Personally I think all the old guard of social media is dying, and doing their best to hide it. You smell the desperation in their decisions. YouTube, Instagram, twitter, Facebook, reddit, they all seem out of style and things like tiktok, discord and Snapchat seem to be where the hype is. Of course, they're dying at different rates, but they seem to have decided at some point that ux innovation was over, they were done iterating and began to focus on increasing profitability regardless whether decisions improve ux or not, meanwhile new companies began experimenting with different ux approaches and business models. I expect in a few decades it will be common wisdom that social media trends change fast and no social media company will expect to be able to rest on their size and buy up the competition forever.
There are still people using ICQ, but it doesn't mean it's not dead.
TL;DR: DO NOT USE SNAPCHAT
(I mean of course in a pedantic way a lot of site of the Internet will be considered social media sites but we are talking about Facebook specifically here)
If you can post somewhere as a person, build a reputation or identity there, interact with a community and build relationships: congrats, you have a social network. The mechanics of me replying to you on HN, sending an iMessage to a girl, sending a Slack message to my boss or posting to a group in Discord are nearly identical but the people and the intricacies of the software differ. This is one of the reasons I’ve never been a fan of the “Facebook is a social media monopoly” line of thinking, at least in America. Just doesn’t work if you sit down and think about it, it’s just another website that does a few things better than some others and they are massively successful because of what they’ve chosen to be good at.
HN is a lot like /., Digg or very early Reddit to me, and it makes sense because it was started with a lot of the same ideas towards the end of that era, but with a purpose to serve Y Combinator’s needs.
Discord it depends, but if you join the right communities, it's like joining the perfect Facebook Groups.
Same here.
Explain like I’m 60? How do you use it?
Just like IRC, but doing everything wrong that made IRC great.
merely noting that the social interaction mode with other users is IRC style.
The spam is kinda neglaceable 8f you just ignore all DMs, the smart scam I've seen is outright dangerous tho.
All the other points stand, and the platform is indeed full of spam and scam - because many "servers" are run and inhabited by kids who don't investigate any of the moderation options and/or actively participate in the spamming themselves - but it certainly doesn't mean it can't be done.
(IRC was full of spam and scam as well as soon as you stepped away from the better kept communities; and also things like DOS wars and hostile channel takeovers during network splits, which Discord seems so far largely free of)
The OP mentioned a bunch of problems spawning from the platform's lack of moderation, among which there's spam and scams.
Certainly, as I mentioned, I do see problems with scams and spamming in some communities due to the admins of those communities choosing not to moderate, or not knowing/caring that it is possible, but those problems do not seem specific to discord - IRC also had them, as do other platforms. Hence my confusion.
It shouldn't be the server owners problem to repeat the same lines warning against the same things again and again because they lack actual control.
This really feels like a social problem, not a technical one; and not one specific to Discord, though it sounds like you have encountered some particularly bad communities there.
Lie down with dogs, and get fleas.
I wouldn't wish having to use EFNet on anyone, either.
That said, if I'm not mistaken I think Instagram too is deemed to be something for "old" folks by the current set of teens, tweens, and younger twentysomethings.
I had an account years ago but abandoned it as soon as they started to monetise (same for Twitter).
Not among my peers. Facebook is seen as a way to communicate with older and tech-challenged relatives. It's in the same category as LinkedIn -- a social network whose content is mostly cringe and that you're only on as a means to an end, not because it's a good product.
Are there discovery features in discord I may not be aware of?
This could have been the case, but Discord blocks me from making new accounts without a separate, expensive mobile phone number.
You can’t even join most servers without having a bot ping your name publicly. This name is then searchable by any user in that server by searching for “mentions:yourcurrentname#tag”. This applies even if you changed your username since then.
You also cannot turn off the ability for someone to see what mutual servers or mutual friends you have.
Any of the above issues would be manageable as a single issue, but when combined, Discord is the worst tool for privacy, bar none.
