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on Gopher (inofficial)
URI Visit Hacker News on the Web
COMMENT PAGE FOR:
URI Slow social media
kkukshtel wrote 8 min ago:
As a small +1 â I built mood.site to be an easy way to share
galleries of images with people. The idea being like "hey send me some
photo inspiration for the party we're planning" and having a throwaway
way to do that (kind of like a pastebin for images).
People definitely use it for this, but what has really surprised me is
people's capactiy for expression inside of the bounds of the program I
created, and how people are clearly using in as a sort of ad hoc social
network of loosely collected boards and inspiration. There are no
actual _social_ features in the app (no discovery, etc.), but what has
been sort of inspriring is that The Will is just there for people to
find ways of expression outside the idea of a "feed" and "posting".
I think those models have indeed become synonymous with "social media",
but my only point here is to bring up a possibility of "social media"
as something that can be much more expansive and look very different
compared to the primary models we think of today.
Another person favorite of mine along the same lines is how the
comments section of this Pilsburry recipe for "veggie pizza" has become
it's own sort of ad-hoc social media for grandmas to share their own
experiences with each other about the dish:
URI [1]: https://www.pillsbury.com/recipes/veggie-pizza/4b2c60ae-69e5-4...
nichochar wrote 36 min ago:
I'm building an app builder (getmocha.com) and one of my favorite use
cases I have seen is "small private social network":
some people are building custom, tailored social networks only
available to their family, church, community, sports team, school,
etc...
This was previously impossible but now AI changes that. I don't know if
it will materialize, but a more federally distributed web with tons of
small private social networks could be a future of healthy social
hpdigidrifter wrote 19 min ago:
>This was previously impossible
Isn't this what Mastadon is?
amelius wrote 35 min ago:
Yes, just put people in charge of the algorithm.
The feed (etc.) algorithm could be written in natural language and
executed by AI.
integralid wrote 52 min ago:
>I think there should also be a reasonable cap on the number of
connections that can be made. Something like 300 friends sounds right
What about a requirement "at least one direct interaction in a year"?
Maybe with a reminder "you didn't catch up with X in 11 months, are you
still connected"? This will both:
* Achieve the main reason of social network existence, i.e. give people
an excuse to have a chat with a former friend and keep in touch. I
sometimes thing about messaging a person I knew years ago, but it feels
awkward enough that I don't do it usually.
* Naturally limit the number of connections, because now having
connectione require (small but still) work. A very small dopamine
addicted users may still try to collect connections, but I feel like
this platform will be hostile enough for them and they will leave
anyway, not finding what they want from SM.
forgetcolor wrote 1 hour 18 min ago:
Minus is a finite social platform where users get 100 posts--for life.
URI [1]: https://minus.social
winter_blue wrote 1 hour 14 min ago:
That's an interesting concept. We could take that concept in general,
and a person could write 100 essays (that they publish on whatever
platform), and these 100 essays could comprise their magnum opus.
mawise wrote 2 hours 21 min ago:
Um, I'm building this? [1] The one key element I added was privacy. If
your posts are private to your social group then there is no mechanism
to try appealing to a broader "viral" audience. Also--if it is
decentralized then the company (or person in my case) building it can't
change their mind and start selling your data/eyeballs.
I have a LOT of thoughts in this space. Lots of people think they want
some sort of healthier social-media alternative, but we're fighting
against systems that are so finely tuned engagement monsters that is
hard compete to protect your attention and time.
Herman- I'll reach out to you by email!
[1]
URI [1]: https://havenweb.org
hosh wrote 3 hours 18 min ago:
There are local chapters of the Society for Creative Anachronism that
uses Facebook heavily. The thing is that the use of FB grew out from
the in-person community that had formed, and people would rather
interact in-person than only through social media. The community
already has its own customs and ceremonies for recognition; people
there upvote and collect following in an attempt to get the FB
algorithm to spread the word for each other (on events and happenings).
When there is an already-existing community like that, I think a
dedicated social media platform for that particular community can be
beneficial. That platform then does not have to be the social media for
everyone.
However, funding (for hosting and maintenance) is still an issue.
virgil_disgr4ce wrote 3 hours 39 min ago:
Soâslowcial media? :D
davidcollantes wrote 3 hours 45 min ago:
Not as slow as Scuttlebutt, but fairly laid back is twtxt ( [1] ). The
community is small, but thriving!
URI [1]: https://twtxt.dev/
FuriouslyAdrift wrote 3 hours 54 min ago:
Everybody just forgetting bulletin boards. Dirt cheap to host, can be
invite only if desired and, most importantly, asynchronous.
