The End of Social Media(miikavonbell.com)
miikavonbell.com
The End of Social Media
https://miikavonbell.com/posts/end-of-social-media/
119 comments
Maybe at one point social networks were actually social networks, but that isn't what they are any more. They're poorly-moderated, poorly-curated entertainment distribution platforms. People who own data centers and URLs figured out you can cut out the middlemen of studios, editors, publishers, et al, and the quality of content may go way down, but the quantity will go way up and cost to produce will go way down, in many cases to zero if you just let arbitrary users create your content for you, and engagement was never correlated with quality anyway.
The fact that consumers as well as creators need permanent accounts in order to use the platform enabled a level of tracking that normal studios and publishers could never have dreamed of. Warners could never put activity loggers into their viewer's eyeballs to figure out the exact rate at which the content of frame N leads them to continue watching at frame N + n. They had to rely on some level of positive word of mouth and positive reviews. They needed to leave some lasting impression that after their viewers spent a few minutes going home and thinking about it, they still thought the content was worth recommending.
That is all gone now.
The fact that consumers as well as creators need permanent accounts in order to use the platform enabled a level of tracking that normal studios and publishers could never have dreamed of. Warners could never put activity loggers into their viewer's eyeballs to figure out the exact rate at which the content of frame N leads them to continue watching at frame N + n. They had to rely on some level of positive word of mouth and positive reviews. They needed to leave some lasting impression that after their viewers spent a few minutes going home and thinking about it, they still thought the content was worth recommending.
That is all gone now.
> and engagement was never correlated with quality anyway.
Well it's a different style of engagement and a different standard for "quality" from what we colloquially think of those terms to mean. Traditional media needed you to engage with the media. Social media needs you to engage with the comment section associated with the media. The qualities the system is optimizing for, then, isn't the stuff we typically consider to be good for that medium. Instead it's the stuff that's good for making people talk about it.
This is almost certainly to blame for things always gravitating towards largely subjective evaluations of where something falls on some axis for a highly charged metric. Is this racist or not racist? Queer friendly or unfriendly? Liberal of conservative? Arguing about how to 'keep score' with which boxes any specific bit of media gets is a good way to say something about something topical that keeps people engaged and arguing.
Even in the days of the old blogosphere it was well known that you needed to have a comments section to get the page views. You can only crank out so many articles as an individual. But you can make your site "stickier" and encourage people to keep clicking the bookmark for it if you can get them engaged with talking about your article. It's not surprise that the most noxious elements of the modern Internet were more-or-less born on Reddit and Tumblr. These were two sites that basically thrived on creating selective pressure for this sort of content.
Well it's a different style of engagement and a different standard for "quality" from what we colloquially think of those terms to mean. Traditional media needed you to engage with the media. Social media needs you to engage with the comment section associated with the media. The qualities the system is optimizing for, then, isn't the stuff we typically consider to be good for that medium. Instead it's the stuff that's good for making people talk about it.
This is almost certainly to blame for things always gravitating towards largely subjective evaluations of where something falls on some axis for a highly charged metric. Is this racist or not racist? Queer friendly or unfriendly? Liberal of conservative? Arguing about how to 'keep score' with which boxes any specific bit of media gets is a good way to say something about something topical that keeps people engaged and arguing.
Even in the days of the old blogosphere it was well known that you needed to have a comments section to get the page views. You can only crank out so many articles as an individual. But you can make your site "stickier" and encourage people to keep clicking the bookmark for it if you can get them engaged with talking about your article. It's not surprise that the most noxious elements of the modern Internet were more-or-less born on Reddit and Tumblr. These were two sites that basically thrived on creating selective pressure for this sort of content.
For the last paragraph it wasn't quite that simple, Nielson Media Research was aggregating audience statistics for market analysis since the radio days before TV.
> figure out the exact rate at which the content of frame N leads them to continue watching at frame N + n.
I really hope they're not.
Between my habit of leaving youtube playing in the background with the sound off before randomly coming back and closing the tab, and my toddler figuring out touch interfaces for the first time on their app, they're not going to get anything actually actionable...
I really hope they're not.
Between my habit of leaving youtube playing in the background with the sound off before randomly coming back and closing the tab, and my toddler figuring out touch interfaces for the first time on their app, they're not going to get anything actually actionable...
I want the original version back. 2000's Facebook was actually pretty great while it lasted.
All I want is a chronolocial feed of all friends' posts (with ads interspersed since that appears a necessary evil).
I frequently miss life updates from people I'm in low contact with, and instead get endless suggested paid nonsense that I've tried very hard to curate personal preferences away from.
I frequently miss life updates from people I'm in low contact with, and instead get endless suggested paid nonsense that I've tried very hard to curate personal preferences away from.
I use reverse chronological feed of my FB friends every day, it's https://www.facebook.com/?sk=h_chr
I also use ad block plus. I read until stuff looks familiar, then I'm done for the day.
I also use ad block plus. I read until stuff looks familiar, then I'm done for the day.
I feel it's not useful to separate out the content creators from the network itself. Most of the "bad" things we see in today's social media are byproducts of how these networks behave as a whole. Put differently, how Youtube functions today is the result of the interactions between Youtube's algorithm to maximize profit for Google, content creators' drive to get more views, and consumers' desire to find more addicting things. You change one piece of the network and the network will behave very differently.
I find this to be very hopeful, because it means we can design and form networks that elevate people, not lower them into mindless zombie states.
I find this to be very hopeful, because it means we can design and form networks that elevate people, not lower them into mindless zombie states.
> I find this to be very hopeful, because it means we can design and form networks that elevate people, not lower them into mindless zombie states.
That's the interesting part about humanity though. We could live on a paradise planet together, with complete freedom, using high tech inventions to live anywhere with power and water.
But instead we are building a prison planet.
That's the interesting part about humanity though. We could live on a paradise planet together, with complete freedom, using high tech inventions to live anywhere with power and water.
But instead we are building a prison planet.
