hard Instagram has been TikTok's best promoter. A large portion of reels have a TikTok watermark.
TikTok is banned in India now, but when it was active, my feed was filled with content from daily wage labourers, farmers, and people living in small towns and villages. It was unpolished stuff but delightfully sincere and fun.
Reels just feels way too urbane and polished. Just not the same vibe.
Reels just feels way too urbane and polished. Just not the same vibe.
I think there's something profoundly beautiful about teenagers living in tin roof shacks on the other side of the world from kids living in million dollar houses doing the same dances/memes/etc, as if they are equal peers. Maybe there's something for us adults to learn here?
The problem with asking "actual users" in this way, is that it fundamentally ties the user's pre-existing conception of these apps to their responses. If a user had been served the same content on Reels that they were on TikTok, it's difficult to see them having the same reaction.
An actual scientific experiment would have like recently fallen away Amish teens compare these apps having never used them.
or present them with the videos through some kind of neutral UI
the UI itself can be tested separately
the UI itself can be tested separately
But they weren't? You can't just discount Reels having worse content.
> My theory has been that people have been conditioned out of posting to Instagram (if you don't have a literally perfect life, then why post) and as a result Instagram just has less content to draw upon. I think this effort to chase TikTok isn't going to pan out because "regular" people aren't posting to Instagram.
This is a good observation. From my IG acquaintances too, it seems that only those with instagrammable lives are the ones still posting. The guy who does scenic hikes, the girl who goes to the exciting parties, those with perfect bodies. The occasional wedding or graduation photo. Many others have stopped posting pictures completely or sporadically post photos.
This is a good observation. From my IG acquaintances too, it seems that only those with instagrammable lives are the ones still posting. The guy who does scenic hikes, the girl who goes to the exciting parties, those with perfect bodies. The occasional wedding or graduation photo. Many others have stopped posting pictures completely or sporadically post photos.
Maybe TikTok trains on product data and validates on expert human rater data? This is a strategy that search engines used to use. Maybe they still do, but they used to too.
[deleted]
> If Instagram wants to capture TikTok's magical human touch, it needs to measure and optimize for something deeper.
I think this is really funny. The conclusion I would draw is slightly different - that Instagram isn't Tiktok and it's never going to be Tiktok. You can make Instagram's algorithm exactly like Tiktok and it still won't be like Tiktok because the users and content creators on Tiktok aren't on Instagram, they're not going to join instagram and the content creators you already have will leave.
Given this feedback cycle I find it quite interesting that Facebook don't have a team of engineers just constantly building and launching new social media sites. Just massively raise the odds that the thing that displaces facebook is also owned by facebook.
I think this is really funny. The conclusion I would draw is slightly different - that Instagram isn't Tiktok and it's never going to be Tiktok. You can make Instagram's algorithm exactly like Tiktok and it still won't be like Tiktok because the users and content creators on Tiktok aren't on Instagram, they're not going to join instagram and the content creators you already have will leave.
Given this feedback cycle I find it quite interesting that Facebook don't have a team of engineers just constantly building and launching new social media sites. Just massively raise the odds that the thing that displaces facebook is also owned by facebook.
TikTok is just AI/ML engagement algorithms unleashed, they never gave into the backlash that YouTube and Facebook did after the 2016 election and just continued optimizing purely for engagement metrics.
US tech companies dumbed down their own content algorithms and are somehow shocked that they are now getting destroyed. Social media is a drug, TikTok is providing the purest form right now
US tech companies dumbed down their own content algorithms and are somehow shocked that they are now getting destroyed. Social media is a drug, TikTok is providing the purest form right now
I get the impression that TikTok--due in no small part to its Chinese origin--also has an army of people explicitly moderating the community and re-weighting content, whether for reasons we might consider good or bad. I thereby really don't think it is fair to call it "AI/ML engagement algorithms unleashed", and I don't think it has any chance of falling into the content tarpits of YouTube (as extremist content would be removed or shadowbanned by humans) or Instagram (as low-effort content farms are essentially non-existent due to the moderation)... but, they also had a major scandal a couple years ago when we learned they were actively telling their moderators to filter out people who looked too ugly, poor, or disabled :/.
https://theintercept.com/2020/03/16/tiktok-app-moderators-us...
> The makers of TikTok, the Chinese video-sharing app with hundreds of millions of users around the world, instructed moderators to suppress posts created by users deemed too ugly, poor, or disabled for the platform, according to internal documents obtained by The Intercept. These same documents show moderators were also told to censor political speech in TikTok livestreams, punishing those who harmed “national honor” or broadcast streams about “state organs such as police” with bans from the platform.
https://theintercept.com/2020/03/16/tiktok-app-moderators-us...
> The makers of TikTok, the Chinese video-sharing app with hundreds of millions of users around the world, instructed moderators to suppress posts created by users deemed too ugly, poor, or disabled for the platform, according to internal documents obtained by The Intercept. These same documents show moderators were also told to censor political speech in TikTok livestreams, punishing those who harmed “national honor” or broadcast streams about “state organs such as police” with bans from the platform.
This; and they have a legion of well educated MLEs in China working for much less in a cut throat competitive environment
This is wrong. When supply of world-class talent is low, the price of said talent goes up, not down. https://web.archive.org/web/20200831135137/https://www.bloom...
I have friends in China. At Douyin (China) there's a general resentment towards Tiktok (overseas, esp US), at the same level the folks at home are paid much less.
Also, the big TC numbers (for most ICs, not sure about high level execs) are mostly inflated illiquid RSUs.
Also, the big TC numbers (for most ICs, not sure about high level execs) are mostly inflated illiquid RSUs.
yes...this is the trending HN narrative. but do you have any evidence to support this take?
i read certain takes on HN soo often i start to feel i know them for fact, but do we really? Some of them are probably very wrong. Why couldnt tiktok just be doing the same things as meta, but a whole lot better?
The weird thing is, it wasn't long ago when HN was praising TikTok for feeling refreshing and quirky and reminding them of the creativity they missed on the "old web." How this place can sometimes turn on a dime...
For me, the amount of ads and the forced non-sensical recommendations have totally killed my interest in instagram. Right now it's flooded by AI-generated imagery accounts, that if you click on such an item once, you get a ton of these forced down your feed. It's as bad as Youtube with regards to that. With TikTok I can safely venture outside of my interests without having to redo my 'flavour profile'.
You can mark a post "not interested", which helps a lot.
The building and launching approach makes intuitive sense, but it runs against the feudal nature of large tech companies.
This point is perhaps clearer if we take Google as an example instead. Mid-level engineers attach themselves to a project or initiate it, then guide it past a certain point. Once promotion is secured, the project is dropped by its initiators. Staffed with lower-status engineers who were enrolled without the prospect of promotion, the project begins a gradual rot and the Google graveyard deepens.
The key concept here is that the projects are launched and fueled at the start explicitly for the chance of promotion. In the strategy you describe, with Facebook higher-ups mandating the top-down creation of various projects as part of the global strategy of the company, it would become risky for mid-level engineers to ever get involved. They would not have their names connected with the success of the projects as higher-ups would have imprinted themselves on it beforehand, but would be connected to its failure, whereas in the Google scene the 'moonshot' culture is well-established and limits this sort of blame. Due to massive opportunity costs, Facebook employees would be better off trying to get promoted through the traditional channels, or to quit and pursue the promising ideas themselves and hope to get bought out eventually.
This point is perhaps clearer if we take Google as an example instead. Mid-level engineers attach themselves to a project or initiate it, then guide it past a certain point. Once promotion is secured, the project is dropped by its initiators. Staffed with lower-status engineers who were enrolled without the prospect of promotion, the project begins a gradual rot and the Google graveyard deepens.
The key concept here is that the projects are launched and fueled at the start explicitly for the chance of promotion. In the strategy you describe, with Facebook higher-ups mandating the top-down creation of various projects as part of the global strategy of the company, it would become risky for mid-level engineers to ever get involved. They would not have their names connected with the success of the projects as higher-ups would have imprinted themselves on it beforehand, but would be connected to its failure, whereas in the Google scene the 'moonshot' culture is well-established and limits this sort of blame. Due to massive opportunity costs, Facebook employees would be better off trying to get promoted through the traditional channels, or to quit and pursue the promising ideas themselves and hope to get bought out eventually.
I don't get what's wrong with running a social media company that caters towards older people. Not everything has to be geared for 15-35 year olds. Presumably younger people will age into this product so it's not like the user base will literally die off. For instance, once you have a kid and people start using facebook to coordinate and communicate, you're kind of forced on it. As more people you know are on it, you're more likely to engage. If anything, the younger crowd is more ephemeral and likely to move on.
I get that advertisers pay more to target a younger audience, but that's fine. It's offset by less competition in the space targeting older people
I get that advertisers pay more to target a younger audience, but that's fine. It's offset by less competition in the space targeting older people
I'm not sure younger people do age into a social media product. To give an example, I'm about the youngest (~35) that my cohort still uses facebook. people slightly younger than myself (~30) tend to use whatsapp and google calendar for the useful functions of Facebook and instagram for doomscrolling. They have no reason to switch, except if someone slightly older is 'pulling' them towards the platform. But the only time I've seen that happen is on facebook marketplace, where they're interacting primarily with strangers.
I don't think social media is like a minivan, where a different lifestyle suddenly makes it make sense to switch. People are on social media for the other people that are there, I don't see the incentive the other people would have to migrate at a certain age, seems more likely they'd change how they use it (as indeed happened with Facebook). Maybe I'm misunderstanding your premise?
I don't think social media is like a minivan, where a different lifestyle suddenly makes it make sense to switch. People are on social media for the other people that are there, I don't see the incentive the other people would have to migrate at a certain age, seems more likely they'd change how they use it (as indeed happened with Facebook). Maybe I'm misunderstanding your premise?
I think social media totally could be like a minivan if the companies took it seriously and built tools for folks at different stages in their lives. Instead they seem to be locked into chasing the youngest people and the most mindshare, always.