I'd argue that the NYT's war on FB and Apple's policies around privacy (e.g. "Tracking your data" when FB and "Enhancing your user experience" when APPL).
I also think it's worth noting these are relatively new phenomenon, we haven't even had social networks for long enough to pin down trends so absolutely.
I think FB can do real psychological harm so you have to be psychologically prepared for it.
I'm also not just consuming content and trying to stay ahead of trends.
Probably by buying the next up and coming networks, just like they did with Instagram and Whatsapp.
And while teenagers are on Discord, my impression is that their content there isn't great either. The interesting stuff on Discord is also mostly from 40-somethings.
Thing is, facebook has never been a great place for these things. I still have a FB account, but I haven't checked it in years, and back in the days when I did, there was only one person posting really interesting stuff. Everything else was just lame crap. For a while, I set FB to notify me when that guy posted anything and just ignored everything else, but I really wish he'd just post on a better platform.
There are some quality discord channels, but how do you learn about or get invited to them in the first place?
It's absolutely an echo chamber; it's mostly people who grew up with British roleplaying games in the 1980s and still love them today. But it's a fun group.
Having the boomers is something everyone mocks FB for, and no one realizes it's why they're so successful.
- their users are about a quarter of the world's population; at that scale even a downward trajectory will take ages and it will likely stabilisie at some point
- there's many people who aren't like you out there in the world, there are more people like you on HN so it will be easier to find similar opinions to yours
Sure, there's switching inertia, but there's no "killer app" that consumers lose by leaving the google ecosystem. (Except YouTube, I guess.)
Apple's IOS is shrinking globally due to Apple chasing premium customers and pricing itself out of the market. An iPhone SE is $399 after discounting, the average selling price for a smartphone outside the US is about $90.
The iPhone 13 is a truly fantastic product, state of the art with an SOC that is years ahead of the competition. I'm truly privileged not only to own one, but to live in a country where the average man on the street can also afford to buy one for every member of his family. But I'm part of a tiny minority.
I recall a recent article on HN about this
That’s how I found reddit - the great digg exodus, about 15 years ago.
The Facebook property itself has pretty clearly already reached the high water mark. So they change the parent company name to make the distinction that Meta is not just Facebook, which they're hoping will insulate themselves from one of their products fading away as they bring up new separate social products that solve the generational silo requirement of the market.
"Slowly at first, then all at once."
I am a member of a number of active Facebook Groups for neighbourhood news, some niche hobbies too small to have their own forums, etc.. I also quite come across planned sport/music events which have only a very basic website, with all updates about the event posted on Facebook.
I think the killer feature is the to the ability to post photos along with text and then discuss it, without relying on external services. Forums can't handle photos well, and Instgram doesn't deal with long form text or extensive discussion well.
I grew up during the Cold War and instantly recognized FB as a Stasi-wet-dream surveillance tool. Never signed up and never will.
I'm encouraged that younger folks are rejecting it though I worry they may simply substitute something else equally bad (e.g. TikTok).
What we should be doing is use non-commerical, decentralised, people-centric social networks that aren't looking for every opportunity to monetise everything.
The only people I see still regularly posting personal updates to FB are older people.
I stay on because the older relatives are there, and I like to stay in touch with the extended family. If it weren't for them, I'd be gone as well.
I use Instagram far more than FB, but still have enough (older) friends/family on FB to check it out now and then.
The bulk of my social circle ranges from late 20s to early 40s and they seem to be heavily active on Instagram. I don't have a TikTok account at all (yet)...unsure if anyone I am close to uses it or not.
One place I have noticed some divides for myself at least is in memes, because naturally they tend to be in jokes between tighter knit social groups that eventually become popularized. By the time I see a new meme it's already uncool.
This is a strong indicator that FB meaningful usage will fall off a cliff when older relatives start dying. Also lots of risk of dead people's accounts getting hacked.
Where do the young folk who don’t use Facebook sell their random crap they’re getting rid of because they’re moving?