BeetleB wrote 4 hours 9 min ago:
I was about to say "Disallow forwarding". The problem with most
networks (and in the old days, even emails), was that the bulk of the
material I'd get from people I personally know were not original
content, but memes, humor, or political content being forwarded.
But this may serve an equivalent purpose:
> And finally, there should be a reasonable cap on the number of times
a user can post per day. Roughly 5 times per day feels like the upper
threshold of what you can post while being intentional about what it is
you're posting.
Amusingly, just yesterday I said in a comment:
"Imagine you have a quota of only 1 HN comment per day. You probably
will be a lot more careful on what you reply to."
integralid wrote 1 hour 0 min ago:
>Roughly 5 times per day feels like the upper threshold of what you
can post while being intentional about what it is you're posting
Not sure about social media, but in the days of forums I posted way
more thoughtful and helpful posts on the forum I attended.
(I'll be honest, I didn't read the post yet. I'm doing this now)
sunrunner wrote 2 hours 19 min ago:
> Imagine you have a quota of only 1 HN comment per day. You probably
will be a lot more careful on what you reply to.
1 HN comment a day is interesting as it would also introduce a lag
into the speed of development of threads as you wouldn't know ahead
of time what threads you would want to post in until they've all been
created.
Something I think about personally is what would be the result of
requiring people to invest a personally meaningful amount of time
and/or money into posting. "I have to pay to speak?!" people ask.
Well, yes.
Of course, this immediately seems to tie someone's ability to post to
personal finances which isn't the intention. But the key idea is that
it has to be something personally costly enough that it implies an
honest and intentional signal, which always seems to end up as either
time or money.
Some forums implement time-gated posting which is interesting. If you
have to wait a minute to be allowed to post, can you still be
bothered? But would I have paid to write this specific comment? I'm
not sure, I guess that depends on the market rate for posts at the
time. I have no doubt there are tens of ways this system breaks down
that I haven't thought through.
BeetleB wrote 1 hour 36 min ago:
I think time based is the way to go, with an exponential curve,
such that one can only post 5 comments reasonably per day.
The first comment in a given day has no wait. The second requires
waiting 10 minutes. The 3rd requires an hour. The 4th requires 3
hours, and the 5th another 12 hours or so.
Obviously: No edits (or let the edit count as the comment).
Lots of variables to play with. The nice thing about time is that
it is egalitarian. Richer people don't get more access.
> If you have to wait a minute to be allowed to post, can you still
be bothered?
At work, I often log out of HN. The need to log back in often does
act as a deterrent. I also occasionally use LeechBlock, with a 60s
delay. That too acts as a deterrent.
sunrunner wrote 1 hour 21 min ago:
> I also occasionally use LeechBlock, with a 60s delay.
Interesting. I've tried blocking things via hosts file to add
that kind of friction, but it's too easy and often I'm waiting on
something that takes longer than the time it takes me to 'fix'
the hosts file.
> At work, I often log out of HN.
This works for me for posting but doesn't help so much with the
FOMO of new threads. If I had to be logged in to view I imagine
I'd read far fewer threads.
j-wags wrote 4 hours 20 min ago:
I was recently inspired on this front by an interview[1] with a
recommender system engineer that explored the idea of a "good"
recommender algorithm:
> It feels like smartphones have saturated the available time. It's
like the famous quote from the Netflix CEO: "Our main competitor is
sleep." There aren't many more biological hours in the day to capture.
At this point, it's mostly a war between recommender systems for your
attention, as they've already consumed roughly all the available time.
...
> For me, the big issue with recommender systems isn't that they will
destroy our minds, though that is a possible risk. It's the incredible
waste of potential. Billions of hours of human time will be allocated
today, guided mostly by clickbait incentives. The goal is to entertain
people, not in a joyful way, but to help them dissociate.
> You have such an opportunity. There's probably a video on YouTube
right now that, if I watched it, would inspire me to call my dad, talk
to a stranger, or start a new relationship. Google could probably
introduce me to a good friend, a co-founder, or my future life partner.
> They have the data, but they aren't using it that way. Instead,
they're optimizing for a few more cents of advertising revenue, which
is a colossal, civilizational-level failure.
...
> That is the crux of the incentives problem we've been discussing. One
thing that gives me hope is we're no longer in the era of free
software. Paradoxically, now that intelligence is cheap enough, people
are willing to pay for software. It's more reasonable to charge for a
subscription now because you can provide measurable value to someone's
life. Paying $10 or $20 a month for a social media service that
actually helps you live according to your goals is a much less crazy
proposition than it was 10 years ago.