Facebook became much more useful to me when I realized this, and left all groups and the like behind. Facebook was always a terrible forum interface since they didn't show me everything. Now all they have is my friends list, so I see more pictures of my friend's kid riding a horse, or vacation pictures from Montana - exactly what I want facebook to show me.
Yet monetization enabled great content creators to generate something with a high production value or live their dream by earning money while doing the things they love. Veratasium or VSauce, for example, are a great channels, but they would've never gotten where they are now if they wouldn't have been able to earn money with it.
A similar topic comes up in music all the time, too: People accuse their favorite band of changing their style in order to get mainstream appeal and, therefore, more money. Which is definitely true to some extend, but I don't think this makes paying musicians a bad thing in general. And it's the same thing with content creators on the internet.
A similar topic comes up in music all the time, too: People accuse their favorite band of changing their style in order to get mainstream appeal and, therefore, more money. Which is definitely true to some extend, but I don't think this makes paying musicians a bad thing in general. And it's the same thing with content creators on the internet.
> Yet monetization enabled great content creators to generate something
That’s great and I’m happy for them... but it’s not social media. It’s just regular impersonal broadcast media, with a lower barrier to entry.
That’s great and I’m happy for them... but it’s not social media. It’s just regular impersonal broadcast media, with a lower barrier to entry.
I've noticed that before IG and Tiktok influencers become popular, their content is more authentic / less cookie-cutter. Also their followers leave better comments (they are only followed by those who genuinely like them).
> content creators are the problem.
> you can monetize their content.
Wouldn't that put the blame on the monetization of social media? Content creators are trying to make money, social media companies determine what kind of content is relevant and worthy of views, thus which content deserves the money. Content creators seem to be at the mercy of providing content that will be recommended.
I view it as a sort of "don't hate the player, hate the game." And the social media companies determine the rules of the game.
> you can monetize their content.
Wouldn't that put the blame on the monetization of social media? Content creators are trying to make money, social media companies determine what kind of content is relevant and worthy of views, thus which content deserves the money. Content creators seem to be at the mercy of providing content that will be recommended.
I view it as a sort of "don't hate the player, hate the game." And the social media companies determine the rules of the game.
Yes, I fully agree with you. However, just connecting people that already know each other doesn't earn as much money as force-feeding them content made by "influencers" and such. Being merely a tool isn't nearly as profitable as being a manipulative villain.
Practically, it's an advertising apparatus. Creators probably fit a normal distribution for mass appeal, so your ire might be better directed at advertisers who enable and curate primarily profit-driven content.
Nothing wrong with making a few bucks off of your craft.
Nothing wrong with making a few bucks off of your craft.
Nothing bad with creating fun stuff for profit.
And over the last decade youtube creators has been providing content with quality way superior compared to what more traditional entertainment industry has been producing (mainly marvel junk food, low effort remakes and SNL)
And over the last decade youtube creators has been providing content with quality way superior compared to what more traditional entertainment industry has been producing (mainly marvel junk food, low effort remakes and SNL)
>Nothing bad with creating fun stuff for profit.
I think that's an oversimplification of the issue. OPs main point (as I read it) was that once a profit motive became dominant, it pushed out enthusiast/passion-motivated content creators, and as a result the output is distorted towards that which is profitable.
I think that's an oversimplification of the issue. OPs main point (as I read it) was that once a profit motive became dominant, it pushed out enthusiast/passion-motivated content creators, and as a result the output is distorted towards that which is profitable.
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Yep agreed. Early fb would be fine for what I’d like to have to keep in touch with friends. Because of the ‘media’ machine it’s become - the curated feed, videos everywhere, ads and creepy-level tracking I don’t use it any more.
>> Some time ago I tried to find information about Crocodiles, the animals. Instead, I got results about Crocs shoes and zero information about the actual crocodiles.
I just entered 'crocodile' into Google search while signed into my normal private account, and got a ton of useful information about crocodiles. Shoes were nowhere to be found in the first 30 or 40 results that I scanned. I don't know if the OP is using a different search engine that is more blatant about ads.
I just entered 'crocodile' into Google search while signed into my normal private account, and got a ton of useful information about crocodiles. Shoes were nowhere to be found in the first 30 or 40 results that I scanned. I don't know if the OP is using a different search engine that is more blatant about ads.
This might be a bad example, since crocs and crocodiles are different words. But in some regions, 'croc' is used much more often than 'crocodile' in the same way that Americans say 'sitcom' much more often than 'situational comedy'. Even though it's an abbreviation, it's eclipsed the full word in frequency.
But I think the author's general point isn't about the information being unavailable (even if croc was the whole word, you can just write 'croc animal') but about the internet being engineered as a distraction machine. He didn't set out to look for shoes--but once they were presented, suddenly he found himself shoe shopping despite having no internet in purchasing shoes.
But I think the author's general point isn't about the information being unavailable (even if croc was the whole word, you can just write 'croc animal') but about the internet being engineered as a distraction machine. He didn't set out to look for shoes--but once they were presented, suddenly he found himself shoe shopping despite having no internet in purchasing shoes.
Fair enough, and yeah searching for 'crocs' unsurprisingly returns a boatload of shoe results. This is a broader issue I think, in that coming up with good search terms that are likely to return the results you need is a bit of a skill.
Is there anywhere in the English-speaking world where people say "situational comedy" instead of "sitcom"? I don't think I've ever heard anyone say "situational comedy" once in my life, unless they were answering the question "what is sitcom short for?"
Useful data:
https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&geo=GB&q=s...
https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=sitcom%2C+situ...
It looks like sitcom ran in parallel below situation comedy from the start, then sitcom took over with the boom in the 1980s. Situation comedy never went away, but it never came close once they diverged.
https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&geo=GB&q=s...
https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=sitcom%2C+situ...
It looks like sitcom ran in parallel below situation comedy from the start, then sitcom took over with the boom in the 1980s. Situation comedy never went away, but it never came close once they diverged.