Serious question - do people not use eBay any more?
personally I abandoned it for nothing almost 10 years ago, I don't see any added value, though wife use their marketplace to sell things to clueless people for more than they cost on regular classifieds sites, so I guess that would be only beneficial reason I can see in using FB if you want get more money for your used stuff
I only participate on heavily moderated local groups about local issues. It’s a wonderful way to communicate with people in your community and learn what’s going on.
I unfollowed everyone I know in America and don’t interact with any of them.
What would happen if it disappeared?
The government is also terrible at communicating, so it would be very difficult to figure out when laws have changed, and how they are being implemented in practice (very important during Covid).
There are other community based websites here, but they are much less well moderated and skew towards scams and vulgarity.
This is all from an Expat's perspective, but there aren't any local language alternatives either for reliable community information.
I've read so many times on HN that no-one uses FB. Meanwhile, I have friends in many countries around the world I chat with on FB. In India, Russia, SE Asia, Australia, west & east Europe, Africa, latin america etc. The majority of their siblings, parents, children if they have them, are on FB too. So are all their friends. Just about everyone in a lot of countries, seemingly almost all of them, is on there.
I haven't posted anything much in years, maybe once a year. I very rarely look at the news feed. Mostly I'm on FB to chat with friends, and look at their pics if we didn't chat in a while. We exchange pictures, audio, video, PDFs, links etc in the chat. One of these "No-one uses FB" people might look at my wall and think I'm never on FB any more, too, I guess.
I'm not sure if the HN meme of "No-one uses FB" means just "in my circle" and/or "in the USA".. but in the wider world, it does seem like everyone, from 8 to 80, uses it. Everyone with a phone/internet, anyway.
Also, not sure why some people seem to have the idea that FB is just about the news feed and nothing else. As if one is forced to spend all time on FB scrolling the news feed, and if that's bad then FB is useless.
-Winston S. Churchill
But it's going to take a long, long time. Facebook Marketplace draws users of all ages, and there's always the chance of some innovation along the way that might draw younger people in.
I wouldn't bet on Facebook dying any faster than Twitter or Snapchat.
1. generally keeping in touch with people they couldn't see due to travel restrictions, including FB Messenger
2. organising events for people with shared interests / hobbies. I've connected with a lot of new people on hiking and music groups recently that I didn't know before
3. advertising and placing orders on micro businesses e.g. micro breweries, food outlets
FB has a platform that can cope with this without any work on the admin side and no cost. The type of things I mentioned in 2/3 often wouldn't exist if the people had to support their own website. Google works for businesses (3) to an extent, but I'm finding listings on fb more common for small events. I'm not sure the other social platforms really cater well for any of these things in my country.
This only works because most people in the target demographic are already on fb
I have been told by acquaintances within the company that Facebook is considered a legacy product. IMO the corporate rebranding was canny. But I also have little/no faith that their internal bureaucracy will be able to pull off "the metaverse." Their only hope is pulling off more Instagram-style acquisitions.
https://investor.fb.com/investor-news/press-release-details/...
https://www.sec.gov/ix?doc=/Archives/edgar/data/1326801/0001...
They look really good to me actually
I literally have 30 menu options in the side bar. This is not an exaggeration. There are stores, memories, groups, marketplaces, messaging, live, watch. It's insanity.
They've gotten too good at keeping your attention. My mom is addicted to facebook. She can't put it down. She is constantly telling me about news articles and crap I don't care about.
Facebook is a cancer that people should cut out. Instagram isn't as bad (yet).
The time will come for Facebook as well.
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2022/03/aarp-backed-soci...
https://community.seniorplanet.org/
“The social network was developed by an AARP affiliate, Older Adults Technology Services. OATS started out giving computer classes to older folks in New York City and has expanded its physical footprint over the years. During the pandemic, those classes moved online, and Senior Planet Community grew from that transition.”