URI [1]: https://blog.sentinel-team.org/p/forecasting-the-future-of-rec...
rhetocj23 wrote 3 hours 55 min ago:
As the saying goes, dont hate the player, hate the game.
mklyons wrote 4 hours 23 min ago:
I agree with a lot of what you say here. Iâve been running a 3h daily
time boxed social media site for the past 6 months and even though
traffic is now a crawl compared to the initial burst of activity when I
started it, there are users who check in daily and it ends up being a
lovely experience I think.
I am working on mobile apps and redesigning and reengineering a lot of
the site and I love your thoughts on a blog focus. Iâd love to let
people host a small blog on the site that would also connect to their
actual blog. Iâll add that to the roadmap.
Definitely stop by some time!
URI [1]: https://seven39.com/
rhetocj23 wrote 4 hours 0 min ago:
What youre missing is that most people have self control issues, and
your product is essentially a commitment device. As most addicts -
they reject such devices.
I like what youre doing but just saying - youre dealing with a very
difficult problem.
stronglikedan wrote 3 hours 36 min ago:
There's also a subset of users that embrace such devices. I'd wager
that's OPs target audience. The ones that would reject it are a
lost cause and shouldn't even be considered.
mklyons wrote 3 hours 53 min ago:
Thatâs a fair point. I donât see it as the antidote for people
who are addicted though. Itâs just a nice place for people who
want to engage less. Iâm definitely aware it wonât be a big
thing.
If youâre looking for an actual antidote to the addiction, I
donât think that will exist in the form of a product, that will
come from individuals themselves if it ever does.
amigacommodore wrote 4 hours 30 min ago:
I agree for the most part here. The biggest barrier to this sort of
platform is that people love convienence and low effort use, but that's
not what social interraction is about. I really think going out of your
way to do things in a more difficult way (inconvience) is the secret to
living in the real world again. That's why I prefer DIY to whatever
standard solution to any given problem there might be already.
rokhayakebe wrote 4 hours 33 min ago:
Social media as it is works perfectly and does not need to be changed
for extroverts. We just need a product made for those who care about
small private groups.
thenobsta wrote 4 hours 36 min ago:
Goodreads/book discussions -- the best class of social media.
Requires some (significant?) investment to have an opinion on a book.
It's often pretty obvious if someone hasn't read a book and is
commenting on it. The interval between comments is hours/days because
users are off reading the book.
ianopolous wrote 10 hours 31 min ago:
I love this. It is close to what we've built with Peergos [0].
1. People have to accept you as a follower, and the default is
bi-directional.
2. There are no visible follower/friend counts.
3. Chronological feed which has an end (no infinite scroll)
4. No arbitrary character limit
5. No analytics (enforced by E2EE)
We don't have a max friends/number of posts per day though.
[0]
URI [1]: https://peergos.org/posts/decentralized-social-media
baubino wrote 10 hours 56 min ago:
The article is basically describing Friendster, which was the first big
social media platform after MySpace. I have zero social media accounts
(for all the reasons described) but wouldnât mind a Friendster-like
platform.
pmontra wrote 11 hours 25 min ago:
WhatsApp and Telegram are my slow social media. They ring only for the
very few people I really care about. Everything else accumulates in
their chats.
I get some link to FB and TikTok in my chats and groups but I don't
open all of them. I don't have the apps, so if I do I open them in the
browser. I'm not logged in. No TikTok account. Links to Instagram are
very rare. No account. I check WhatsApp and Telegram when I feel like,
no pressure.
foreigner wrote 12 hours 39 min ago:
Replacing the current social media giants is incredibly hard because of
network effects and lock-in. Could we instead implement most of the
OP's ideas with a client for an existing social media site that filters
out all the crap?
articsputnik wrote 13 hours 14 min ago:
Bluesky and Mastodon are exactly this IMO. No algorithm, just following
people.
jpereira wrote 13 hours 35 min ago:
I wrote a lil blog post after reading this this morning: [1] tl;dr:
people have a huge diversity of preferences for social media, we need
to rearchitect social networks to allow them to express those
preferences while still connecting with each other, I think atproto
enables this and is where I'm betting on.
URI [1]: https://awarm.leaflet.pub/3lyzchme2d22b
3RTB297 wrote 13 hours 47 min ago:
The author invented and then dashed against the rocks a few existing
fediverse platforms in the course of a couple paragraphs.