I searched Crocodiles on YouTube, lots of good quality results that I saw.
the OP probably searched for 'Crocs'. Even DDG floods the front page with the footwear. I'm not sure this is a great example.
> the OP probably searched for 'Crocs'
Why would you do that when searching for crocodiles?
Why would you do that when searching for crocodiles?
Because it's shorter and is a common term for crocodiles in various places where they're common.
Not sure it’s reasonable to search an international search engine with a regional slang and then complain when it doesn’t recognise it.
It is when that search engine has been telling you for 20+ years to let them collect all your data because in exchange you get personalized search results.
I don't disagree. As soon as I started typing I would realize that crocs would probably turn up the shoe. However, to the degree that people routinely use regionalisms, it's easy to see why they might use them reflexively. Of course, it's also easy to see why a search engine might not return the results they expect.
it's also the exact name of a famous brand of footwear
This is a junk article. Why is it even on the front page?
60 years ago, before even the ARPANET, there was Newton Minow giving a speech [1] about how TV was garbage (the "vast wasteland" speech). If you want to read something timeless, read that instead.
[1] https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2011/09/the-vast-wast...
60 years ago, before even the ARPANET, there was Newton Minow giving a speech [1] about how TV was garbage (the "vast wasteland" speech). If you want to read something timeless, read that instead.
[1] https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2011/09/the-vast-wast...
Ironically, instead of linking to Minow's speech, you link to another "junk article" that reads like an ad for Harvard ("Hey look, this famous guy's daughter works at Harvard. Here are some random related facts." --the Harvard Gazette).
The mind boggles.
The mind boggles.
The full speech[1] for those interested.
[1] https://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/newtonminow.htm
[1] https://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/newtonminow.htm
I was expecting a lot more damning points about TV but this legitimately reads like the man is a luddite rather than someone thinking about maybe the value of deep thinking. His cited evils on TV: "You will see a procession of game shows, formula comedies about totally unbelievable families, blood and thunder, mayhem, violence, sadism, murder, western bad men, western good men, private eyes, gangsters, more violence, and cartoons." Yet in the paragraph above he gives the newspaper as well as the theater a pass, when you can see many of these tropes outlined in this quote from just Shakespeare.
Old Old media also was a "vast wasteland" of sponsored radio programs, poorly written syndicated stories meant to engage readers to see other advertisements in newspapers (literally the social media model), and billboards adorning theaters and most aspects of public life, even more than today. I was hoping he would get into something about devoting ones efforts towards improvements, personal or otherwise, rather than endless consumption that leaves you in the same place as beforehand, but that wasn't really his mark and probably not even in his capitalist head given the opining about 'tyrannical communism'.
Old Old media also was a "vast wasteland" of sponsored radio programs, poorly written syndicated stories meant to engage readers to see other advertisements in newspapers (literally the social media model), and billboards adorning theaters and most aspects of public life, even more than today. I was hoping he would get into something about devoting ones efforts towards improvements, personal or otherwise, rather than endless consumption that leaves you in the same place as beforehand, but that wasn't really his mark and probably not even in his capitalist head given the opining about 'tyrannical communism'.
The Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television (1978) offers a more succinct critique [1][2]. There is a big anti-TV rabbit hole you can go down from Marshal McLuhan to David Foster Wallace essays. Given that images are so alluring I place the subject in the asceticism category more than the Luddite/curmudgeon space.
[1] https://youtu.be/m3NBEurnIqY [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Arguments_for_the_Elimina...
[1] https://youtu.be/m3NBEurnIqY [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Arguments_for_the_Elimina...
You're right, I should have found the actual speech, but fortunately someone else did.
Problems I see:
- Most content produced by people on social media is not good and you probably don't want to see it. Serendipity of a bunch of crappy content "I had a bad day nobody ask me about it" is not something you want, but it is serendipity.
- Social media isn't where you go to get info on Crocodiles, not sure how that would even work? That's Wikipedia. ... or if we're talking social media, YouTube (I searched YouTube and got a lot of legitimate results).
- Most content produced by people on social media is not good and you probably don't want to see it. Serendipity of a bunch of crappy content "I had a bad day nobody ask me about it" is not something you want, but it is serendipity.
- Social media isn't where you go to get info on Crocodiles, not sure how that would even work? That's Wikipedia. ... or if we're talking social media, YouTube (I searched YouTube and got a lot of legitimate results).
> and you probably don't want to see it.
Hard disagree. I want to see everything from everyone I follow in a specific newest-to-oldest order. I also don't want to see other shit in my feed (X liked Y, who to follow, whatever), but I'm fine with having it outside of the main feed (be it a sidebar or a click away).
I also want to "tag" my follows into lists (family, close friends, topic X, topic Y), allowing me to filter through the timeline.
Currently only Twitter and Mastodon allow me this use case, and that's what I use on a semi-regular basis. Everything that deviates from that (Facebook, Instagram, YouTube's home feed) also loses me as a regular visitor with zero exceptions.
But the reason everything deviates from that eventually is clickthrough rate on ads. If my timeline is confusing enough, I'm more likely to click on ads.
Hard disagree. I want to see everything from everyone I follow in a specific newest-to-oldest order. I also don't want to see other shit in my feed (X liked Y, who to follow, whatever), but I'm fine with having it outside of the main feed (be it a sidebar or a click away).
I also want to "tag" my follows into lists (family, close friends, topic X, topic Y), allowing me to filter through the timeline.
Currently only Twitter and Mastodon allow me this use case, and that's what I use on a semi-regular basis. Everything that deviates from that (Facebook, Instagram, YouTube's home feed) also loses me as a regular visitor with zero exceptions.
But the reason everything deviates from that eventually is clickthrough rate on ads. If my timeline is confusing enough, I'm more likely to click on ads.
Exactly this. I WANT to see all those pictures friends and family are posting of their kids going back to school, or of their dog doing whatever. That is the point of social media, to someone keep in touch with the goings-on of family that lives far away. I actually like to read their personal opinions and thoughts they write on things, even when I disagree with them. (its interesting to see things from others point of view) But I wish I could just block everthing that someone 're-shares' since lately, its no different than the huge email chains your great aunt used to foward in ALL CAPS about how if you forward this to 10 people Bill Gates is going to send you money....