In my life a lot of the reason folks got off FB was 1. the experience became trash and 2. the brand became toxic. Neither of these things are about folks moving to the better, newer social network just cuz that's where everybody was.
In general I think the social media companies have no actual vision but are spooked about becoming the next Friendster/MySpace so they constantly react, desperately trying to not become irrelevant.
I think also that figuring out something that works in social media is hard and somewhat random; absent a framework to help imagine new futures people will always become reactive and defensive. Of course SM companies have to frame that as innovation and convince their shareholders that "becoming tiktok" is somehow visionary and helpful because "yes we're losing eyeballs but we're going to double-down on what we do really well and learn from it because we think the future has space for many types of social media" doesn't convince shareholders.
Idk, rambling now, but so frustrated at the whole market.
In my life a lot of the reason folks got off FB was 1. the experience became trash and 2. the brand became toxic. Neither of these things are about folks moving to the better, newer social network just cuz that's where everybody was.
In general I think the social media companies have no actual vision but are spooked about becoming the next Friendster/MySpace so they constantly react, desperately trying to not become irrelevant.
I think also that figuring out something that works in social media is hard and somewhat random; absent a framework to help imagine new futures people will always become reactive and defensive. Of course SM companies have to frame that as innovation and convince their shareholders that "becoming tiktok" is somehow visionary and helpful because "yes we're losing eyeballs but we're going to double-down on what we do really well and learn from it because we think the future has space for many types of social media" doesn't convince shareholders.
Idk, rambling now, but so frustrated at the whole market.
They do its the New Product Experimentation team. They've made a dozen+ apps and none of them have been successful. It's just not in their DNA to come up with interesting products at this point.
> it needs to measure and optimize for something deeper
I thought you were going to call this out. It should read "something more shallow"
I thought you were going to call this out. It should read "something more shallow"
you need a creative culture, not let code culture and ultra short term optimization, tiktok spend a lot of time and money making tools for creator, more than any other platform in a long shot.
Facebook just designs too much to data/metrics, doesn't feel like anyone there really has a vision for what they're building. End of the day without that everything they build will ultimately be soulless because building to the vision is what imparts soul into a product.
So many great products have been hamstrung by designing for the nearest-term metrics available. I don't understand why so many highly intelligent people keep making the same obvious (to the consumer) mistake.
Bad company culture. You can’t do anything new without explaining how it will have an immediate payoff.
> Just massively raise the odds that the thing that displaces facebook is also owned by facebook.
Nah. Buy the good ones early enough.
Nah. Buy the good ones early enough.
>because the users and content creators on Tiktok aren't on Instagram
Instagram's getting more and more of the creators--financial incentives. Why post on just Tiktok if you can make more money by posting on both?
I see similar arguments to this one a lot and frankly I don't see how anyone with an active social life can believe it to be true. The userbase for these platforms has massive crossover. Maybe it's a generational thing or something but I can gurantee you the socially active Gen Zers are on Insta and TikTok. If anything they'll be on both of those as well as Snapchat and Discord using each for particular types of social interaction. So the issue clearly isn't a locked in userbase.
So it must be the content creators right? But this is rediculous too! Because virtually every content creator worth a damn on TikTok will have a linked Instagram! What's more, many of them will often have a Linktree or similar url either in their profile description or linked on their insta that will include everything from YouTube, to Patreon, to OnlyFans. People who understand how to make money making content on these platforms aren't one trick ponies, they're using sophisticated marketing approaches that leverage the strengths of different online platforms to compensate for the fact they often have handle their own marketing.
So if the content of the knockoffs is bad or the creators arent finding the competition worth considering then the only question remaining I would argue is whether the problem is in the reccomendation system (TikTok was, and still is, famous with users for doing a solid job at this), the moderation system (TikTok, maybe because it's Chinese, is not so fixated on implementing the SJ nonsense that YouTube, FB, etc. pander to at the moderation level), or the compensation system (Again, probably because they care less about demonetizing you for wrongthink against whatever miniority or "important cause" is the pet of the week. Content competes primarily on its merits as likeable content).
In short, TikTok might have had an early mover advantage but the reason no one catches up in the current environment is because they can't get their heads out of the sand enough to realize it's their own fault no one entertaining wants to produce anything but TikTok reposts for them.
So it must be the content creators right? But this is rediculous too! Because virtually every content creator worth a damn on TikTok will have a linked Instagram! What's more, many of them will often have a Linktree or similar url either in their profile description or linked on their insta that will include everything from YouTube, to Patreon, to OnlyFans. People who understand how to make money making content on these platforms aren't one trick ponies, they're using sophisticated marketing approaches that leverage the strengths of different online platforms to compensate for the fact they often have handle their own marketing.
So if the content of the knockoffs is bad or the creators arent finding the competition worth considering then the only question remaining I would argue is whether the problem is in the reccomendation system (TikTok was, and still is, famous with users for doing a solid job at this), the moderation system (TikTok, maybe because it's Chinese, is not so fixated on implementing the SJ nonsense that YouTube, FB, etc. pander to at the moderation level), or the compensation system (Again, probably because they care less about demonetizing you for wrongthink against whatever miniority or "important cause" is the pet of the week. Content competes primarily on its merits as likeable content).
In short, TikTok might have had an early mover advantage but the reason no one catches up in the current environment is because they can't get their heads out of the sand enough to realize it's their own fault no one entertaining wants to produce anything but TikTok reposts for them.
Why bother doing that when you likely can just buy or copy it? Why doesn't Hatebook just make a new complete clone of TikTok, FlibFlab, and push that on users instead trying to half incorporate it into Insta that has a user base that wants to use it as it is?
I think this quote from a recent New Yorker article[1] sums up a subtle difference that’s easy to overlook. Topic has been on my mind a bit lately[2]:
“Chandlee, who spent more than twelve years at Mark Zuckerberg’s company before moving to TikTok, dismissed the idea [of concern over competition from Facebook]. “Facebook is a social platform. They’ve built all their algorithms based on the social graph,” he said, referring to the network of links to friends, family, and casual acquaintances that Facebook users painstakingly assemble over time. “We are an entertainment platform. The difference is significant.””
[1] https://www.newyorker.com/culture/cultural-comment/tiktok-an...
[2] self plug, short set of questions on the recent Instagram makeover flop: https://kvncnnlly.bearblog.dev/copy-to-copy-copy-to-change/
“Chandlee, who spent more than twelve years at Mark Zuckerberg’s company before moving to TikTok, dismissed the idea [of concern over competition from Facebook]. “Facebook is a social platform. They’ve built all their algorithms based on the social graph,” he said, referring to the network of links to friends, family, and casual acquaintances that Facebook users painstakingly assemble over time. “We are an entertainment platform. The difference is significant.””
[1] https://www.newyorker.com/culture/cultural-comment/tiktok-an...
[2] self plug, short set of questions on the recent Instagram makeover flop: https://kvncnnlly.bearblog.dev/copy-to-copy-copy-to-change/
I think Meta really screwed up by not creating a stand-alone Reels app and instead trying to integrate it with Instagram. As someone who doesn't really like Meta as a company, I would admittedly be interested in trying out a totally new video-centric app released by them.
But instead all they did was make instagram a little worse. I mean they already had instagram videos, shoe-horning a fifth tab at the bottom isn't what people wanted. Seems like a really corporate, safe way of trying to compete.
But instead all they did was make instagram a little worse. I mean they already had instagram videos, shoe-horning a fifth tab at the bottom isn't what people wanted. Seems like a really corporate, safe way of trying to compete.
It's also stopped me uploading video to Instagram because now "your video will be uploaded as a Reel" and controlling the "share to Facebook" permissions for Reels isn't possible via facebook.com, you have to use the iOS app (which I do not have installed.)
Instagram won because it was a low-friction way of sharing images (cf Flickr at the time which was ungodly frictional.) Now it's just friction-a-gogo and if the communities I wanted to connect with existed elsewhere, I'd go elsewhere.
Instagram won because it was a low-friction way of sharing images (cf Flickr at the time which was ungodly frictional.) Now it's just friction-a-gogo and if the communities I wanted to connect with existed elsewhere, I'd go elsewhere.
>I think Meta really screwed up by not creating a stand-alone Reels app
The fact you don't know of Lasso, but do know of Reels is telling of how well that strategy works.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lasso_(video_sharing_app)
The fact you don't know of Lasso, but do know of Reels is telling of how well that strategy works.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lasso_(video_sharing_app)
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It's their Google+ moment (as a reminder, Google+ destroyed Buzz, Reader, and heavily damaged Talk, YouTube and generally Google's reputation; I liked it, but it went too far on so many things). Or dare I remember when every app was integrating a "story" feature to compete with Snap ? Their are probably other examples of this.
This 100%
A lot of the comments here about why TikTok does so much better don't mention that the person that opens TikTok is already committed to watching lots of short videos, whereas the person using Instagram still has options other than the short reels, diluting the things people are doing.
A lot of the comments here about why TikTok does so much better don't mention that the person that opens TikTok is already committed to watching lots of short videos, whereas the person using Instagram still has options other than the short reels, diluting the things people are doing.
I agree. There's something to be said for app/services that decide that medium sized is good enough and they'll stick to doing their one thing well. Flickr springs to mind (although is much past its hey-day). I know people who left facebook for Instagram because of the changes to facebook but the changes just followed them to Instagram.
They did actually create a standalone app, it was called Lasso. They put Lasso out there and did Reels at the same time. Then I guess their metrics made them decide to focus on Reels, possibly they looked at the wrong ones.
They did go through a period of releasing these experiments as extra apps but then they never push them beyond the first week and then wonder why they fail.
Agreed. I loved Instagram as pictures with an occasional video. I uninstalled it this year.
Now ask the same question for YouTube shorts ;) Hah. Google is pushing shorts hard these days. Honestly, they need to give an option not to show shorts. In most cases, shorts are either from TikTok from the same content creator or re-uploaded by some random person. Even if I liked topic X on shorts, it never suggests similar shorts. It is hard to believe that Google cannot crack the correct algo to show interesting related shorts. I think YouTube doesn't have enough original shorts content creators, and like many of Google's side projects, it will go to /dev/null someday.