“Besides its focus on the 50-plus set, Senior Planet Community stands apart from Facebook in that it’s not commercial. The site has no advertising or membership fees. Unless the cost to run the site grows substantially, that probably won’t present much of a problem. AARP isn’t saying how much it has put into Senior Planet Community, but the organization is famously well-capitalized, with $2.3 billion in net assets and $1.7 billion in revenue in 2020.”
(disclosure: AARP member)
The most toxic people on Nextdoor and Facebook are over 60, are just a little bit racist as old people are, and haven't learned the social norms of internet use. Moderation is going to be a very expensive exercise for them if they don't want the site to turn full neo-nazi like Parler did seemingly overnight.
It really feels Instagram is the new Facebook, which is great for me, because there is no expectation to be on Instagram within my circles so I can avoid social media, and pseudonymously follow the couple of Insta accounts I do like.
yes, they killed it. Messenger on purpose, other core features by incompetence.
Hard to tell and you'll probably get a skewed picture here, of people who probably were early adopters (pre 2010) and have since moved on (unless it's big in their family).
They say I can send them photographs of my license and a selfie to unlock it, ostensibly so they can use those for Clearview AI to build a profile. I've declined.
When I do look at my feed, much like you, it's no longer my friends posting.
The rate of decline could be as strong as facebook's rate of growth back in the day. The less people are engaged, the less people will come back, which leads to a cycle.
I wonder if there is going to be a shift from global to local too. That would be fun to witness. Facebook killed all our national social media platforms the same way it killed myspace in the US.
I think the most social value of Facebook is in groups. There are some amazing groups where people self-organize, share knowledge and generally help each other.
The public FB is mostly about media companies sharing stuff, but groups is where people are actually involved and that part is very much alive.
Outside of that, it mostly seems to be another receptacle for hot takes nowadays, which doesn't really interest me (why I'm barely on Twitter). When I want to discuss current events I'll go to a subreddit and discuss it more or less anonymously, I'd rather not risk annoying or pissing off (or myself becoming pissed off at) people in my Facebook friends list.
The saving grace is if they somehow deliver on their Metaverse promise. Zuck knew FB was dying before everyone else, hence the full on pivot. We'll see if they can reinvent themselves to become the leader in Web3, which could ultimately save the company. As it stands today, with war waging on multiple fronts, regulation, user sentiment, competition, emerging trends and so on, they are dying.
For some people it is a wasteland of advertisements because their peers have moved on.
But the local groups might work better as WhatsApp groups, so it's mostly inertia.
If I'm representative of younger people—and I have no idea if that's the case—Facebook proper is in deep trouble.
So what's the difference? It's still lining Mark Zuckerfuck The Soulless' pockets with gold.
I myself don't use Instagram, and I'm meaning to talk to her about it.
But observing my surrounding, it seem that Insta is the sh*t currently, with money, influencers and generally nice pictures, while facebook is for parents to post pictures of their kids.
I also use it to see which relatives are now Qanon or Qanon-adacent.
I kept my parents off it because I know they would succumb.
There was a lot of hype about the metaverse because everyone hoped that there will be creative freedom again but when talking to their agency representatives it looks like it's even more restrictive. At the moment Facebook is basically the garbage dump for assets you already created for other networks, there is no creative freedom and their AR offerings are lacking behind snap and TikTok. In the 2000s and 2010s you sold whole campaigns because of Facebook, now Facebook Ads are just a chart you spend 1 second in a presentation. I believe it's dying and it can't come soon enough for the creative industry. For us, Facebook is now a waste of time and energy.
There are nuances, but there is also bullshitting yourself.
I don't know, but I have two things to say. First, did you consider that it isn't everybody else who is wrong? Somehow, even some people from the advertising industry think it's pretty rotten (Frédéric Beigbeder wrote a book about it). Second, it's healthy to accept why you do what you do. I do work that is morally not great, not terrible, and I'd rather accept that than tell myself it's 100% fine (and I won't work on everything). I like dealing with code, and I like getting paid for it, and I will do things as long as they aren't very (according to my arbitrary definitions) unethical. If you said I like to get paid to come up with wild ideas, fine. Naughty but honest is something that most people can accept. If you are the person that I think you are, that is how you talked about it in person, actually.
