On reddit I was a lurker that posted like once or twice a year, but ever since joining lemmy I’ve started posting multiple times a day.
On reddit I was a lurker that posted like once or twice a year, but ever since joining lemmy I’ve started posting multiple times a day.
Algorithm driven social media stopped working for the interests of its users a long time ago.
It skews interactions into the parasocial. Massive groups looking at one thing, everyone screaming, no-one except a few being heard.
Instead, social media should be many smaller groups looking at and discussing many different smaller things. Reddit still had some of that, if you went looking for it, places where everyone gets heard by at least someone.
It’s interesting to think about how algorithmic (and now AI) curation could work in favour of different goals but capitalism has imprinted its ethic into our new digital commons
until you cross an invisible line and are made invisible on the site because your speech is not as free as they want to claim. esp if you want to speak truth to power.
That’s not what free speech means. You can say whatever you want, but no-one owes you a soap box from which to be heard.
I’ll admit commercial social media is more than a soap box, because without it you might as well not exist. But on the fediverse, you can literally bring your own by starting your own instance. But that STILL does not mean anyone has to listen by federating with you.
i would not exist without commercial social media?
I was running BBS’s and forums for decades before these sites came about.
How am I still alive and in existence now because of centralized internet?
this is a fascinating world view, tell me more about it.
What I mean is, due to the overwhelming popularity of facebook, twitter, reddit and the like, using something else severely limits who you can interact with.
If you just want someone to talk to, you can do so anywhere. If you want to be a politician and affect actual change, even on a local level such as a subdivision of a city, good fucking luck getting elected if you’re outside mainstream commercial social media.
I was able to do that back in 1990 on FidoNet, again on usuenet in the mid-late 90s, on IRC in the 90s and 00s and using google to search forums in the 00’s until the centralized systems killed them. IRC, usenet and others still run, I can still email people I want to talk to as well.
What you are arguing for is a smooth, slick, paid for, UX. Minimal UI’s and typing “@” in names is too much. Looking at lists is annoying so you want it curated for you. VCs dumped money on private UX and now people think its essential. We have always been able to communicate directly, there is no technical limitation.
Its in the minds of the users and the unwillingness of some to see a different domain name or try a new UX flow.
Get some VC money drop 20m or so on Fedi UX and all of a sudden people will see very little difference.
Or just wait, I remember when the linux desktop was a joke too.
What? What am I arguing for? I’m only explaining my take on the current status quo.
i get what you are saying but thats not a reason to simply default to them, perfectly possible to post here and there, even with API blocks, it will come in time.
sure follow your fav movie star, no need to sit there engaging and giving them free content. i’ve existed on the internet just fine for over 30 years, tbh the centralized sites have only made things more difficult by your own admission. its going to be on us to build new social networks that…work. It always has been.
People follow the content producers.
My own admission?
I think you’ve seriously misread what kind of person you’re talking to. I am by no means in favor of the current norm of every communication app in existence being or becoming “AI” driven doom-scrolling traps. They’re following the money, and hence all doing the same thing… Not one is still functioning with communication as goal number one.
The people are already rejecting them. But it will be so fucking slow. For years to come, people will still be going onto twitter and facebook to see what the world has to say. Even if it says nothing, as long as there is content, many will just keep going as usual.
When phones and mail were the norm, everyone happily paid to be heard beyond where just their voice can reach. Not so much today. Today, if you can’t complain to millions that your coffee got cold this morning, some think that’s a violation of your right to free speech.
I very much look forward to a future where social media is an open standard, which anyone can access. One which we pay for, where appropriate, instead of commercialize or demand out of thin air. I imagine one day, protocols like ActivityPub powering government run, taxpayer funded, official instances of communication software, which federates with private, independent and other national instances, alike.
Or even just a posting script that speaks the right API someone threw together in an afternoon.