Personally I don't want shorts on YouTube.
I use and like you tube for longer content. If I wanted short content I would create an account with instatok and tikagram or whatever the next thing will be called.
Every week or so I have to go through and click not interested on all shorts suggestions.
I second they need an option to hide. I've sent feedback to YouTube numerous times and I know others have, but my guess is it will fall on deaf ears as they try to keep up with the current cool kid.
I use and like you tube for longer content. If I wanted short content I would create an account with instatok and tikagram or whatever the next thing will be called.
Every week or so I have to go through and click not interested on all shorts suggestions.
I second they need an option to hide. I've sent feedback to YouTube numerous times and I know others have, but my guess is it will fall on deaf ears as they try to keep up with the current cool kid.
I hate how I can’t scrub through the video on Shorts. Counterintuitively, I feel like my time is being wasted when I’m forced to watch the whole clip, despite it being not that long to begin with.
Not being able to scrub video is an accessibility issue. If you don't catch something on the first watch, it's incredibly frustrating to re-watch the whole thing instead of going back a few seconds. Even if it's 'short' content. Looping the whole clip again isn't useful to someone who just wants to re-listen to one line so that they are sure they understood it correctly. In one case, a small nuisance; very frustrating in the general sense.
In the case of YouTube the extra pain is that I've trained 'double tap' a YT video for scrubbing. But what does that interaction do on a Short, in the YT app?! Like! It likes the video instead of scrubbing. On something that doesn't seem any different from a short normal YouTube video.
In the case of YouTube the extra pain is that I've trained 'double tap' a YT video for scrubbing. But what does that interaction do on a Short, in the YT app?! Like! It likes the video instead of scrubbing. On something that doesn't seem any different from a short normal YouTube video.
>it's incredibly frustrating to re-watch the whole thing instead of going back a few seconds.
Which shows up in their data as a positive and reinforces the design decision
Which shows up in their data as a positive and reinforces the design decision
I'd honestly prefer "Longs" put a list of 1+ hour content on my front page. That's what I'm here for.
Did you know that Youtube has a game streaming service like Twitch?
Neither did I.
They've hidden it so fucking well that even though they pay (tens of) millions for exclusive contracts, people can't find it.
But shorts they keep pushing on every UI.
Neither did I.
They've hidden it so fucking well that even though they pay (tens of) millions for exclusive contracts, people can't find it.
But shorts they keep pushing on every UI.
They used to have a separate app called YT Gaming.
Per https://www.failory.com/google/youtube-gaming: "Out of the 11 million people that have downloaded the app on iOS and Android, and the more than 200 million watching gaming videos daily, only a small number used the app to do so. Most preferred the main YouTube app or the site."
Per https://www.failory.com/google/youtube-gaming: "Out of the 11 million people that have downloaded the app on iOS and Android, and the more than 200 million watching gaming videos daily, only a small number used the app to do so. Most preferred the main YouTube app or the site."
>Did you know that Youtube has a game streaming service like Twitch?
Although org wise it's under YouTube Gaming livestreams can be about anything. The option to go live is shown when you click the upload button. Live streams show up in your video feed and the top of your subscriptions. In explore and on the sidebar of every page is a link to the live metachannel. On game metachannels there is a tab to see people streaming the game. Livestreams show up in search and you can filter for only livestreams.
I think it's pretty hard to avoid since streams are promoted more compared to videos. You must just not watch creators who stream on YouTube or are interested in topics that lend themselves to being streamed.
Although org wise it's under YouTube Gaming livestreams can be about anything. The option to go live is shown when you click the upload button. Live streams show up in your video feed and the top of your subscriptions. In explore and on the sidebar of every page is a link to the live metachannel. On game metachannels there is a tab to see people streaming the game. Livestreams show up in search and you can filter for only livestreams.
I think it's pretty hard to avoid since streams are promoted more compared to videos. You must just not watch creators who stream on YouTube or are interested in topics that lend themselves to being streamed.
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Shorts is really half baked. Almost all content i consume on Youtube is in english, but shorts surprisingly ignores that and show content native to my country (most of the time irrelevant). It boggles my mind how YouTube can screw up something as basic as that.
Tangentially related but when I have lived in countries where English isn't the first language I'm amazed how many big companies ignore the language set in my web requests (English) and serves me content in the county's native language. Google for example and they really hide the button to chsngethe language.
I suppose they assume a lot of people have devices incorrectly configured to English but its very frustrating for a tech literate person who travels a lot.
I suppose they assume a lot of people have devices incorrectly configured to English but its very frustrating for a tech literate person who travels a lot.
Google really sucks with this. It used to be a lot worse a couple years ago when you had to navigate the dumb GDPR thing before you could see the language selector. Believe it or not, its the main thing that pushed me to DuckDuckGo.
Anyway, a nice trick is to append ?hl=en to the query string of any Google site and it will force it to be in English.
Anyway, a nice trick is to append ?hl=en to the query string of any Google site and it will force it to be in English.
On the opposite end of the spectrum, I live in Japan, and Youtube has shown me ads for very local stuff in some remote parts of the US.
For years several large web properties have been pushing machine translated content.
Sometimes they push their own, other times they prefer others badly machine translated content over the original.
IIRC the worst I saw in impact was 3 or so years ago when I found pages of Microsoft documentation so badly translated I couldn't make sense of it and with no way I could see to request the original.
Sometimes they push their own, other times they prefer others badly machine translated content over the original.
IIRC the worst I saw in impact was 3 or so years ago when I found pages of Microsoft documentation so badly translated I couldn't make sense of it and with no way I could see to request the original.
Yeah shorts are getting kinda annoying to me as a youtube consumer. Some of my favorite subscriptions have started uploading like 5 shorts in a row and that fills up my page of new content with trash.
The shorts recommendations are indeed awful. I get solely stuff I really would never watch; I get woke videos or teens being insecure about their lives, neither of which is relevant or interesting to me and YouTube knows that as the normal videos they recommend are usually not bad. And checking quickly now, most of them have the TikTok logo on them. So I agree: it will probably be removed or get worse instead of better.
I love shorts on YouTube. Between terrible content and horrible UI, shorts are effectively pissing off everybody. It's wonderful.
I never thought YouTube would do something this idiotic and actually drive away their users, but here we are ...
I never thought YouTube would do something this idiotic and actually drive away their users, but here we are ...
YouTube is plagued by unnecessarily padded content because I believe creators were rewarded depending on how much time they spent watching their videos (and hence number of ads that can be shown). Vast majority of YouTube videos I come across can be reduced by 90% in length without any loss in information you are seeking. YouTube needs to simply change incentives for the content creators and TikTok will have a massive competition.
I suspect that a big chunk of YouTube’s audience puts it on and lets it auto play, the same way one might turn on a tv channel and see whatever is on. This audience has more tolerance for ads, and so is more lucrative than people seeking short, information-dense videos. And so they are what gets optimised for.
It's buggy enough on my phone that anything which used to be just a short video now gets the static preview for it stuck over top of the video, obscuring it almost completely.
Most YouTube shorts are just repurposed TikToks, often not even published by the original creator.
Ah you do have the option to not show shorts but you need to be logged in
In the android App? Where? Could you please share.
When I am on the webpage on my desktop there is the x button that says something to the effect of "don't show shorts". I click that and the strip of shorts are removed.
For the app shorts is a different tab on the bottom of the screen. It goes Home, Shorts Subscription, Library. Shorts are never mixed him to my regular feed.
For the app shorts is a different tab on the bottom of the screen. It goes Home, Shorts Subscription, Library. Shorts are never mixed him to my regular feed.
My Android app has shorts advertised in horizontal scrolling sections every so many videos.
You can click not interested on them all, it takes some time to get through them all, but after a week or two they are back and it's rimce and report.
Yes I do have a shorts tab at bottom as well. I never click it. It's the shorts in my feed that are a pain in the butt.
You can click not interested on them all, it takes some time to get through them all, but after a week or two they are back and it's rimce and report.
Yes I do have a shorts tab at bottom as well. I never click it. It's the shorts in my feed that are a pain in the butt.
I dont think it's possible. I wish I could scroll in them.
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I'm one of the olds, but I wish Instagram would just go back to simple photo sharing with friends. No video, no sponsored posts, no ranking algorithm, just show me what my friends are up to, damn it!
Yep. I uninstalled it. Can we go back to Flickr?
Me too. Its interesting, I work with a group of visual artists (about 300). Instagram was by far the most popular way for them to share what they were working on.
It seems like it was perfect for that sort of thing, but now it feels like its not sure what it wants to be (stories, and reels and ...)
It seems like it was perfect for that sort of thing, but now it feels like its not sure what it wants to be (stories, and reels and ...)
Same here. The addition of Reels and how hard they push it is really annoying. If I wanted to use Tik Tok, I would use Tik Tok. I'm on Instagram because I want to use Instagram.
Time to trot out http://www.dtc.umn.edu/~odlyzko/doc/metcalfe.pdf again. (Yes, I am one of the co-authors.)
Multiple lines of evidence point to the basic value of a social network scaling like `O(n log(n))`. So getting your first million users is hard. But after you've got there, you don't have to be that much better than the competition to win. The conclusion is that social networks should be a lot less sticky and durable than it looks like.
We concluded that back when MySpace was the dominant social network. MySpace was overtaken by Friendster during the usual delays between a paper being submitted and published. Not long after, Facebook became king of the hill.
And then..Facebook remained there. In large part because they seem to have recognized their vulnerability, and so made a practice of buying new social networks like WhatsApp and Instagram before they grew up. However I concluded years ago that it was only a question of time until someone dethroned them.
Maybe it will be TikTok. Maybe TikTok gets shut down for political reasons. But the existential threat to Meta's dominance is NOT going away. Simply being king of the social media hill is not a sustainable moat.