And there are original creatives (now maybe more on instagram) which are relatively targeted, explain product, good call to action. I click through a few business SAAS type pitches and its been interesting.
I for one appreciate that someone from the "Dark side" gives their view and relatively unique perspective. It's MUCH nicer to hear from them then the same old tired crap about ads are bad. I would ban all billboards and hate ads, but another perspective here is nice to hear. I also know someone in the measurement space, and the reality is folks IN the space are paying very VERY close attention to where users are, who they are, what is working.
Anyways, thanks throwmeriver1 - was nice to hear from the marketing side. Youtube shorts seems to be a dumping ground for tiktok stuff as well - though with youtube scale I could see that changing.
If your asian there was the whole subtle Asian thing a couple years back that generated tons of sub groups like subtle Asian rock climbing.
Don't have to be asian too join and I'm positive there's groups outside of the whole subtle Asian thing.
The only boat that they really seem to have missed is the community that tiktok serves. But it seems to offer the lowest standard of viral memes and stupid joke videos.. I'm not on tiktok but every time someone sends me a video I really hate, it has their logo on it. I've literally never seen anything that came across my WhatsApp with that logo that was worth watching. So I'm definitely not tempted to try. For some reason it really rubs me the wrong way. It seems to embody everything I hated about what Facebook became. If I were leading Facebook I'd not want to double down on that direction either.
For what it's worth, when I was on Facebook I also hated people (re)sharing memes and videos. I used it to see what my friends were up to in their lives but the amount of crap became too high. Too many people sharing memes, 'funny' videos, petitions or trying to sell/promote stuff. I think it's the algorithms egging them on. Trying to get as many likes and followers as they can. Eventually people got disillusioned with that rat race on Facebook, and I think the same will happen to the tiktok crowd.
But maybe social media is just not for me. The more algorithms involved, the worse it seems to get at showing me what I want to see. I have very little patience for wading through a timeline of stuff I'm not interested in trying to find the one bit of worthwhile information. WhatsApp has pretty much taken over that function for me. Because it doesn't do any prioritising or inserting ads or content it thinks I will like, it just passes messages like it should do. Just like Facebook used to do before it went down the toilet. Most of my real friends I now have in WhatsApp groups.
But of course that's also owned by Facebook.. So yes I think Facebook the company (now meta) will be fine. Facebook the service not. I think the metaverse is a risky bet but potentially very rewarding.
That assumes Meta's plans for the metaverse ever pay off, and in my humble opinion, that's less than certain.
I'm not sure if I trust Facebook with making it something worth using for me. They seem focused on becoming the middle man for selling content like Apple with their app store. Which sounds good. I can get on board with that.
But I think their mindset will draw them back into datamining, 'engagement' and ads anyway. They're just employing too many people that are really good at it.. It's hard to turn the corporate equivalent of an aircraft carrier around. But I hope I'm wrong.
However when it becomes a success, competitors will come up with a different focus. They will have demonstrated the added value and others will jump in. Either way it's going to be good for VR.
I think they really have something with this. And it's a ballsy move going all-in on it. They regained some of my respect for it.
Heck, a lot of people couldn't stand being restricted to Zoom and other internet interaction during lockdown (admittedly I didn't mind as most of my social life was online anyway prior to the lockdown.) Imagine trying to make all of that happen via VR headsets instead of tablets and screens.
Teens, tweens, and younger twentysomethings already seem to regard Instagram as something for "old" people.
My main social circle heavily uses Instagram, but its composed of late-20s to early-40s people, which does seem to be the prime Instagram demographic right now.
Instagram kinda feels like the original Facebook as it was back in the late 2000s to early 2010s.
Not really. I'm in a pretty diverse sport and the high schoolers I'm familiar with are still using Instagram too.