In other news, man-child wars between tech bros end with both failing to find product fit and alienating all their customers.
Facebooks growth was because it was where your friends were posting. Twitter growth was because of where influential people posted that you were interested in their (brief) thoughts. X was a failed payments platform that eventually became PayPal and sold to eBay (due to eBay being their only true partner at the time). Facebook/Meta keeps buying their way into the cool club only to realize they’re not cool. The bodies of friendstr, MySpace, phpbb, and even reddit now, as the tech bros learn that “features” aren’t what bring people in. People do. Make it friendly to people like the growth days. Not friendly to corporations so you can milk more advertising dollars. I’ll stay on the “I deleted my meta and I’m not coming back” fence.
> I’ll stay on the “I deleted my meta and I’m not coming back” fence.
I deleted it and, so far, no noticeable impact on my life (and that's in a country where almost everyone who has a smartphone is guaranteed to be on Facebook). Almost nothing of worth is being posted on them.
The pitfall of social media is that they don't reflect social interactions. The algorithm process is unnatural. I only want to hear about my friends and a selection of people and institutions I choose. I don't need to hear about LeBron James because I watched a video clip. Or be shown ads for some weird games, as I've not played on my phone or computers for ages. The simplified interaction mechanism missing downvote/dislike/hate is another thing I dislike. If I can approve, I should be able to disapprove. That's why I prefer Reddit to Twitter. What's at the top is either something useful or echoing the culture of the community.
I've been interacting with forums more these days, and it's a breath of fresh air. No engagement, only discussions and information. Some are showing ads, but I don't mind as it's always pertaining to the subject of the forum.
Facebooks growth was because it was where your friends were posting. Twitter growth was because of where influential people posted that you were interested in their (brief) thoughts. X was a failed payments platform that eventually became PayPal and sold to eBay (due to eBay being their only true partner at the time). Facebook/Meta keeps buying their way into the cool club only to realize they’re not cool. The bodies of friendstr, MySpace, phpbb, and even reddit now, as the tech bros learn that “features” aren’t what bring people in. People do. Make it friendly to people like the growth days. Not friendly to corporations so you can milk more advertising dollars. I’ll stay on the “I deleted my meta and I’m not coming back” fence.