At least Instagram algorithm is going towards direction where this is not possible. It might hide content from persons which you have followed, if you haven’t liked or reacted their posts in the past. It wants to show the most appealing content.
RSS works well for this. I follow youtube channels and other media on RSS and its chronological, all in one place, and I can group or filter them however I like.
I'm gonna be honest, I do use RSS, but I dread it due to a) not every website supporting it, b) random sites having feeds that are way too noisy, c) liking one category of posts or one author and failing to extract those posts only, or d) random people I like publishing on multiple websites.
Now I can get around it with a ton of effort, but it will break sooner or later, which is why why I find Twitter/Mastodon lists far more useful and flexible.
Now I can get around it with a ton of effort, but it will break sooner or later, which is why why I find Twitter/Mastodon lists far more useful and flexible.
It's not too much effort to be honest considering all the services around RSS these days. You have services that can turn a website that doesn't support RSS into an RSS feed. Services that can filter feeds however much for certain keywords of interest or whatever and cut out the noise. You can even consume twitter via RSS these days.
Social media - at least, Twitter, but a couple of other sites before that - is still the go to source for breaking news.
It can take tens of minutes to hours for major news sites to report on a breaking event (e.g., the fall of Kabul). Meanwhile, you can get detailed - albiet in some cases very innacurate - information within minutes of it happening simply by watching for Tweets from people on the ground.
It can take tens of minutes to hours for major news sites to report on a breaking event (e.g., the fall of Kabul). Meanwhile, you can get detailed - albiet in some cases very innacurate - information within minutes of it happening simply by watching for Tweets from people on the ground.
But do we really need to know breaking news, instantly? It becomes addicting; it especially was for me during the last administration.
I’m completely fine finding out a few hours later about a breaking news story that doesn’t have a material effect on my immediate safety (ie wild fires). If Twitter’s biggest justification is that it lets you stay up to speed on news in real-time, I’d still agree we are better off without it, from a mental health perspective.
> do we really need to know breaking news, instantly?
There are good reasons, although I share your general concern. E.g., if you believe that you may be affected by an event, or if it's important/relevant enough that others will start to frame how it's perceived, it's generally good to find out about it as it's happening.
On the other hand, the vast majority of trending events aren't worth being concerned about for most people.
There are good reasons, although I share your general concern. E.g., if you believe that you may be affected by an event, or if it's important/relevant enough that others will start to frame how it's perceived, it's generally good to find out about it as it's happening.
On the other hand, the vast majority of trending events aren't worth being concerned about for most people.
If I need to know as it is happening there should be sirens going off outside in my town to alert me to that. Everything else can wait.
Plenty of these ”breaking news” are also heavily missleading. Causing side effects and heavy opinions, regardless if truth comes later. It is too late then.
> albiet in some cases very innacurate
I would correct to most cases. Or that the information you get is without sufficient context to be of use.
I would correct to most cases. Or that the information you get is without sufficient context to be of use.
Actually, I've found that they tend to be fairly accurate at reporting 'what' is happening - it's hard for several people at the same time to post unique, fake videos of people driving around with guns while others are posting corroborating textual accounts.
The 'why' part is a completely different matter. If there's any interpretation or time difference between the event and the post, scepticism is absolutely warranted.
The 'why' part is a completely different matter. If there's any interpretation or time difference between the event and the post, scepticism is absolutely warranted.
It's not that hard if you use "residential proxies"
I'm not sure how to phrase this without sounding rude, but what is this saying that adds insight to what I've been reading on places like HN for a decade?
Is it true that people are getting dumber? Big claim, no evidence. Do paragraphs exist? I'm looking for solution. Saying nobody knows what the future looks like ain't it.
Is it true that people are getting dumber? Big claim, no evidence. Do paragraphs exist? I'm looking for solution. Saying nobody knows what the future looks like ain't it.
The "people are getting dumber" argument really rubbed me the wrong way as well. It's glib and pithy and people love to make this claim when talking about things they don't like about society.
"I dislike ads and only stupid idiot babies would tolerate platforms with ads, therefore everyone using the majority of websites is an idiot" is such lazy thinking. IDK, I'm a huge fan of social sciences which means I might as well be the devil to many engineers/HN posters.
"I dislike ads and only stupid idiot babies would tolerate platforms with ads, therefore everyone using the majority of websites is an idiot" is such lazy thinking. IDK, I'm a huge fan of social sciences which means I might as well be the devil to many engineers/HN posters.
This book [1] argues that average IQ has been significantly increasing over the past century, and supports the claim with a wide variety of evidence.
However the author also posits that whether intelligence is increasing is still controversial and difficult to prove conclusively.
[1] Are We Getting Smarter?: Rising IQ in the Twenty-First Century https://books.google.com/books?id=Z_-ykOVpRccC
However the author also posits that whether intelligence is increasing is still controversial and difficult to prove conclusively.
[1] Are We Getting Smarter?: Rising IQ in the Twenty-First Century https://books.google.com/books?id=Z_-ykOVpRccC
I wonder how well we are able to maintain focus relative to years past, what with the mental damage of consuming content in thirty second or so intervals for long chunks of time for years and years. My internet addiction as a teenager 15 years ago was bad enough, if I grew up with fast paced junk like TikTok I feel like I would probably develop ADD just from the rewiring process that happens while growing up coupled with these short spurts of junk food tier content meant to engage you for as long as possible. Hopefully in another 20 years people see social media like a cigarette but for mental health.
Adult with ADHD here: You would not develop ADD from media. That's not how this works. The fact that devs have found ways to design sites that mimic patterns for addiction doesn't mean it's the people. It's the things. If you suddenly found yourself removed from the stimuli, you'd be fine, no longer the exposure period. I will not.