Multiple lines of evidence point to the basic value of a social network scaling like `O(n log(n))`. So getting your first million users is hard. But after you've got there, you don't have to be that much better than the competition to win. The conclusion is that social networks should be a lot less sticky and durable than it looks like.
We concluded that back when MySpace was the dominant social network. MySpace was overtaken by Friendster during the usual delays between a paper being submitted and published. Not long after, Facebook became king of the hill.
And then..Facebook remained there. In large part because they seem to have recognized their vulnerability, and so made a practice of buying new social networks like WhatsApp and Instagram before they grew up. However I concluded years ago that it was only a question of time until someone dethroned them.
Maybe it will be TikTok. Maybe TikTok gets shut down for political reasons. But the existential threat to Meta's dominance is NOT going away. Simply being king of the social media hill is not a sustainable moat.
Has there been research done on negative value from scaling, the uncool participants effect? Where teenagers/young adults leave (or reduce their activity/start looking for other networks) when mom and grandpa join?
One negative effect of scaling I’ve noticed is that mature social networks (eg Instagram) seem harder to break into. Only established influencer content is surfaced so a new creator has trouble.
TikTok seems much better at promoting newer creators, possibly because it doesn’t have as many large existing creators. This means all the new talent goes there, and then the established talent eventually follows.
TikTok seems much better at promoting newer creators, possibly because it doesn’t have as many large existing creators. This means all the new talent goes there, and then the established talent eventually follows.
TikTok nailed that. It’s well established now but back when it was still growing and sort of small, creators who were on both Instagram and TikTok praised TikTok for how easy it was to break in (with good content and not merely follower count).
I'd love to see actual research on "the uncool participants effect" but anecdotally it feels like a real thing that's impossible to avoid. Any social network will start to favor a specific culture - enforced either by the algorithm or by its participants.
Once that culture starts to go out of fashion (which is inevitable) either the algorithm will have to shift to meet the culture (because the existing participants are probably not going to be fast enough to change) or new users will find another platform to start using. That's why even though people are saying Instagram will die if they start to prioritize Reels, I feel like they're going to die if they don't and this is a last ditch effort.
Once that culture starts to go out of fashion (which is inevitable) either the algorithm will have to shift to meet the culture (because the existing participants are probably not going to be fast enough to change) or new users will find another platform to start using. That's why even though people are saying Instagram will die if they start to prioritize Reels, I feel like they're going to die if they don't and this is a last ditch effort.
Btw I have wondered for a long time why search on Facebook is such an atrocious mess. But then it struck me: it must be intentional, so you would spend more time scrolling feeds to find that one post you've missed.
For this alone they deserve to be dethroned and forgotten.
For this alone they deserve to be dethroned and forgotten.
Remember the ”dumb fscks” quote? Facebook was founded to be hostile towards its users.
It was a while ago that this happened, so there's a possibility that some people on here are too young to remember this. It was a leaked exchange between Mark Zuckerberg and a friend during the very early days of Facebook - when it was only available to Harvard students:
Mark Zuckerberg : Yeah so if you ever need info about anyone at Harvard
MZ: Just ask.
MZ: I have over 4,000 emails, pictures, addresses, SNS
[Redacted Friend's Name]: What? How'd you manage that one?
MZ: People just submitted it.
MZ: I don't know why.
MZ: They "trust me"
MZ: Dumb fucks.
I actually still remember when my university was added to Facebook - I was studying/procrastinating for my final exams.
Mark Zuckerberg : Yeah so if you ever need info about anyone at Harvard
MZ: Just ask.
MZ: I have over 4,000 emails, pictures, addresses, SNS
[Redacted Friend's Name]: What? How'd you manage that one?
MZ: People just submitted it.
MZ: I don't know why.
MZ: They "trust me"
MZ: Dumb fucks.
I actually still remember when my university was added to Facebook - I was studying/procrastinating for my final exams.
> MySpace was overtaken by Friendster
Did that ever happen? Was it a US thing? I've heard of Friendster, but I thought it was something that MySpace killed and then MySpace went global and then got overtaken by Facebook.
Did that ever happen? Was it a US thing? I've heard of Friendster, but I thought it was something that MySpace killed and then MySpace went global and then got overtaken by Facebook.
In some countries, Friendster was extremely popular before Facebook! In others, there were other dominant social networks, like Orkut. Facebook was the first to dominate in all countries.
> In others, there were other dominant social networks
I remember Hi5 in Latin America and India, Hyves in the Netherlands, Orkut in Brazil, VK in Russia, StudyVZ in Germany, Tuenti in Spain. Finland and Sweden had a popular photo log websitr but I can't remember its name.
I remember Hi5 in Latin America and India, Hyves in the Netherlands, Orkut in Brazil, VK in Russia, StudyVZ in Germany, Tuenti in Spain. Finland and Sweden had a popular photo log websitr but I can't remember its name.
>> MySpace was overtaken by Friendster
> Did that ever happen?
No, it didn't. Friendster was older than MySpace.
> Did that ever happen?
No, it didn't. Friendster was older than MySpace.
Age isn't relevant. Friendster might've come out before MySpace but not become a dominant network until after MySpace had become dominant.
Not saying that's what happened, I've barely heard the name Friendster before.
Not saying that's what happened, I've barely heard the name Friendster before.
My peer group was on Friendster first then MySpace
I got it backwards. :-(
You are missing a huge point. MySpace and Friendster didn't got out of fashion suddenly because social is not "sticky". Friendster was heavily burdened with scaling issues, design complexity and bugs that basically force moved users to FB which remained fast, slick and extremely usable. Similarly, MySpace just couldn't engineer features faster that users wanted. The big point here is that social is very hard engineering problem and FB excelled it in early days. They are currently failing, in my opinion, because their newsfeed algorithm shows too much content from groups and much less from friends. The group content is something people will like initially but becomes monotonic later and so they quit.
So, the social platforms have failed historically because of engineering issues that their competitior excelled at.
So, the social platforms have failed historically because of engineering issues that their competitior excelled at.
Aren't you just rephrasing the GP's point? If social media was "sticky", users would suck up the poor UX and missing features and stick with platform X because 'that's where everyone is'. The fact that users are willing to 'start over' their accounts over such issues just shows that the moat offered by being the place where everyone is is more shallow than one would think.
> MySpace was overtaken by Friendster
It's the other way around - Friendster was the incument that Myspace unseated.
It's the other way around - Friendster was the incument that Myspace unseated.
Awesome, I read this years ago and have always kept it in mind ever since. Just wanted to say thanks for writing/co-authoring it!
It's an interesting thesis, but I'm a bit confused by your methodology - how can you propose a law without looking at any data yourself? You just seem to collect a few unrelated observations ("librarians have observed X", without giving any reference there) and laws that were developed for different contexts (Zipf's law), and from there you argue your way quite informally (mathematically speaking) to your proposed n log(n) formula.
Sorry for being so critical, but I would find it quite interesting if you had hard evidence to support a scaling law like n log(n) for the value of a social network.
Sorry for being so critical, but I would find it quite interesting if you had hard evidence to support a scaling law like n log(n) for the value of a social network.
We were applying a variety of other scaling phenomena which have been long observed, and then applied it in terms of networks. Most of the actual analysis of data, such as mail delivery was done by Andrew Odlyzko. There is also another form of the paper out there with Bob Briscoe added, and he had quantitative data not previously published from British Telecom. (See https://spectrum.ieee.org/metcalfes-law-is-wrong for a link, but you'll need a subscription.)
That said, the argument and result is intentionally informal, and intended to be a better rule of thumb than Metcalfe's law. Which was itself even more informally reasoned. However its key flaw we explained with:
Metcalfe’s Law is intuitively appealing, since our personal estimate of the size of a network is based on the uptake of that network among friends and family. Our derived value also varies directly with that metric. We therefore see a linear relationship between the perceived size and value of that network.
That said, different social networks may well have different scaling laws. In fact I pointed out privately that eBay likely was a counter-example which is closer to Metcalfe's law for the simple reason that you derive value there from connections to random strangers. And indeed eBay successfully maintained a market leading position for a long time despite charging significantly higher fees than competitors like Amazon Marketplace.
That said, the argument and result is intentionally informal, and intended to be a better rule of thumb than Metcalfe's law. Which was itself even more informally reasoned. However its key flaw we explained with:
Metcalfe’s Law is intuitively appealing, since our personal estimate of the size of a network is based on the uptake of that network among friends and family. Our derived value also varies directly with that metric. We therefore see a linear relationship between the perceived size and value of that network.
That said, different social networks may well have different scaling laws. In fact I pointed out privately that eBay likely was a counter-example which is closer to Metcalfe's law for the simple reason that you derive value there from connections to random strangers. And indeed eBay successfully maintained a market leading position for a long time despite charging significantly higher fees than competitors like Amazon Marketplace.
TikTok is not the same offering as Facebook though right? It competes in the Instagram and YouTube space. One thing about FB though is that it was the first social media platform that my mom and dad joined. FB was big enough for the boomers to join it. And I figure that is the moat, the boomers who for the first and only time in their lives joined a social platform and they ain't changing it up now.
Ostensibly their core use cases don’t overlap 100%, but as long as you accept that textual medium is just a means to information and is replaceable with video, you can actually get everything you get from Facebook on TikTok — news, commentary, entertainment, friend and family updates, messaging, etc. Plus, on a deeper level, everything competes with everything for your time and attention.
A moat based on an aging population isn't much of a moat
No moat can change the fact that kids wouldn't want to be caught dead on the social network that their parents or grandparents use.
Maybe they will leave it on like a tv news channel in the background.
If those they came to follow are gone they will still scroll a feed increasingly filled with ads. When they complain, their friends/family will install something and say touch the dancing penguin/barfing unicorn/whatever to see the latest, it's just like Facebook used to be.
If those they came to follow are gone they will still scroll a feed increasingly filled with ads. When they complain, their friends/family will install something and say touch the dancing penguin/barfing unicorn/whatever to see the latest, it's just like Facebook used to be.
> But after you've got there, you don't have to be that much better than the competition to win.
