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Comment by ImPleadThe5th | Hacker News Reader

> The reality is that the internet has become decentralized; rather than people staying in one gigantic, unified group with shared trends and moments like they used to, users go their separate ways, with social media algorithms providing hyper- curated content that pushes users toward smaller groups with niche shared interests.

Erm. What's with the optimism at the end here? Isn't this the example of the exact opposite? Despite being promised "curated niche interests" somehow these attention algorithms on huge centralized platforms find a way to turn everyone on the platform into a consumer of a particular trendy item?

I find it so disturbing that a lot of "niche interests" on the Internet these days seem very consumer focused.

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I knew barely anything about this trend, despite spending a decent chunk of my day online, which I think is evidence of the modern web being decentralised.

However it's not so much due to the algorithms, which probably are trying to funnel most people towards the same products, but just the fact that there are so many people online now that you're naturally going to see the emergence of niches.

You don't have to read this optimistically if you don't want to - some of these "curated niche interests" can be pretty dark...

I only know about it from my child. They were the most important thing until they weren’t. Thankfully no thought was wasted on them!

To add to everyone else… the internet has allowed you and everyone else to be put into categories, what you see is tailored to you and your demographic alone. You and your neighbors live in the same physical community but your mind and thoughts belong to a community that could be a million miles from you.

you are on the nerd algorithm and there is a sport algorithm and some others but probably like 10 algorithms not 5000 like they try to say, advertisers need to concentrate as much as possible but also to exclude as much as possible as showing an untargeted ad to a wrong demographic IS wasting money to them

> you are on the nerd algorithm and there is a sport algorithm and some others but probably like 10 algorithms not 5000 like they try to say

If you've ever tried TikTok, you'll realize their FYP will narrow you down to a highly specific nerd/sport niche pretty quickly. There's isn't a single nerd algorithm, but a whole taxonomy.

Indeed, I find it very hard to take the article seriously given that every one of the notionally decentralised trends it's described has propagated on a very small handful of highly centralised platforms. For that matter, it's very difficult for me to imagine how these trends might have spread in the first place without access to large-audience virality directed by algorithmic recommendations precisely enabled by such severe centralisation.

> The reality is that the internet has become decentralized

6 7

6 7?

Too much grass has been touched if this one hasn't permeated to you yet.

Yah, I ended up googling it. Seems like I wasn't missing out on much lol.

Effectively the nth iteration of "those crazy kids"

> ?

exactly

Maybe it's a nitpick, but

> The reality is that the internet has become decentralized

What the author seems to mean is that internet _culture_ has become fragmented ("decentralized").

The internet (servers etc) always was decentralized by design. And the web built on top of it (commonly referred to as the internet) certainly hasn't become decentralized, rather it got more centralized.

It's unfortunate that the language isn't used precisely here, I think.

It's a newspaper, not a technical publication. I think most of its readers would correctly understand references to "the internet" to be referring to internet culture/community rather than the servers that host it.

Okay, maybe I was overly technical. I'd still say that the average reader maybe reads 'the internet' as 'the websites I browse', so I still think the language isn't good. I think it makes sense to talk about "internet culture" instead of just "the internet", that level of distinction isn't really too technical, right?

To me it's important because "the internet" meaning the sites we browse, has become incredibly centralized! It's not helpful then to say the exact opposite. And I'd also argue that this centralization, as it went along with algorithmic content distribution, is exactly the reason for the fragmentation that the article talks about.

I think there is a missed opportunity there to write a few sentences about this.

I can't help but think of these wild and free (of regulation) markets as a capitalistic jungle of sorts: "These troll farms are the resting place of one of Capitalism's most resourceful predators: the Artificial Scarcity Hype Schemer. These capitalist pack hunters are cunning; they collaborate with the Treacherous Influencer to create what is known as an influencer-driven pump-and-dump trend scam. First, they use sophisticated techniques like algorithms to lead potential victims towards the Influencers who will help the Schemer to isolate, dazzle and confuse their prey. After the Influencer has gained their trust, the Schemer can swoop in and use strategies such as spambots, fake trends and disinformation in order to peer-pressure impressionable minds so they both get a chance at gnawing at the victims pockets. Having gotten their way, the cycle begins anew: the Influencer begins drawing future victims into a false sense of security, and the Schemer starts devising a ne w set of scams."

The point the article is trying to make is that Labubus were an abnormally short lived fad, and that’s their attempt at an explanation.

I don’t know if that exactly explains the short life of the Labubu fad, but I find the disappearance of shared culture quite evident these days.

> The point the article is trying to make is that Labubus were an abnormally short lived fad

Is that actually true, though? I feel like furbies, say, were if anything a bit shorter. Possibly people were expecting Labubus to be like beanie babies, but really beanie babies were the exception in lasting abnormally long for a toy fad.

I think viral marketing has limits. There is only so many times you want to see the same thing.

And on other hand I think cycle of competing products is faster than ever. Get a trend going on and other companies cashing on it will happen very fast. Thus lowering value of original and flooding the market it mad rush.

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