Since our jumping off point was "people are getting dumber"(they aren't) I just want to point out people aren't also developing ADHD, they just have more things vying for their neurtypical brain's attention.
Since our jumping off point was "people are getting dumber"(they aren't) I just want to point out people aren't also developing ADHD, they just have more things vying for their neurtypical brain's attention.
Maybe you wouldn't get canonical ADD but you'd definitely have an attention deficit disorder of some sort. Drink alcohol every day and you become addicted to that dopamine hit. Gamble every day you are addicted to gambling. Play video games every day and you are addicted to video games. These things infect your mind because they work just like crack cocaine, luring you in with a hit of dopamine and you end up sacrificing showering at best, interpersonal relationships and other aspects of life at worst. There is science showing these rewiring events happening due to drinking, gambling, and other addictive or compulsive repeated behaviors. I'm not sure why repeated daily consumption of 30 seconds of viral content would be any different and wouldn't predispose you towards seeking your dopamine hit thirty seconds at a time, and make you de facto have a disorder holding attention on something for longer than 30 seconds.
While it's pretty tough to even measure intelligence, nutrition and general health have improved dramatically, so that's likely to have spill-over into cognitive improvements as well.
Social media isn't over, just as trash TV, and entertainment parading as news isn't over.
It's also incredibly potent for spreading propaganda. I doubt any of the big players want to give any of that power just yet :-)
Most instagram ads are more entertaining and insightful than this article. Advertising is actually about educating the consumer for many products, and I think we're moving more toward personal ads that don't feel like ads. Sometimes you come across an ad that helps you or even changes your life. Things like new games, books or ideas. This article has nothing to do with the end of social media.
> Advertising is actually about educating the consumer for many products
This is so obviously false. If education was the goal of advertising, ads would inform about the negative sides of the products as well. I've never seen that. The goal of advertising is to make people buy more using any psychological trick you can come up with.
If you want to educate people, you need to do actual education. Bombarding people with propaganda is not education.
This is so obviously false. If education was the goal of advertising, ads would inform about the negative sides of the products as well. I've never seen that. The goal of advertising is to make people buy more using any psychological trick you can come up with.
If you want to educate people, you need to do actual education. Bombarding people with propaganda is not education.
> Advertising is actually about educating the consumer for many products, and I think we're moving more toward personal ads that don't feel like ads.
They try to make consumer to buy the product in all means. Which means, that this education is often very far away from facts in the most of the cases.
They try to make consumer to buy the product in all means. Which means, that this education is often very far away from facts in the most of the cases.
This is like saying "most products don't work". It's totally subjective. Blatant lies usually aren't tolerated in ad networks. I'm talking about "it's the hottest summer on record, therefore you may consider a pool" not "you will lose 10 pounds" which is strictly not allowed.
YouTube is the only "social network" that I can defend. I honestly think it's the very best thing to ever come out of the Web. The key to it though is using it without a Google login and with cookies disabled. This gives you the default algorithm free experience and forces you to engage your brain to think about what you want to see, rather than being spoon fed down a rabbit hole.
Being logged out and having cookies disabled definitely helps, but in my experience it's almost not enough.
I need to access Youtube from a completely different IP address, with a different user agent and browser window size to get rid of certain themes and suggestions that magically appear on the front page. Browser fingerprinting is responsible for this adversarial dynamic I find myself in.
I need to access Youtube from a completely different IP address, with a different user agent and browser window size to get rid of certain themes and suggestions that magically appear on the front page. Browser fingerprinting is responsible for this adversarial dynamic I find myself in.
This may be an unpopular opinion, but I really enjoy YouTube Premium. It’s nice to have the option to pay for an ad free experience, which is particularly useful on iOS mobile as uBlock origin doesn’t work. Having the ability to easily download videos for offline viewing and turn off auto play (which I think is also available without premium) is nice, too.
I am sure they are still hoovering up all my data but I hope they at least heed the signal that some people will pay for ad-free alternatives!
I am sure they are still hoovering up all my data but I hope they at least heed the signal that some people will pay for ad-free alternatives!
Lately I have found myself more willing to pay for certain apps and subscriptions in exchange for ad free experiences. I feel like it’s a more honest transaction. That said, I can’t afford to pay for everything I use online in a given day, so it’s not necessarily a macro solution. Also, I’d like to be able to expect that paying for a subscription would also mean a service stops tracking me to oblivion, but like you said that’s still happening.
Your opinion may be unpopular, but I appreciate the perspective you bring to the table.
I do think there is merit to the idea of market segmentation and value offerings in different ways:
1 - Eyeballs : Give us attention in exchange for browsing
2 - Premium : Pay us, and we will omit all ads
3 - VendorCosted: Vendor pays, and we omit all ads from certain content
I do think there is merit to the idea of market segmentation and value offerings in different ways:
1 - Eyeballs : Give us attention in exchange for browsing
2 - Premium : Pay us, and we will omit all ads
3 - VendorCosted: Vendor pays, and we omit all ads from certain content
I had done this in a new browser because my work once used it to stream a meeting, and I was shocked how tabloid-trashy the default front-page suggestions were. I can't believe that's what a plurality of people would want without the algorithms.
I can believe the tabloid trash is what people want: I've seen supermarket checkout aisles and daytime TV, the depths of the lowest common denominator have been plumbed before and it seems reasonable that youtube would arrive at much the same place. I can understand occasionally wanting to check the popular content for neat trends that you missed out on, but the idea of seeking out the pop / tabloid experience as your main interaction mechanism is foreign and slightly revolting to me. It's not an escape from the algorithm, it's just another side of the algorithm, and not the best one.
IMO the curated youtube experience is far better. Yes, it recommends similar content and will push you down a rabbithole if you let it, but that's what recommender systems do. The flipside of discovering good content from good choices is discovering bad content from bad choices, and I don't think those can be automatically separated. On occasion you have to actively and firmly tell the algorithm "no" in the form of "don't recommend this channel," but once you do it respects your decision. A tiny bit of curation goes a long way, and if if I didn't let youtube work with me to figure out what I liked I imagine I would wind up doing the same thing but worse by keeping a list of interesting channels that I periodically checked.