I don't follow, did you mean it's O(log(n))? Otherwise a social network with 2mil users is still more than twice as good as a social network with 1mil users.
I don't follow, did you mean it's O(log(n))? Otherwise a social network with 2mil users is still more than twice as good as a social network with 1mil users.
It's often said the value of social networking is O(n^2), which is basically impossible to overcome, versus n lg n, which makes the difference between 2 million and 20 million users a lot smaller (too tired for the math, sorry, maybe 20x?) instead of 100x.
If the total value of the network is O(n log(n)) then the value per user is only O(log(n)). So comparing a 2 million user network with a 1 million user network, if the second one is on a product that is 10% better, users should find switching an improvement.
Thanks for explaining! I'd always heard that O(n^2) value for social networks but never really thought about who that value is for. Now that you mention it, the value of a network to an individual user really is only O(n) or even O(log(n)). So while the company still has a massive cash advantage, it's much harder to deepen that moat and secure your customers with it than it seemed.
So, did Zuckerberg read your paper and take it to heart, or did he have some _intuition_ or paranoia that helped guide him?
No clue.
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Wait, I need to ask about the sample data & methodology here:
- these 100 users they asked, were they already frequent users of TikTok and Instagram reels?
This experiment makes no sense if users spent a lot of time training the TikTok algorithm, prior to running the experiment while they didn't train the Instagram Reels algorithm? Of course the results are more interesting and less generic if they had used TikTok a lot before...?
This experiment makes no sense if users spent a lot of time training the TikTok algorithm, prior to running the experiment while they didn't train the Instagram Reels algorithm? Of course the results are more interesting and less generic if they had used TikTok a lot before...?
Yes, this is something important that the post is missing
I disagree with their premise that Reels is "performative" while TikTok is "authentic". They could have cherry picked other sample posts to demonstrate the exact opposite.
They're both equally performative & inauthentic.
They're both equally performative & inauthentic.
Yes I think the real factor is that the TikTok feed was more relevant to that age group and Instagram was more relevant to 30 something parents and home owners.
Also it sounds as if the users had previously spent more time generating curated feeds on TikTok.
Also it sounds as if the users had previously spent more time generating curated feeds on TikTok.
Knowing about a dozen people who spent more time in Instagram Reels and then switched to TikToks I don't know that that's true - it seems accurate to me. Personally I used Reels and YT Shorts for a few months before TikTok but the second is far better.
>They could have cherry picked other sample posts to demonstrate the exact opposite.
They couldn't, because it's 'the algorithm' that does the picking & Facebook's algorithm optimises for inauthentic or boomer. Cherry-picking posts isn't a standard usecase.
They couldn't, because it's 'the algorithm' that does the picking & Facebook's algorithm optimises for inauthentic or boomer. Cherry-picking posts isn't a standard usecase.
I mean someone who would say:
>As a part of Gen Z, I relate a lot more with TikTok creators in general. Even the ads on Tiktok don't bother me as much.
sounds as authentically human as an android lizard.
>As a part of Gen Z, I relate a lot more with TikTok creators in general. Even the ads on Tiktok don't bother me as much.
sounds as authentically human as an android lizard.
I am very confident the image at the top of this article is generated by any of these currently popular text-to-image models. This feels like the beginning of ignoring artworks I see online, foreshadowed by header images at the start of tech blogs.
Blog pictures have always been irrelevant stock images but I agree this one is particularly bad and clearly AI generated.
The tell for me is the nonsense in the details of the image which aren’t super noticeable in the macro. Some of the faces aren’t faces.
Agreed, DALL-E 2 seems to have real issues with faces, hands (fingers especially), and objects inside other objects (look at the beakers the teddy bears are using) and actual 3d depth awareness of objects. Looking at these it started to get really easy to pick out the AI versus a human of the style, the humans had really good attention to details like fingers, eye placement, and other facial features.
I think its less that DALL-E has an issue with them, and more that humans are just extremely sensitive to details of faces and body parts in general. It's also extremely difficult for a human to draw a hand or face. AI images only seem different in that they draw mistakes in hyper detail so you get something that's the combination of a child's pencil drawing composition and an expert painters style.
It's both, DALL-E specifically is bad at faces (perhaps intentionally?) compared to the other models.
But at the current state of things, the details are usually wrong in every subject, not only people.
But at the current state of things, the details are usually wrong in every subject, not only people.
Likely. It appears to be part of the company's potential toolbox and has been researched by them for their blog:
https://www.surgehq.ai/blog/humans-vs-dall-e
https://www.surgehq.ai/blog/humans-vs-dall-e
This generated image is much more interesting than most stock photos. Stock photos don't have any details, they are meant to be simple and bland. This one is somewhat fun.
I like that they include the prompt, makes it more interesting. Although it's not the full prompt, because the illustrations in their other recent articles are in the same style.
I feel like there is a big problem with this comparison: many of those asked to use TikTok and Reels already likely have been using TikTok for a while. Maybe I missed it but I didn't see any mention of resetting TikTok so TikTok for them would have had a major advantage as its would have been pre-trained.
100% agree. Also just commented this.
You could only run this experiment if you had watched exactly the same amount of videos on both platforms or if you would start from scratch on both!?
You could only run this experiment if you had watched exactly the same amount of videos on both platforms or if you would start from scratch on both!?
TikTok developed the whole contemporary mobile video style in concert with its users and it’s algorithm. I don’t think you can just copy the features and throw them at a different audience and expect things to work out.
I don’t think chasing the current hot thing is necessarily a terrible idea but I think pivoting your app constantly to chase the hot thing is. “Be willing to cannibalize your user base” doesn’t mean “force new things on your user base”!
I don’t think chasing the current hot thing is necessarily a terrible idea but I think pivoting your app constantly to chase the hot thing is. “Be willing to cannibalize your user base” doesn’t mean “force new things on your user base”!
TikTok has such a content and data advantage. More viewers, more creators, more content. Feels like it’ll be very hard for Meta, YouTube or any competitor to come back without coming up with a hugely superior recommendation algorithm, and TikTok’s feels hard to beat, or some kind of improved creation tools that give it a content library advantage.
And TikTok just has the momentum, the cool factor. Instagram did too when the idea of having a high quality networked camera and fun filters with you all the time was revolutionary, and Instagram was the way to take advantage of it. Now that phone power, storage space, network bandwidth, and good editing software have made watchable short video easy to shoot, TikTok is that platform.
And TikTok just has the momentum, the cool factor. Instagram did too when the idea of having a high quality networked camera and fun filters with you all the time was revolutionary, and Instagram was the way to take advantage of it. Now that phone power, storage space, network bandwidth, and good editing software have made watchable short video easy to shoot, TikTok is that platform.
Content and data are not advantage. Creators can simply re-upload their content to Insta/YouTube to increase their revenues. It's already happening. It will accelerate if Insta/YouTube provides right incentives.
Why would Instagram even try to be TikTok to begin with? Why show a firehose of short videos that just makes everyone who made your platform what it is, hate it?
How will you tell who is leaving the platform because it's suddenly TikTok (like me) vs who's leaving the platform for TikTok?
How will you tell who is leaving the platform because it's suddenly TikTok (like me) vs who's leaving the platform for TikTok?
Been running some Facebook Lead ads recently. The ads are designed to run on both Facebook and Instagram.
(Facebook owns Instagram)
The lead reports show where they are coming from.
Overwhelmingly from Instagram. I think we got about 20% of leads from core Facebook and the rest from IG.
The core old timey Facebook is actually dying pretty quickly. All the traffic is going elsewhere.
And all the bugs on Facebook.com is not helping matters. Especially on desktop.
We really started to examine all of this and it’s startling the quick decline.
(Facebook owns Instagram)
The lead reports show where they are coming from.
Overwhelmingly from Instagram. I think we got about 20% of leads from core Facebook and the rest from IG.
The core old timey Facebook is actually dying pretty quickly. All the traffic is going elsewhere.
And all the bugs on Facebook.com is not helping matters. Especially on desktop.
We really started to examine all of this and it’s startling the quick decline.
If you thought Cambridge Analytica was bad, wait 'til you find out what a China-based company can do with detailed preference and arousal data from young people.
Probably as much as a US based company can. I didn't see any US social media giants getting any real punishment for what they got up to between 2007-17.
In fact, given the general distrust of China in the West in international politics, feels like national governments are more likely to respond to any emerging harms than they did with Facebook.
In fact, given the general distrust of China in the West in international politics, feels like national governments are more likely to respond to any emerging harms than they did with Facebook.
Tik Tok seems to be worse than Facebook in that regard
https://www.cnbc.com/2022/02/08/tiktok-shares-your-data-more...
https://www.cnbc.com/2022/02/08/tiktok-shares-your-data-more...
Well, as a non-US person I like that not all my PII is concentrated in US companies. If anything, I feel that US having something on me can have worse effects on me, compared to China, given the amount of US/western stuff I use.
This is what keeps me off Tiktok. I feel like I’m losing my mind even having to make a judgement like this, but I trust Facebook more than China. Only a tiny bit, but it’s there.
That’s because Facebook’s motives are absolutely sublime in their purity: they want you to use their product and they want you to click on those ads.
The motives of a company controlled by the CCP are much much murkier.
The motives of a company controlled by the CCP are much much murkier.
The Devil you know
I honestly don’t care if the Chinese government knows everything about me. Much more worried about the American government.
Any entity that knows so much about you can manipulate you in ways you won’t suspect. Their government isn’t held back by the Constitution and they probably wouldn’t hesitate to influence the citizenry of their main rival on the world stage.
The US government isn't really held back by the Constitution either. It's been diluted so much they can just use Canada as a proxy and return the favour, for example, no problem. I agree with your overall point but it's not really a legal matter, it's just power.
... the US government isn't particularly limited in such a way either. They have nice have for everything foreign communications, and all the actions are held as confidential
Sure, I also don’t care what the Chinese government knows about me. I care a lot about their ability to influence US elections though.
I'm much more worried about the ability of Google to influence US elections than China.
At least the FBI can't get hold of it ...
Yawn..
