Apple's Hidden Social Network

Re:Apple's Hidden Social Network by bcherny on Saturday August 05, 2023 @07:53PM (#37017443)

This is private sharing, not a social network.

Private sharing is about sending content to people A, B, and C (“push”). Think iMessage, WhatsApp, Snapchat.

Social networks are about people discovering your content (“pull”). Think Instagram, Facebook, Tiktok, Threads.

The two differ in important ways: dynamics of how they work, how they grow, what consumers care about in a product, what success looks like, tech stack, etc.

The author is conflating the two.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Apple's Hidden Social Network by missingcolours on Saturday August 05, 2023 @09:32PM (#37018084)

I don't think that's what a social network is necessarily - many people use Facebook entirely as a "friends only" sharing tool, and indeed almost all Facebook activity appears to be between people who know each other in real life. There are social networks that are primarily between strangers (Twitter, TikTok, etc) but that's not a defining feature of all social networks.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Apple's Hidden Social Network by bcherny on Sunday August 06, 2023 @08:44AM (#37021335)

For some people, Facebook has moved from being a social network to being more of a private sharing app for sure.

[ Parent | on HN ]