IMO the curated youtube experience is far better. Yes, it recommends similar content and will push you down a rabbithole if you let it, but that's what recommender systems do. The flipside of discovering good content from good choices is discovering bad content from bad choices, and I don't think those can be automatically separated. On occasion you have to actively and firmly tell the algorithm "no" in the form of "don't recommend this channel," but once you do it respects your decision. A tiny bit of curation goes a long way, and if if I didn't let youtube work with me to figure out what I liked I imagine I would wind up doing the same thing but worse by keeping a list of interesting channels that I periodically checked.
In my experience, Youtube only works as a curated experience, which means being logged into an account, having subscriptions, an active search history, etc.
If you want to see it with this lens, then look at "trending." I don't tend to have an issue with the algorithm - I like that I get amateur science, humor, and puzzles.
I don't use it to watch political content, so I don't get much of it.
I don't use it to watch political content, so I don't get much of it.
I have firefox default to private sessions, use an adblocker, and never log in to YouTube and it's a much better experience. The algorithm has nothing to work with, so you see the stock entries on the first page. Then when you search for something you get only things related to that search as suggestions, which is actually useful. It's bliss for about an hour, then the algorithm knows enough about you to start trying to make your life miserable again and it's time to close the tab and start over. Discovery is more difficult, since you have to come up with what rabbit hole you want to go down, though.
Before youtube you still had video sharing services online. Youtube was one of like a dozen popular video sites before it started consuming the market like a black hole, or Standard Oil.
I just use it to watch my subscriptions and things I specifically search for. With an adblocker so I can tolerate it, and sponsorblock for good measure. On Android I use NewPipe + sponsorblock.
I'm not addicted to YouTube. I don't spend that much time on it. It's not my go-to source when I go online. Maybe I'm in the minority, but when you treat it only as a video hosting service where you can follow specific feeds, I don't think it's really problematic.
I'm not addicted to YouTube. I don't spend that much time on it. It's not my go-to source when I go online. Maybe I'm in the minority, but when you treat it only as a video hosting service where you can follow specific feeds, I don't think it's really problematic.
>YouTube is the only "social network" that I can defend.
What about Hacker News?
What about Hacker News?
one middle ground I have taken for Youtube is to periodically delete my watch history. I am naturally curious so then when I watch a new niche I welcome Youtube's flood of new content.
for a long while i was thinking my comments on facebook would raise the quality of interaction, but with the onslaught of disinformation my thoughtful and respectful comments (or so I think) seem to be futile and just fodder for the facebook network and the attention economy.
So I wrote a goodbye note on instagram and facebook, felt confirmation by reading Jaron Lanier. Got a new domain and configured jekyll.
Now I can blog and write my 'digital garden' notes on my own island and share it with a smaller circle of people outside of the regular social media which artificially disciplines my thoughts, responses and behavior like the panopticon (michel foucault). I'll keep an eye on facebook groups, will schedule some script to rss-ify some feeds from 'facebook friends' but that's it.
So I wrote a goodbye note on instagram and facebook, felt confirmation by reading Jaron Lanier. Got a new domain and configured jekyll.
Now I can blog and write my 'digital garden' notes on my own island and share it with a smaller circle of people outside of the regular social media which artificially disciplines my thoughts, responses and behavior like the panopticon (michel foucault). I'll keep an eye on facebook groups, will schedule some script to rss-ify some feeds from 'facebook friends' but that's it.
This reads like an advertisement for peer to peer apps like Manyverse[1], Iris[2], or Capsule[3].
He mentions mirror.xyz in the footnotes, but I can't figure out what that is. One of those annoyingly exclusive projects like Clubhouse. The fact that not letting people in was a "feature" really just turned me off. Sour grapes, but oh well.
[1]: https://www.manyver.se/
[2]: https://iris.to
[3]: https://capsule.social/
He mentions mirror.xyz in the footnotes, but I can't figure out what that is. One of those annoyingly exclusive projects like Clubhouse. The fact that not letting people in was a "feature" really just turned me off. Sour grapes, but oh well.
[1]: https://www.manyver.se/
[2]: https://iris.to
[3]: https://capsule.social/
I believe blogging will have a Renaissance since it has all the benefits from "social networks" but excluding the ads, the unnecessary "likes", and focus on the fundamentals which are sharing and discussing, just like forums, but blogs will be about individuals mainly.
IDK what blogs you're reading, but many of those sites are a confederation of ads with small islands of content interspersed between.
Many bloggers are trying to do it as a way to gain income at this point, and the ads are either all over the site or inserted directly into the "content".
Many bloggers are trying to do it as a way to gain income at this point, and the ads are either all over the site or inserted directly into the "content".
I think OPs original point was more of a circa-2005 blog, which would be nice. But your point is equally as valid. Try searching for a recipe for your favorite dish - the first two pages are blog posts each filled with incessant chatter about how the dish makes them feel. You have to scroll to the very bottom just to get the actual recipe.
The Livejournal era has passed. You can't go back to that on a platform because platforms will continue to be for profit and nobody is going to pay for you to host their blog so you need ads to make the business viable.
The other option is everyone spinning up and hosting their own sites, which will not happen because Helen the mommy blogger has 2 kids to deal with and photos to edit and content to write so she does not also want to learn how to set up hosting and write HTML.
I'd like for certain things to "go back to the way they were" but that's just not how it works usually.
The other option is everyone spinning up and hosting their own sites, which will not happen because Helen the mommy blogger has 2 kids to deal with and photos to edit and content to write so she does not also want to learn how to set up hosting and write HTML.
I'd like for certain things to "go back to the way they were" but that's just not how it works usually.
Well, like mine, which is completely about me and my thoughts with zero ads, and I share and discuss whatever I want https://safetyinsolitude.blogspot.com/ This is what I send to people if they want to know my digital self.
So yeah, mentality needs to change to stop seeking revenue out of everything...