Get better material
Am I part of an aged, dying userbase no one cares about? I barely endured my third decade and yet I do not want to watch reels, TikToks or any other video that contains text, adhd and "fun" content. I just want to look at the photos and videos people I personally know uploaded, preferably ordered by how long ago they got posted.
> I just want to look at the photos and videos people I personally know uploaded, preferably ordered by how long ago they got posted.
"on a platform we paid money for" - none of you.
"on a platform we paid money for" - none of you.
You know I just had a look at Reels and of the four on my screen, three have a tiktok logo. People are making "reels" already by just taking someone elses popular video and uploading it as a reel.
Which has the effect of: Advertising tiktok.
Which has the effect of: Advertising tiktok.
Search for yoga on TikTok and Instagram and compare the results. Guess which one returns almost all softcore pornography vs actually educational content. It's not a surprise which one teenagers would find more engaging.
I haven't installed TikTok on my phone because of privacy concerns but I am curious to check out its content. I think there is a "safe" way of using TikTok, but I have yet to try it.
1. I have read that you can browse the site completely in the browser, and even as a PWA. So this prevents all of the concerns coming from the privileges and permissions native apps have.
2. You can even browse it without an account (supposedly). But if I do create an account, I'd create a new email for it
3. I will browse it only with Firefox for Android, with uBlock Origin installed, only in private windows (giving uBlock Origin access to private windows, which I already do)
4. Even though there is no "in-app" browser in their web client, I would never enter any personal details or log-in into anything from links I click. If I'm really into a product advertised I'd just search for it in a new tab
5. Use a VPN
I know this is not fool-proof, I'm still going to be fingerprinted and uniquely identified, but this should prevent collection of the things that concern _me_ specifically like location, contacts, ability to scan phone's storage and see what other apps I have installed, reading my clipboard, biometric prints, etc.
Is it worth going through these hoops just for an entertainment app? Probably not, I might get tired of it real quick. We'll see
1. I have read that you can browse the site completely in the browser, and even as a PWA. So this prevents all of the concerns coming from the privileges and permissions native apps have.
2. You can even browse it without an account (supposedly). But if I do create an account, I'd create a new email for it
3. I will browse it only with Firefox for Android, with uBlock Origin installed, only in private windows (giving uBlock Origin access to private windows, which I already do)
4. Even though there is no "in-app" browser in their web client, I would never enter any personal details or log-in into anything from links I click. If I'm really into a product advertised I'd just search for it in a new tab
5. Use a VPN
I know this is not fool-proof, I'm still going to be fingerprinted and uniquely identified, but this should prevent collection of the things that concern _me_ specifically like location, contacts, ability to scan phone's storage and see what other apps I have installed, reading my clipboard, biometric prints, etc.
Is it worth going through these hoops just for an entertainment app? Probably not, I might get tired of it real quick. We'll see
And instead of playing to their strengths, IG tries to jump and chase a competitor. Doesn't look like a very smart move
IG jumped and chased Snapchat with stories and that was an incredibly smart / successful move.
The same strategy isn't panning out with reels, for whatever reason.
The same strategy isn't panning out with reels, for whatever reason.
I think it's because they complement better. To be fair, "stories"/snaps are not a product, they are a feature.
Reels/Tktks involve a different type of content producer than regular stories. On that side, it is "closer" to YT than regular IG
And that I think is the impedance mismatch between IG and the Reels side
Reels/Tktks involve a different type of content producer than regular stories. On that side, it is "closer" to YT than regular IG
And that I think is the impedance mismatch between IG and the Reels side
I so liked to to doomscroll Instagram because it would just find nice pictures for me, but it’s ruined with Reels.
First, they rig it so that on every page, there’ll be a reel. You can spot them and flag each and every one with “I don’t want to see this” and it will continue trying to show you reels. It’s definitely an explicit rule to show Reels.
Each Reel it finds for me has some mildly interesting-looking footage combined with the worst sounds you can think of.
Usually it’s some generic down-shifted voice that says “drop the bass” before these clipped, farting sounds come out of the phone.
The best example I ran across had someone putting lubricant until a ball bearing, coupled with what seems to be a cover of a Justin Bieber song but with what sound like cartoon dog voices.
In a dull moment I would like to mindlessly scroll for pretty pictures. It used to show me rockets and women. I like rockets and I like women. Now it shows me farty bass.
First, they rig it so that on every page, there’ll be a reel. You can spot them and flag each and every one with “I don’t want to see this” and it will continue trying to show you reels. It’s definitely an explicit rule to show Reels.
Each Reel it finds for me has some mildly interesting-looking footage combined with the worst sounds you can think of.
Usually it’s some generic down-shifted voice that says “drop the bass” before these clipped, farting sounds come out of the phone.
The best example I ran across had someone putting lubricant until a ball bearing, coupled with what seems to be a cover of a Justin Bieber song but with what sound like cartoon dog voices.
In a dull moment I would like to mindlessly scroll for pretty pictures. It used to show me rockets and women. I like rockets and I like women. Now it shows me farty bass.
Nitpick:
I think 'doomscrolling' is a slightly more precise term than just aimless consumption of infinitely scrolling content.
My understanding is, 'doomscrolling' is more about content which outrages (albeit, also consumed in an aimless manner, or to "not miss out").
I think 'doomscrolling' is a slightly more precise term than just aimless consumption of infinitely scrolling content.
My understanding is, 'doomscrolling' is more about content which outrages (albeit, also consumed in an aimless manner, or to "not miss out").
Noted thx
I’ll need a better word. It’s fun to say doomscroll
I’ll need a better word. It’s fun to say doomscroll
It's the app cycle. People always think the shiny new thing is better. The new thing is definitely way cooler than the old thing your parents are on.
i dont know.... i never understood "hip" things. back when orkut was all the rage, i was stuck being anonymous. then facebook, twitter, whatsapp, instagram, sarahah app, titok, youtube shorts, i could not be convinced enough to maintain an account there.....
i mean i am on HN, reddit but i dont have my own name, my "social graph" isnt tied to my AFK identity, my AFK friends aren't my online friends, my location is not my location........ the original internet user
i mean i am on HN, reddit but i dont have my own name, my "social graph" isnt tied to my AFK identity, my AFK friends aren't my online friends, my location is not my location........ the original internet user
I kinda feel the essence of your comment is “nobody stays at the top forever” or something - have never used tiktok but it just seems to benefit from being newer than any FB company.
FB is so large they are just experiencing diminishing returns on things now
no.... i was saying what i said. no "network" has been able to convince me to "engage with content", any of these networks and maybe even in future....
a year or 2 ago, i got my own pleroma instance for my family. its just a few of us for now and because i don't have any b2 storage set up, i do not recommend posting media but still,
a year or 2 ago, i got my own pleroma instance for my family. its just a few of us for now and because i don't have any b2 storage set up, i do not recommend posting media but still,
The sad thing is Instagram's explore tab used to give me excellent personalized content (gardening and architecture) but when they added reels it all went away. At first it was dancing teenagers and now it's random celebrities and weird sped up videos of people cleaning. It doesn't matter how many times I mark it as "not interesting", it just keeps pushing it.
Interesting read, would be interesting to see how TikTok optimizes their recommendation algorithms and what kind of metrics they use.
Like another commenter said, it may also be that Instagram had already a use case and a "spot" in peoples minds so its harder to change that mentality to the one that TikTok naturally gained and as such people tend to upload "better" content on there.
Like another commenter said, it may also be that Instagram had already a use case and a "spot" in peoples minds so its harder to change that mentality to the one that TikTok naturally gained and as such people tend to upload "better" content on there.
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Stop asking Gen Z for anything. Fuck me, I don't even know what a Gen Z is.
Sounds like a CPU for all I care. A cheap one too.
Instagram is dying ?
No, I am dying. Lend a helping hand. Buy me an ice-cream.
People are cognitive screwed from all this socalled social network bullshit that turns friends, family and idols into a circus of self-proclaimed everything.
Kylie Jenner ? Really ?
I can almost taste the sugary feeling in the mouth of teenagers when they fall over the same line of self-staging freaks.
Turn it off. Buy a small library. Read.
Pack a suitcase. Buy a train ticket. See the world.
Concentrate. Please.
Sounds like a CPU for all I care. A cheap one too.
Instagram is dying ?
No, I am dying. Lend a helping hand. Buy me an ice-cream.
People are cognitive screwed from all this socalled social network bullshit that turns friends, family and idols into a circus of self-proclaimed everything.
Kylie Jenner ? Really ?
I can almost taste the sugary feeling in the mouth of teenagers when they fall over the same line of self-staging freaks.
Turn it off. Buy a small library. Read.
Pack a suitcase. Buy a train ticket. See the world.
Concentrate. Please.
Pretty much every generation makes the same mistake you're making right now by writing off whatever the younger generation is focusing their time on. You can find quotes from 1000 years ago with the same exact sentiment as your comment.
Every single time they were wrong.
Every single time they were wrong.
I really think that a video of a girl dancing, her clothes changing every time she claps her hands, made for a platform that prizes sucking out teens's attention for the chance of showing them an ad and collecting data on them, will be written off in a few years.
Besides, everything is safe until it is not and research is increasingly pointing towards the toxicity of social media on the young mind.
Even doctors smoke a certain brand, remember?
Besides, everything is safe until it is not and research is increasingly pointing towards the toxicity of social media on the young mind.
Even doctors smoke a certain brand, remember?
Plenty of video games, movies, TV shows, graphic novels, books, plays, songs, have little to no staying power, entertainment value or cultural relevance of any kind.
Does the fact that ET the video game was produced, or Bram Stoker apparently wrote a book so bad were still dunking on it 100 years later invalidate either of their mediums? Does the fact that twerking exists and is labelled invalidate the cultural impaxt of dancing?
Does the fact that ET the video game was produced, or Bram Stoker apparently wrote a book so bad were still dunking on it 100 years later invalidate either of their mediums? Does the fact that twerking exists and is labelled invalidate the cultural impaxt of dancing?
