If scrolling feels more exhausting than entertaining, you're not alone. I feel the same way, and a recent study backs up the sentiment: Social media is losing its fun factor.
See also the privacy-invading aggressiveness of most platforms, and the political ads and propaganda inundating people’s feeds. If social media had just remained a way to keep in touch with friends and post pictures, it would probably have remained popular.
They could have had guaranteed medium long term return, if they played nice. But now there’s backlash against both the brands and even the very concept of that form of social media.
So they’ve had high short term gain that could all come collapsing down relatively soon.
I thought all of the social medias were bleeding money until they had the customer base locked down enough to exploit with all of the aforementioned shit?
Bleeding money expanding as fast as they could so nobody else got there first.
Huge capital investment to capture the market, and as you rightly put it, exploit with all of the aforementioned shit.
But that doesn’t mean they had to go down that route. Income via vaguely targeted advertising has been a standard practice for decades by newspapers, radio stations, and TV channels. They could have improved upon that old model without turning to the evil manipulators and spyware companies they are now.
Take, for example, DuckDuckGo, this is their model:
It is a myth that search engines need to track you to make money. The majority of our revenue is from private ads on our search engine. On most other search engines, ads are based on profiles compiled from your personal information, such as search, browsing, and purchase history. Since we don’t have that information per our Privacy Policy, search ads on DuckDuckGo are based on the search results page you’re viewing instead of being based on who other companies and their tracking algorithms assume you are as a person. For example, if you search for cars, we’ll show you ads about cars. We’ve even created a way to show localized ads while still keeping you completely anonymous.
It pretty exists ai. While it was novel and actually social, it was fun and a good way to keep up with friends that you see less often.
Then they started pushing influencers and people starting posting an idealised version of their life. Then the feeds all devolved into junk, even before AI slop.
Its because they took the joy and monetised it while making people trust them less and less. Post about an engagement, get wedding ads. Post holiday photos, then find out they were data mined. Wish someone happy birthday and find it’s just a stream of 100s of cookie cutter messages on their page.
So people moved on or became lurkers that don’t post. A lot of engagement moved from social onteractuin with people you know to Facebook community groups which became effectively ragebait and clickbait.
I agree fully with the crap in the feed. The inmediacy though, not so much. I recall when they started that and people were still posting they tried to use it for engagement. A new post from a friend that had engagement would be repeatedly resurfaced in your feed.
It did mean less consequential posts from days earlier did feel stale and pointless when they were pushed through again, though, if that’s what you meant.
The problem is that an algorithm defines “less consequential posts” and it doesn’t have your best interests at heart, at all.
I did wonder if posts from friends were deliberately delayed so that you would be guilted into responding to their Big Thing that you didn’t see on your feed. Eventually, you’d be trained to keep scrolling to find posts from your friends, and they’d be trained to keep checking for replies days after their Big Thing, thus maximising user engagement and profit.
Not just America. It’s a trend worldwide thanks to the abundance of AI slop taking over any ‘social network’.
See also the privacy-invading aggressiveness of most platforms, and the political ads and propaganda inundating people’s feeds. If social media had just remained a way to keep in touch with friends and post pictures, it would probably have remained popular.
But unprofitable
No, just not as profitable.
They could have had guaranteed medium long term return, if they played nice. But now there’s backlash against both the brands and even the very concept of that form of social media.
So they’ve had high short term gain that could all come collapsing down relatively soon.
I thought all of the social medias were bleeding money until they had the customer base locked down enough to exploit with all of the aforementioned shit?
Bleeding money expanding as fast as they could so nobody else got there first.
Huge capital investment to capture the market, and as you rightly put it, exploit with all of the aforementioned shit.
But that doesn’t mean they had to go down that route. Income via vaguely targeted advertising has been a standard practice for decades by newspapers, radio stations, and TV channels. They could have improved upon that old model without turning to the evil manipulators and spyware companies they are now.
Take, for example, DuckDuckGo, this is their model:
https://duckduckgo.com/duckduckgo-help-pages/company/how-duckduckgo-makes-money
Reminds me of royal road
Think about people asking for a feature to view ad history (what ads they have been served)
And at least some being willing to pay for such a feature
How long can you be profitable if users are leaving though?
It pretty exists ai. While it was novel and actually social, it was fun and a good way to keep up with friends that you see less often.
Then they started pushing influencers and people starting posting an idealised version of their life. Then the feeds all devolved into junk, even before AI slop.
Its because they took the joy and monetised it while making people trust them less and less. Post about an engagement, get wedding ads. Post holiday photos, then find out they were data mined. Wish someone happy birthday and find it’s just a stream of 100s of cookie cutter messages on their page.
So people moved on or became lurkers that don’t post. A lot of engagement moved from social onteractuin with people you know to Facebook community groups which became effectively ragebait and clickbait.
Essentially they pushed so much crap into your feed that your friends got pushed out.
So then what was the point of posting your current status when your circle might only see it two or three days later?
The immediacy was lost, and thus so was the usefulness.
I agree fully with the crap in the feed. The inmediacy though, not so much. I recall when they started that and people were still posting they tried to use it for engagement. A new post from a friend that had engagement would be repeatedly resurfaced in your feed.
It did mean less consequential posts from days earlier did feel stale and pointless when they were pushed through again, though, if that’s what you meant.
The problem is that an algorithm defines “less consequential posts” and it doesn’t have your best interests at heart, at all.
I did wonder if posts from friends were deliberately delayed so that you would be guilted into responding to their Big Thing that you didn’t see on your feed. Eventually, you’d be trained to keep scrolling to find posts from your friends, and they’d be trained to keep checking for replies days after their Big Thing, thus maximising user engagement and profit.
More like “no thanks”. It’s so bad that Greasemonkey scripts are needed to fix.