So yeah, mentality needs to change to stop seeking revenue out of everything...
The issue is that some people want to blog for a living (and there's nothing wrong with that IMO) which leads the platforms to optimize for that. I don't think enough people are willing to spin up their own self-hosted blogs just to throw their thoughts into the aether. Not when points to what the internet has become exists and they can get the engagement/dopamine they want elsewhere.
That's not to say your prediction is wrong, just feels extremely unlikely, barring some massive regulatory upheaval changing the internet's current paradigm.
That's not to say your prediction is wrong, just feels extremely unlikely, barring some massive regulatory upheaval changing the internet's current paradigm.
I'm skeptical. Blogs are difficult for subject matter experts (people skilled in a domain, and not necessarily skilled at making money off of the web) to monetize.
Not everyone is using social media to make money.
Not everyone wants to monetize in the first place.
The issue is that its not 2005 anymore. An organic blog that doesn't play the SEO game will just be buried by the millions of junk websites that play that game, and won't get traction like they did in the era where searching for a topic on the internet brought up relevent nonspam results.
Someone just needs to make a niche search engine that caters specifically to blogs. Preferably as a labor of love instead of a get rich quick scheme.
That is a bug in search engines though, not in blogs.
It's the way the internet is now, though, and it makes it so that is harder for average people to find and read and write blogs than it was years ago. In other words, it's tough going back to horses when all the stables in the city are gas stations now.
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One of the best features of a jailbroken iPhone is the ability to hide all ads on YouTube / Spotify / Instagram / Twitter / TikTok.
I feel impervious to social media advertising & you can too if you just go through the effort.
I feel impervious to social media advertising & you can too if you just go through the effort.
Is there an untethered jailbreak these days?
jailbreaks are currently described as semi-tethered.
meaning a jailbreak app must be ran after a phone has booted. your phone stays jailbroken as long as it does not power down.
it is functionally untethered. as the app that jailbreaks the phone persists through reboots.
there are firmware restrictions where these methods work however.
meaning a jailbreak app must be ran after a phone has booted. your phone stays jailbroken as long as it does not power down.
it is functionally untethered. as the app that jailbreaks the phone persists through reboots.
there are firmware restrictions where these methods work however.
"The end of social media" is quite a lofty statement, bearing in mind that facebook, twitter, ect... are social media, but social media isnt facebook, twitter.
It'd be like if there were some massive drama involving Netflix and YouTube. You wouldnt call it the end of streaming, or web based video. There'd be a massive shift in the market certainly, and I think eventually social media will look completely different to how it looks now, but thats not the end.
It might sound like I'm arguing over semantics but I'd disagree.
It'd be like if there were some massive drama involving Netflix and YouTube. You wouldnt call it the end of streaming, or web based video. There'd be a massive shift in the market certainly, and I think eventually social media will look completely different to how it looks now, but thats not the end.
It might sound like I'm arguing over semantics but I'd disagree.
"New technology, this kind or any other kind, is a kind of Faustian bargain. It always gives us something important, but it also takes away something that's important. That's been true of the alphabet, the printing press, and telegraphy right up to the computer."
Neil Postman on Cyberspace, 1995
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=49rcVQ1vFAY
Neil Postman on Cyberspace, 1995
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=49rcVQ1vFAY
I don't fully understand the point of the article, but there's my take anyway. ;-)
I pay for YouTube Premium so I don't get any ads on YouTube. And I don't really care about the (crappy) algorithm because I only watch what I subscribe to.
I hope Twitter's utility will similarly increase as they pivot to (a) premium paid services, and (b) open protocols via BlueSky.
Glass is a new social media photography app for iOS that feels a lot like early Instagram, but it's a paid service with no ads.
So yeah, perhaps it's the end of social media as we knew it…but that's fine because new and existing services will adapt to provide people premium experiences (for a fee of course).
Remember, we are the internet. If we don't like what it is, we can build something better.
I pay for YouTube Premium so I don't get any ads on YouTube. And I don't really care about the (crappy) algorithm because I only watch what I subscribe to.
I hope Twitter's utility will similarly increase as they pivot to (a) premium paid services, and (b) open protocols via BlueSky.
Glass is a new social media photography app for iOS that feels a lot like early Instagram, but it's a paid service with no ads.
So yeah, perhaps it's the end of social media as we knew it…but that's fine because new and existing services will adapt to provide people premium experiences (for a fee of course).
Remember, we are the internet. If we don't like what it is, we can build something better.
>Back in my day, we made mods for fun, and then we used the skills we learned to get jobs doing something corporate.
No, actually, we can't. By "we", of course, I mean garden-variety consumers.
The legal, financial, and social barriers to entry are far too high.
Anyone attempting to make the next youtube would be priced out of existance, anyone trying to make another reddit would be reduced to a smouldering crater by the time the lawsuits hit them, assuming that paypal doesn't force them to do an onlyfans first.
It's not 2003 (when 4chan started) any more. The internet game is fixed, rigged and it will only become more restrictive, not less.
Fuckerberg pulled the ladder up after him; there's not gonna be another movement -at least not coming from the internet.
No, actually, we can't. By "we", of course, I mean garden-variety consumers.
The legal, financial, and social barriers to entry are far too high.
Anyone attempting to make the next youtube would be priced out of existance, anyone trying to make another reddit would be reduced to a smouldering crater by the time the lawsuits hit them, assuming that paypal doesn't force them to do an onlyfans first.
It's not 2003 (when 4chan started) any more. The internet game is fixed, rigged and it will only become more restrictive, not less.
Fuckerberg pulled the ladder up after him; there's not gonna be another movement -at least not coming from the internet.
OP Here.
Wasn't really expecting this much discussion and attention for my article, but I am quite happy to see so much people having similar thoughts like I have, which I wrote in my article.
I wrote a follow up post to my blog to share some of my afterthoughts: https://miikavonbell.com/posts/front-page-hacker-news/
Wasn't really expecting this much discussion and attention for my article, but I am quite happy to see so much people having similar thoughts like I have, which I wrote in my article.