Yeah, scrolling photos of big butts, breasts and yachts plus a lot of ads it's really pushing forward society as a whole, is hard to believe the staggering similarity of when books became mainstream and old people worried the young would become dumber given they wouldn't have to memorize.
There's plenty of nonsense books available too. People made the same argument about video games when I was a child. Over the last 100 years we've been worried about TV shows, movies, video games, and rock music being a negative influence. Just because you think something is dumb doesn't invalidate it for everyone else.
The popularity ratio of garbage books vs non-garbage is nowhere even close to the equivalent ratio on social media, where instantaneous feedback loops of dopamine shots are pushing the balance in favor of the worst kind of content, I admit TV already did some of that but social media platforms are on a whole new level.
And there has been a drop in the average IQ of the world in recent decades, and is directly related to TV and the other things you mentioned, so it's clear that it does have consequences and some of it is indeed a negative influence, source: https://www.swnewsmedia.com/article_8317aad9-876e-5c1e-804a-...
And there has been a drop in the average IQ of the world in recent decades, and is directly related to TV and the other things you mentioned, so it's clear that it does have consequences and some of it is indeed a negative influence, source: https://www.swnewsmedia.com/article_8317aad9-876e-5c1e-804a-...
> The popularity ratio of garbage books vs non-garbage is nowhere even close to the equivalent ratio on social media,
The ratio of absolute nonsense and garbage books to decent literature is probably 99:1, if not higher. It's got to be the same for TV shows, and movies.
> where instantaneous feedback loops of dopamine shots are pushing the balance in favor of the worst kind of content, I admit TV already did some of that but social media platforms are on a whole new level.
We've been having this argument for decades - https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/children-80s-never-fe... this is a great example of it. People were worried about that playing video games will turn you violent, or that novels will make it difficult to differentiate between reality and fantasy.
> And there has been a drop in the average IQ of the world in recent decades, and is directly related to TV and the other things you mentioned, so it's clear that it does have consequences and some of it is indeed a negative influence, source: https://www.swnewsmedia.com/article_8317aad9-876e-5c1e-804a-...
Link didn't work for me (thanks GDPR), so archive link here: https://archive.ph/wnaFn - That' not a source, that's a column in a local newspaper with no citations and no research. The article (which is a two paragraph soapbox about people on the internet being stupid) doesn't mention TV, social media, or what the cause for his claim that IQ is dropping is.
The ratio of absolute nonsense and garbage books to decent literature is probably 99:1, if not higher. It's got to be the same for TV shows, and movies.
> where instantaneous feedback loops of dopamine shots are pushing the balance in favor of the worst kind of content, I admit TV already did some of that but social media platforms are on a whole new level.
We've been having this argument for decades - https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/children-80s-never-fe... this is a great example of it. People were worried about that playing video games will turn you violent, or that novels will make it difficult to differentiate between reality and fantasy.
> And there has been a drop in the average IQ of the world in recent decades, and is directly related to TV and the other things you mentioned, so it's clear that it does have consequences and some of it is indeed a negative influence, source: https://www.swnewsmedia.com/article_8317aad9-876e-5c1e-804a-...
Link didn't work for me (thanks GDPR), so archive link here: https://archive.ph/wnaFn - That' not a source, that's a column in a local newspaper with no citations and no research. The article (which is a two paragraph soapbox about people on the internet being stupid) doesn't mention TV, social media, or what the cause for his claim that IQ is dropping is.
> The ratio of absolute nonsense and garbage books to decent literature is probably 99:1, if not higher. It's got to be the same for TV shows, and movies.
The ratio of consumption the one that matters here, and in that context social media is the clear winner in the ratio of consumption of garbage content, just the other day I learned there are a few kids making millions of dollars from opening toys in gift packages, "unboxing" they call it, it's like crack cocaine for children watching, and there are thousands of other families/channels (with children) trying to do the same and reach the same audience; you try to compare things and say that all this has happened before but the similarities are next to none, specially when the entry barrier to become a content creator it's so low.
Videogames turning you violent is dumb because it involves turning a fantasy behavior into a real one, this has nothing to do with that because the problem TikTok and others pose is wasting time in proportions never seen before, a lot of factors play a role, including the ubiquity of smartphones, most people spend 100% of their time next to theirs, another one is the incentives to make you waste as much time as possible to show you as many ads as possible.
It's weird, the article has a lot more paragraphs when accessed from a different referrer, anyway, I found another source that quotes one of the studies that says that IQ is lowering, and it's clearly states that is due environmental factors, and yes, that includes media: https://www.google.com/amp/s/learningenglish.voanews.com/amp...
The ratio of consumption the one that matters here, and in that context social media is the clear winner in the ratio of consumption of garbage content, just the other day I learned there are a few kids making millions of dollars from opening toys in gift packages, "unboxing" they call it, it's like crack cocaine for children watching, and there are thousands of other families/channels (with children) trying to do the same and reach the same audience; you try to compare things and say that all this has happened before but the similarities are next to none, specially when the entry barrier to become a content creator it's so low.
Videogames turning you violent is dumb because it involves turning a fantasy behavior into a real one, this has nothing to do with that because the problem TikTok and others pose is wasting time in proportions never seen before, a lot of factors play a role, including the ubiquity of smartphones, most people spend 100% of their time next to theirs, another one is the incentives to make you waste as much time as possible to show you as many ads as possible.
It's weird, the article has a lot more paragraphs when accessed from a different referrer, anyway, I found another source that quotes one of the studies that says that IQ is lowering, and it's clearly states that is due environmental factors, and yes, that includes media: https://www.google.com/amp/s/learningenglish.voanews.com/amp...
How about the TV and zapping?
It depends on what they are watching, are they watching "mythbusters" or "the Kardashians"? The problem start when the giant majority uses the medium to consume garbage, the drop in intelligence in the US and it's politicians is likely directly related to that.
Were they wrong? Most civilizations enjoyed a period of growth and innovation followed buy a longer period of stagnation and decay. Historically, most complaints about the next generation were right.
Every single time they were wrong.
[Evidence required]
[Evidence required]
People ask the young generation because they are the biggest indicator as to where things are heading. Consider how many people will read your answer. How much attention of HN-audience-type-people did you just send down the drain for the righteous feeling of ranting off-topic?
> the young generation ... are the biggest indicator as to where things are heading.
They sure can be. But young people around me in the early 2000s were into rap-metal, buying ringtones, and using ICQ or IM. These obviously were not great indicators of what would happen in the near future.
They sure can be. But young people around me in the early 2000s were into rap-metal, buying ringtones, and using ICQ or IM. These obviously were not great indicators of what would happen in the near future.
Those were great indicators! Rap-metal was the weird transition between rock/metal being ascendent in the 90s to the complete takeover by hip hop. Ringtones were people paying money to customize their mobile experience, they were early apps and appstore. ICQ and IM were telling us that text based instant messaging was take a lot of share from email and phone calls both.
Of course, this is easy in retrospect, I couldn't have forecast it correctly at the time!
Of course, this is easy in retrospect, I couldn't have forecast it correctly at the time!
Hey, ICQ was great.
I do wonder sometimes if social media is the games and rock music of our generation.
Mind you, there's lots of legitimate criticism to throw at social media and I wouldn't mind the whole apparatus burning down either, but it's also the one thing a lot of people born in the late 20th century agree to hate on.
Mind you, there's lots of legitimate criticism to throw at social media and I wouldn't mind the whole apparatus burning down either, but it's also the one thing a lot of people born in the late 20th century agree to hate on.
I find it hard to perceive anything beside the most shallow human reflexes on social medias. It's cheap idols from far away. Even a mediocre singer has to take the stage and keep a crowd for a little while.
Maybe it’s the radio and cinema of our generation.
Both were used in their time to get totalitarian governments into power and many millions died.
Both were used in their time to get totalitarian governments into power and many millions died.
What's the purpose of your comment, may I ask? Tried to read few times but still couldn't grasp the idea, sorry
I took the point to be that it's all worthless.
Instagram is dying? Nothing of value will be lost.
Asking Gen Z about something? Nothing of value will be procured.
Tiktok vs. Reels? Nothing of value are being compared.
Instagram is dying? Nothing of value will be lost.
Asking Gen Z about something? Nothing of value will be procured.
Tiktok vs. Reels? Nothing of value are being compared.
Thank you!
Eh, previous generations were watching America's Funniest Home Videos and celebrity gossip on TV for 5 hours a day. It wasn't any better.
Delivering content to specific audiences is literally some of our jobs on here.
This article may not be relevant for you, but it's certainly relevant to a not-insignificant portion of the HN audience.
There's no reason to be insulting.
This article may not be relevant for you, but it's certainly relevant to a not-insignificant portion of the HN audience.
There's no reason to be insulting.
When I was a teenager we had to make up our own reality. There were distinct gangs. The metal listeners, the rap listeners, the disco people, and so on. We were forced to, for stimuli were scarce. One new record could be passed along dozens of people eager for the new. Now speak to any teenager, they are all the same. Bees of a single hive mind.
> Now speak to any teenager, they are all the same. Bees of a single hive mind.
I don't know what teenagers you're speaking to but at least my nieces and nephews are certainly not the same. If anything, what's changed is its now acceptable to be part of more of these groups than it was before.
I don't know what teenagers you're speaking to but at least my nieces and nephews are certainly not the same. If anything, what's changed is its now acceptable to be part of more of these groups than it was before.
100% agree
I sort of like the SurgeHQ blog from a few past articles I've read on it, and this article is similarly mostly thought-provoking and well-done. But it pulls off 1 (arguably) disgusting trick IMO. It goes from talking about what users really want and then launches into some 'do you really want people to click on conspiracy theories' type of value-judgement that seems antithetical to actual user-preferences. Again, who decides what's true? Should it be the government? Should it be Mark Zuckerberg or other corporate giants? Is Mark Zuckerberg and others like him my parent who knows what's best for me? What if people actually want to see that content and decide for themselves what's true or not? Are the people to be treated as adults or children? That one thing from the article is probably not meaningful to most here, but I didn't like that specific part.
