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Comment by ArkanExplorer | Hacker News Reader

The simplest solution is to just ban all user-visible metrics: # of likes, followers, friends, comments, etc.

At best, these serve as an indicator of quality for the public, but that function can be replaced by curation and validation by social media staff, or even just outright payment directly to the company.

At worst, these metrics are designed for social addiction anyway.

The 'like' button on Facebook was only introduced in 2009 anyway, 3 years after the platform became available to the public.

We probably need regulation to get to that point, but social media companies might very well make money money from this new world anyway. Moving towards greater user direct payment might also lessen reliance on advertising.

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If Facebook cared about the mental health of its customers it would remove public likes. One of the big crushers of self-esteem is seeing your own post get 5 likes while a friend's gets 50.

FB won't, of course, because it's a big part of what keeps people engaged. Getting a lot of likes is a big dopamine hit. If no one sees all your likes - well that's not as satisfying. If no one sees likes they are probably less likely to "like" something. I get that, but it's still a sad bottom-line based decision.

Interestingly enough, last time I opened Instagram it offered me to completely hide the number of likes on all posts (others' and your own as far as I understood).

Yep: https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-57254488

> One of the big crushers of self-esteem is seeing your own post get 5 likes while a friend's gets 50.

That's also a symptom of a problem outside of Facebook's control. From my personal experience, comparing myself to others has never been an authentic source of self confidence. But it's hard to remember that when modern culture and media values perfection and popularity.

Facebook is opportunistic and exploitative about it, where the entire product is engineered to be addictive keep you coming back. And so are thousands of other apps, news programs and articles, tv shows, etc.

That's part of it, but I'm also sitting here with the warm satisfaction that my earlier comment is up to 12 votes. Without votes or likes, I tend to assume that no one has read my comment, or no one finds it interesting. The effort I put into posting it ( I assume) was a waste of time and effort.

It also depends on your motivation. The intrinsic value of writing your post maybe is worth your efforts.

I write to engage. I'm enjoying my time in this topic since I'm getting some response and I always upvote all responders hoping to encourage the conversation to continue. I've gotten highly upvoted comments with no responses and I find that unsatisfying.

You can do it like i have been doing in hn and reddit. The moment my account gets enough points, i just delete it and start a new one. I think this is my third in hn or so, but i have been through more than ten on reddit

Even before likes were introduced to Facebook, the site was still capable of delivering a blow to one’s self-esteem, because comments were another sign of attention given to you. Plenty of people can tell you how in the period 2005–2009 their status update saying, for example, that they were having a hard time with their lives got zero comments from supposed friends, while someone’s vacation photos got many gushing comments.

Removing 'likes' won't solve all the morale-crushing issues of course. When everyone you know is posting pictures of the happy hours that you weren't invited to, and the fabulous vacations that you don't have the time or money to take, it's pretty miserable.

There are people I unfollow just because their posts fill me with envy and a destructive hope that they secretly have problems they don't talk about. I can sit here and tell myself they might be under crushing debt or have bitterly miserable marriages - but that's a nasty, unhealthy frame of mind. Some people have better lives than I do. I have a better life than some other people. Expecting some sort of karmatic "fairness" isn't going to help.

> The simplest solution is to just ban all user-visible metrics: # of likes, followers, friends, comments, etc.

As long as on the server side things are sorted by likes and such metrics people will always go out of their way to game the system.

In the early 2000's the original Counter-Strike game had a server browser utility and when it asked for a list of servers by default it gave them sorted by IP address. The result of this is that people would buy up and trade "low" IP addresses to be used as game servers.

There will always be a system to game.

But people like likes.

If nothing else, it’s good feedback to know what resonates with your audience.

Only if you can know that your audience is actually seeing your content.

My impression is likes come from a unique set of users who feel compelled to interact. Most don’t interact. So you’re getting a reading from the most “opinionated” or likely to share emotion and all the others who also have valid input but who are less likely to engage are discounted.

Who wants feature X on our product? You get a few saying yeah I’d pay an extra hundred for that, and very few who say no. Meanwhile most people just don’t want it, but never said so and the new feature is a dud.

A few years back, I was trying to become a food influencer on Instagram because it seemed like a fun optimization problem.

You quickly learn there's a game. You go and find a bunch of other influencers roughly in your tier (getting some traffic but not rockstars) and you like their posts and follow them. They return the favor.

You comment (nicely) on their stuff, they return the favor. If you've ever played those obnoxious mobile games that want you to recruit your friends, same idea.

Likes and attention farming is basically a pyramid scheme with monopoly money.

People like cocaine, and illegal gambling, and money laundering, and pyramid schemes, and cryptocurrencies.

Just because people 'like' them, doesn't mean they aren't ultimately destructive for society, and worthy of Government regulation/banning.

Also doesn’t mean they are.

If you don't want to gamble / crypto and do coke, then don't. Same for social media. I didn't ask for help from the nagging busybodies at the government. I am an adult, and I will manage my own affairs even if the government could do it better. And if they fucked off from wasting money on the war on drugs, then money laundering wouldn't even be a thing.

>> but that function can be replaced by curation and validation by social media staff

I think that the curation and validation of EG the lab leak hypothesis by Facebook and other social media companies shows that they cannot be trusted.

What they gonna do with the big like button in front of their office?

i think likes are vital to facebook. Even if they think they have locked-in the network of users, removing likes would disengage users so much to make it uninteresting

Is HN any different with its points?

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