I wrote a follow up post to my blog to share some of my afterthoughts: https://miikavonbell.com/posts/front-page-hacker-news/
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I think an anonymous “dislike” button could go a long way in improving social media.
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I don't think anyone likes advertising, but that does bankroll the internet. There are some great content providers on youtube who do that full time and make a living from it. Even many basic sites owe their existence to advertising because running a server is not free. But the joke in on the advertisers. Internet advertising doesn't work, or at least that is what I have read.
If we hadn't had advertising but instead came up with some micropayment formalism, I bet the internet never would have developed to be what it is today, even for today's content that is not ad driven.
If we hadn't had advertising but instead came up with some micropayment formalism, I bet the internet never would have developed to be what it is today, even for today's content that is not ad driven.
I don't know if it's actually a plausible outcome, but take advertising out of the equation and you probably end up with a significantly more limited Internet that's mostly accessed from institutional accounts (as was originally the case) and by individuals who are fine with a fairly expensive subscription fee.
ADDED: I do tend to think the commercialization of the Internet with advertising was probably inevitable, but someone could probably construct at least a vaguely plausible narrative around a less commercialized post-NSFNET world.
ADDED: I do tend to think the commercialization of the Internet with advertising was probably inevitable, but someone could probably construct at least a vaguely plausible narrative around a less commercialized post-NSFNET world.
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I completely agree with the author's rants on machine learning algorithm.
> consuming content through internet has become more and more manipulative.
This is 100% true. With those ML-based "personalized" info feed, users keep getting pushed biased information that matches their prejudice and is not a reflection of the true picture.
I'm actually dubious that what fraction of the pro-Trump conspiracy theorists had developed their conspiracy views "thanks to" Facebook et al's ML-based info suggestion algorithms.
> consuming content through internet has become more and more manipulative.
This is 100% true. With those ML-based "personalized" info feed, users keep getting pushed biased information that matches their prejudice and is not a reflection of the true picture.
I'm actually dubious that what fraction of the pro-Trump conspiracy theorists had developed their conspiracy views "thanks to" Facebook et al's ML-based info suggestion algorithms.
It's just that people are making the most out of social media. Others have decided to make a hustle out of it, and it's not a bad thing as it allows other people to have money to put food on their table.
Miika-
This article is a dog whistle for right-wing behaviour and is quite frankly problematic, starting with this quip in the first paragraph which sets the stage: "[...] instead of letting algorithms and machine learning decide what is good for you."
We've spent a good twenty years now, and longer really, building the infrastructure to ensure that when it comes to the World Wide Web, FAAMNG+ companies - not just restricted to US-centric ones but globally really - can make sure that the things you see, and the way the algorithms work, are done in a way that is good for you.
I used to be against mass surveillance, logging everything, but seeing this kind of an article in 2021 sends shivers up my spine. I'm quite worried. Is this what we should look into next?
This article is a dog whistle for right-wing behaviour and is quite frankly problematic, starting with this quip in the first paragraph which sets the stage: "[...] instead of letting algorithms and machine learning decide what is good for you."
We've spent a good twenty years now, and longer really, building the infrastructure to ensure that when it comes to the World Wide Web, FAAMNG+ companies - not just restricted to US-centric ones but globally really - can make sure that the things you see, and the way the algorithms work, are done in a way that is good for you.
I used to be against mass surveillance, logging everything, but seeing this kind of an article in 2021 sends shivers up my spine. I'm quite worried. Is this what we should look into next?
I don't think anyone on the Left wants to give the Right ownership of the idea that algorithmic advertisements and social media are mostly bad.
> We've spent a good twenty years now, and longer really, building the infrastructure to ensure that when it comes to the World Wide Web, FAAMNG+ companies - not just restricted to US-centric ones but globally really - can make sure that the things you see, and the way the algorithms work, are done in a way that is good for you.
Wait, maybe I'm being hit by Poe's law here -- is your post actually sarcasm?
> We've spent a good twenty years now, and longer really, building the infrastructure to ensure that when it comes to the World Wide Web, FAAMNG+ companies - not just restricted to US-centric ones but globally really - can make sure that the things you see, and the way the algorithms work, are done in a way that is good for you.
Wait, maybe I'm being hit by Poe's law here -- is your post actually sarcasm?
> This article is a dog whistle for right-wing behaviour and is quite frankly problematic
Every time I see a sentence like this, I interpret it as the first step of an attempt to reduce speech.
Step 1: Identify 'problematic' content.
Step 2: Create rules to limit the distribution of 'problematic' content.
Step 3: Broaden the definition of 'problematic' content to include anything that disagrees with a specific point of view.
Step 4: Dystopian hell straight from Orwell.
> can make sure that the things you see, and the way the algorithms work, are done in a way that is good for you.
Is this a 'woosh' moment? Is this intended to be satire?
> I used to be against mass surveillance, logging everything
> Is this what we should look into next?
If this is satire, can you please clarify?
Every time I see a sentence like this, I interpret it as the first step of an attempt to reduce speech.
Step 1: Identify 'problematic' content.
Step 2: Create rules to limit the distribution of 'problematic' content.
Step 3: Broaden the definition of 'problematic' content to include anything that disagrees with a specific point of view.
Step 4: Dystopian hell straight from Orwell.
> can make sure that the things you see, and the way the algorithms work, are done in a way that is good for you.
Is this a 'woosh' moment? Is this intended to be satire?
> I used to be against mass surveillance, logging everything
> Is this what we should look into next?
If this is satire, can you please clarify?
When Friendster, MySpace,Facebook, et al started, it was about connecting friends online. People that already had a connection. When you shared something, you wanted to share something personal with friends. YouTube was about sharing your home videos. Not for money, but for actually sharing. What a strange concept!
Then people noticed you can monetize their content. No longer was it about sharing with friends, but creating for profit.
Social networks, as they were envisioned, are a great concept. As a method for distributing content to be monetized, not so much.