Slighlty chilling reading these opinions, like a focus group with Christmas turkeys in November. TikTok and Instagram seem equally devoid of useful content to me, one just has more dancing. YouTube is the exception, partly because they pay creators better. YouTube creators seem to be living lives they actually desire to lead.
Instagram is not dying. There is no other app in the world with the same reach and installation percentage among young people. Instagram is losing at usage time sure, but I would wager that 95% of young people in first world countries have an Instagram profile and this is not. Its almost a necessity.
I loved the humor of the first part of the post.
IMO the problem of Instagram is not only related to Reels, but is more generalized. For the past ~5 years I have been noticing a serious decline in the quality of the interactions and of the content around.
Any interaction nowadays on Instagram feels fake, for the sole purpose of getting attention. The old-style pictures that are almost sure to generate more interactions are recycled old jokes that people with common sense are now tired of reading, but somehow a lot of users still enjoy them.
There are also some unexplainable phenomenas, like pictures with absolutely trash content that probably took zero effort to produce, getting thousands of likes and comments.
These situations (and more...) for me have eventually taken away all the fun of using the app.
IMO the problem of Instagram is not only related to Reels, but is more generalized. For the past ~5 years I have been noticing a serious decline in the quality of the interactions and of the content around.
Any interaction nowadays on Instagram feels fake, for the sole purpose of getting attention. The old-style pictures that are almost sure to generate more interactions are recycled old jokes that people with common sense are now tired of reading, but somehow a lot of users still enjoy them.
There are also some unexplainable phenomenas, like pictures with absolutely trash content that probably took zero effort to produce, getting thousands of likes and comments.
These situations (and more...) for me have eventually taken away all the fun of using the app.
Instagram is owned by influencers while TikTok is extremely successful at making emerge videos from random people that have captured insanely interesting moments, Instagram won't let the spotlight go from influencers to the common people.
>Instagram won't let the spotlight go from influencers to the common people.
Think this is one of the fundamental differences, Tiktok feel more like a level playing field and it also feels like the system actually goes out of it's way to find you an audience.
It's my understanding (correct me if I'm wrong) that Tiktok almost creates invisible "Subreddits" for topics it identifies then pushes all content it detects as that topic to everyone in the group. All invisible to the end user.
While tiktok helps you find an audience for your content, IG almost punishes you because you don't have one, then punishes you more if you don't do the right algorithm dance.
Think this is one of the fundamental differences, Tiktok feel more like a level playing field and it also feels like the system actually goes out of it's way to find you an audience.
It's my understanding (correct me if I'm wrong) that Tiktok almost creates invisible "Subreddits" for topics it identifies then pushes all content it detects as that topic to everyone in the group. All invisible to the end user.
While tiktok helps you find an audience for your content, IG almost punishes you because you don't have one, then punishes you more if you don't do the right algorithm dance.
I like this piece, but it basically measured which app do you use more. If they wanted to really drill in, they should have had folks compare performance on new accounts. I still suspect TikTok would win? But you’d get cleaner results.
Yes, put a looping gif with no way to stop it right in the middle of the text. Thank you
You clicked the bimbo buzzfeed headline
It just seems that when compared with TikTok, Instagram Reels is still much smaller as a short video platform. Where the creator communities is yet to be built, the data is probably weighted heavily on the Instagram followers, what do we do on such a new but may be potentially large platform? how do we cold start based what we already have? We snap some historically hot videos from TikTok. I think that's why videos on Reels are kind of old.
A new platform is not built on a single day. Even creators found a new platform and decided the first thing they do should be re-posting their old works.
A new platform is not built on a single day. Even creators found a new platform and decided the first thing they do should be re-posting their old works.
I think this is a nice and interesting article, but as far as I understood they showed the participants where the videos was from. It makes the result hard to evaluate. You take a group of participants which are likely to prefer TikTok already and think of Reels as a meme and then you say "these are TikToks, these are Reels, which do you prefer?". Of course these people will probably like TikTok way more.
In no way I want to defend Reels (in fact I don't consume neither TikTok nor Reels), but a blind test would have been really really important here.
In no way I want to defend Reels (in fact I don't consume neither TikTok nor Reels), but a blind test would have been really really important here.
In a better world, each social app would know its place and would hone that to a fine edge. But there's no incentive to do that, there's no infinite growth there. Social apps should be narrowly focused tools that do their job perfectly, with very little overlap between. For what it's worth, I don't think any app can expand much past its original focus anyway, but the fact that they try spoils the experience.
I find the comments in the article align with analysis from this A16z podcast on TikTok
https://overcast.fm/+BlzHoDbOw
The point being TiKTok does a ton of labelling of videos that allows the algorithm to “see” the content - or at least qualifies lots of elements of each video. And then optimises for joy and happiness responses from users.
Other useful observations in the podcast
The point being TiKTok does a ton of labelling of videos that allows the algorithm to “see” the content - or at least qualifies lots of elements of each video. And then optimises for joy and happiness responses from users.
Other useful observations in the podcast
Facebook products have the most complicated UX ever. Try their settings menu with unnessesary permission settings.
Best UX is the product without the need of settings though.
Best UX is the product without the need of settings though.
I've tried to sign up for instagram, but it always said "email is already used", including for emails that I had just created.
Maybe they're losing users because nobody can sign up?
Or maybe the web sign up doesn't work, and you're only allowed to sign up with a facebook account (now they have your data) or the mobile app (they also have your data).
If so that's the kind of abject dishonesty that might also lose you users.
Maybe they're losing users because nobody can sign up?
Or maybe the web sign up doesn't work, and you're only allowed to sign up with a facebook account (now they have your data) or the mobile app (they also have your data).
If so that's the kind of abject dishonesty that might also lose you users.
Same thing happening to me as well.
But it happens only to my throwaway email not my main one.
Maybe they found out that mine is a throwaway a/c.
Cal Newport had written a blog[0] post about the very same reason which worths reading a while ago.
[0]https://www.calnewport.com/blog/2022/08/01/tiktoks-poison-pi...
[0]https://www.calnewport.com/blog/2022/08/01/tiktoks-poison-pi...
One of the options in the user research as to why you preferred one or the other was “better algorithm”, as an alternative to “more uplifting content” or whatever. Surely ‘better algorithm’ is just the means by which the user experience is delivered? No one uses a social media app ‘for the algorithm’!
I think the issue with Instagram is the “follow the money” mentality from a lot of its users. I follow around 600 accounts, many of which are artists and brands, and I definitely saw a drastic shift towards video content.
I do not open Instagram and expect to look at pictures alone unless it is from friends, pretty much.
I do not open Instagram and expect to look at pictures alone unless it is from friends, pretty much.
Dumb TikTok question: is the TikTok logo and branding supposed to recall old anaglyph 3D?
Likely yes. Such effect/filter is pretty common in art anyway.
Can we finally agree that 'currently cool' is no longer a moat, and stop giving insane 10x price/sales valuations to social media companies on the promise of eternal future growth / profitability.
You're talking about companies other than Facebook, right? Because Facebook is 3.6x price/sales with double digit growth still.
Could it be that Instagram isn't losing, but rather, they've won and they're cashing out while Tiktok is still trying to grow so that oneday it too can milk its users as hard?
Now that TikTok has handily overthrown Meta, I vow my next company will eschew tech and sell Scalextrics or some shit with an operational moat
A social network with 2 billion users is dying the same way as an average 20 year old is also technically in the process of dying.
Will china dominate social media market?
Seems very likely
I bet they dont rely as hard on algos when it comes to content, but thats just a guess
Seems very likely
I bet they dont rely as hard on algos when it comes to content, but thats just a guess
is there a difference in how tiktok handled music and copyright strikes (or at least for a while after launch until it was big)? I assume part of tiktok's success is that people can put in current music at all without getting instastruck by a neural net
Instagram isn’t dying. It’s the default app while commuting, bored, taking a dump, “looked at all my other apps and I’m bored, mindless app surfing, etc.
Also, Instagram adds value as an app that people truly enjoy from a consumption standpoint.
It’s not going anyway.
Also, Instagram adds value as an app that people truly enjoy from a consumption standpoint.
It’s not going anyway.
This is the way of the figurative boomer, in the parlance of our times. In 5-10 years, something will have replaced TikTok, if trends of the past continue. It's possible, in the same way that humans broke out of evolutionary balance, that an app such as TikTok and its machine learning algorithms can break out of the evolutionary balance of what teens find intriguing or "in", but that remains to be seen.
I don't know why any company would try to target the current "in" thing. That shows that not only are they behind but that they are behind a minimum of two generations of "in" apps/things. So Google and Facebook are just showing that they only know what was next and not what is actually next.
I don't know why any company would try to target the current "in" thing. That shows that not only are they behind but that they are behind a minimum of two generations of "in" apps/things. So Google and Facebook are just showing that they only know what was next and not what is actually next.
Because GOOG, FB/META need to hold up reach of their app platform, growth figures, and, ultimately, value of their shares. It's not an either/or strategy anyway, as will be seen by the insane biddings for a perceived next big thing; you can't typically innovate within an established org anyway.
The gifs don't work on firefox.
TLDR; Human wants and needs are two different things. If you only measure things like click throughs, you may end up measuring "wants" and therefore risk long term dissatisfaction as "needs" are not met. So the idea here is to engage paid human rating crew who will supposedly more focus on "needs" (because they are paid, they will presumably prefer less of garbage/controversial/clickbaits).
Instagram and Tiktok serve completely different purposes. Neither is dying.
Both companies are completely data driven with some amazing engineers; but why is the Reels product boring, while TikTok is engaging has to be something other than TikTok pulled the "wholesome" lever. (There was a ~month where I was getting incredibly depressing sideshows, so I don't think tiktok is 100% wholesome).
My theory has been that people have been conditioned out of posting to Instagram (if you don't have a literally perfect life, then why post) and as a result Instagram just has less content to draw upon. I think this effort to chase TikTok isn't going to pan out because "regular" people aren't posting to Instagram.