I used to be able to go to business websites and get the information I needed, now everyone primarily uses Facebook pages to post information, which means I have to log in on many occasions to view the content. The Internet before Facebook was much more convenient for me.
Facebook hasn’t resulted in any positive interactions for me. Something about the platform drives people to be confrontational. Years ago when I participated on the platform I would reply to friend’s posts. Sometimes I would get replies from their friends and they tried to argue with me. It boiled down to them believing I said something in my post that I did not write. That drove me to not write my thoughts about something, and when I did reply, it was with shallow positive comments. That is a very boring way to interact with people, so I stopped using the platform.
I think the main reason for it is that most of us are just old enough to remember what facebook was before they started filling the site with ads and recommended/paid/suggested/etc posts. It was really fucking great back when you would logging and there would be literally no content/ads other than what your friend manually took the time write/post.
they gave us a taste of what a great minimalist social media platform could be and then turned monetisation/engagement to 9000.
Imagine if HN was bought by reddit and they decided to use the reddit platform (new skin only, no "old.XX...") with all the ads and everything. That's kinda what happened to facebook.
Facebook (the social network) was known to be in decline for years. The real attention is on Instagram and WhatsApp are still adding users. I wouldn't rush to rule them out yet over this.
I feel like TikTok is more closed and that I don’t have a shadow profile on it like Facebook did.
But it’s also because the web (especially the browsers and mobile OS) learnt its lessons.
OTOH, it also means that newcomers will have to make even more efforts to to "compete" with the historical open web which can create even more situations of information disappearing from the open web.
Oversharing is a really bad idea in the long run. Your opinions from 30 years ago are probably hated today. Imagine the trauma that is caused if you could read what your parents thought before you were born.
HN _mostly_ prevents this by having strong and good moderation, but there's still a fair amount of negative metrics coming from it.
>maximize engagement
It encourages engagement with upvotes and additional privileges when an account gets more points. However, the site’s design doesn’t maximize it. I don’t get push notifications to check the site, awards, or suggestions for other relevant articles in the comments.
>promote outrage
Outrage can be a factor that causes posts to rise, but deliberate policies avoid optimizing for it. Specifically, the avoidance of editing the submission title, unless the purpose is to make it less clickbait.
>instill a fear of missing out.
This is most subjective, but I get the sentiment that if someone posts an amazing project, there’s a good chance of constructive critique in the comments, or more information from the developer about how they made it.
Other social media websites don’t have the depth of discussion (just photos of the best parts of their life, without talking about the challenges). This is relatively more of a cultural/user base observation versus an interface decision, however.
For conspiracy theories, antivax, and misinformation, the alternative is heavier moderation. It looks like a judgement call by HN moderators to err on being less interventionist with user discussion. There are tradeoffs, but I think the benefits of free discussion outweigh exposure to misinformation, so long as one reads skeptically and critically.
- they have/had a critical size. No other social media was that big, and size matters.
- they required (still do?) real IDs. Forcing people to use their real name is a special kind of awful, especially when it's the main network
- they push a unified account platform for everything they owned. Other companies tried too but most failed (I also hate Apple for that, if you were to ask).
"at lewd teenagers dancing to the latest tune or whatever the kids are doing these days." ... is a seriously dim view.
TikTok is literally the #1 app in the world, and for someone curious enough to read HackerNews but unwilling to even try app to understand the nature of its impact is a bit odd.
Personally, I despise Twitter, but I read it occasionally, and understand why it works, and what kind of content is on there. I would find it problematic to work in tech with someone who doesn't understand 'why people like Netflix' having never even bothered to stream a video before.
In particular, the feed algorithm is unlike anything else in tech and the content is definitely a lot less toxic.
You should definitely try it, that doesn't mean you have to like it.
Don't mean to be rude but you appear to have a quite limited concept of what 'working in tech' can entail.
It's fine to not want to use those services (I personally avoid most of them), but to ignore them, or worse, purposely avoid even understanding what they are is straight, self imposed ignorance. It's ridiculous.
Further, who cares what you find problematic? People don't work for you.
What is there to know about the Arab world?
What is there to know about Hacker News?
What is there to know about AI?
What is there to know about anything? Until you experience it yourself.
Self imposed ignorance is a guaranteed path to obsolescence and irrelevance.
It would be ridiculous if a colleague never 'tried' streaming, email, or 'Video Conf'. because they were too narrow to even care to understand.
It doesn't mean we have to care about HN, the Arab world, video conferencing or streaming, but it does imply a hefty dose of ignorance to not even bother to try to understand.
The range of content on TikTok is unlike anything else, and there are definitely a few forms of niche content forms that have never existed before, and a bit hard to explain. So see it for yourself or remain in the dark.
"who cares what you find problematic? People don't work for you."
Well people do actually, but that's besides the point.
If you want to be 'the old man who can't use email' among your peers, of course it's your choice.
Tiktok is a bunch of videos. A lot of them, according to you. You open the app and play a video. Then it suggests the next one.
How does this conceptually bring anything new, other than it working well? I mean, I know what an app is. I have Youtube, which also has lots of videos. It's an app to watch videos. Shocking?