These things already exist and struggle exactly because people
comfortable with the walled garden approach forgot what FB was like in
2006 when you only knew 15 people on there. The lack of critical mass
of your personal contacts outside of the walls is exactly how FB and IG
keep you from venturing outside the walls.
Friendica is one of several fediverse platforms the author basically
describes. You can even self-host an instance for yourself and
friends/family.
And you may say:
> I tried Mastodon once, which is not immediately intuitive, and the
apps aren't perfect. Plus, the wikipedia article describes something
that isn't perfect, so I shouldn't bother.
Perfect. IMO, the minuscule friction to enter is the benefit. The
walled gardens exist and hold people in such high numbers exactly
because they've reduced the friction to enter and increased it to
leave. The definition of a trap, yes?
Brendinooo wrote 2 hours 42 min ago:
from the article:
> Meta basically turned Instagram and Facebook from 'connecting with
friends' into 'doom-scrolling random content'. Even Pinterest is
starting to look like TikTok! They followed user engagement, but not
the underlying preferences of their users. I posit that any
for-profit social media will eventually degrade into recommendation
media over time.
So no, the problem isn't high numbers with friction to leave. The
problem is that the sites' incentives are different than the users.
Facebook had high numbers and a lot of lock-in and was a much better
product before they decided to basically stop showing me any content
from my friends that isn't controversial. Twitter has high numbers
and a lot of lock-in but it's better there because I can still get a
linear timeline of tweets from the people I follow.
virgil_disgr4ce wrote 3 hours 39 min ago:
> And you may say:
> > I tried Mastodon once, which is not immediately intuitive, and
the apps aren't perfect. Plus, the wikipedia article describes
something that isn't perfect, so I shouldn't bother.
You use a quote angle bracket, indicating that it is a quote. It is
not a quote, it's a straw man.
Nobody is saying "this isn't perfect, I won't use it." People are
saying "I can't figure this out, I guess I won't use it."
BeetleB wrote 4 hours 3 min ago:
Do any of those networks limit the number of posts you can make a
day?
Do they limit forwarding? Or give users an option not to be shown
forwarded messages?
For me, unlimited posts (or rather, minimal friction in posting), and
blind forwarding are what destroy social media. If you can make only
3 public/group posts a day, chances are lower they will be crap.
I'm on Mastodon. It's only very mildly nice. The reality is that it
still suffers from all of this. I still have to cut off connections
because of the guy who's always ranting about some
politician/political party.
Increase the friction for people who want to rant!
mfru wrote 13 hours 50 min ago:
The closest platform that is a somewhat known group of people coming
together in a semi-private space seems to be Discord.
You can have as large or as small a community you want, you can have
known people, unknown people.
Mastodon comes close as well, but the effort to start a discord
community is so much smaller compared to running a Mastodon instance.
dhalucario wrote 13 hours 30 min ago:
Wouldn't this also extend to Matrix/Mumble/XMPP/TeamSpeak then?
jahsome wrote 13 hours 19 min ago:
See the aforementioned ease of adoption.
i-chuks wrote 14 hours 12 min ago:
I think something like a Whatsapp that recommends contacts that can be
close is good enough. Something like friends of friends
recommendations. But no more.
dahrkael wrote 14 hours 18 min ago:
back in 2009 in Spain we had what the author describes in Tuenti ( [1]
).
at first it was invite only and by default people's profiles were
private, you'd need to be friends to see their activity and pictures.
your feed was just your friends statuses and new pictures in
chronological order.
later on it got some games and a realtime chat but it ended up dying
because of newer social networks.
it was great to keep your actual friends and family connected.
URI [1]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuenti
bonoboTP wrote 13 hours 58 min ago:
In Hungary, we had iWiW, one of the earliest "social media" sites.
(=international who is who - though it never went really
international, [1] , started as WiW in 2002).
It was also invite based and it was exciting to get an invite back
then. It was more like a phone book, it had detailed profiles where
you could specify your favorite things, introduce yourself, upload a
few pictures etc. It didn't have a newsfeed. Later they would
introduce some kind of notification when someone uploaded new pics.
But it was mainly "poll-based", i.e. you'd go to specific profiles to
see if they uploaded anything new.
This was a significant break from the pseudonymous forum and chat
culture (A/S/L?), and blended your real life with the previously
totally separate online world for the first time. Now you could look
up classmates, see who viewed your profile, of course it drove a lot
of teen drama as you'd expect. It was a more public companion to the
nascent MSN Messenger culture (which replaced the SMS-based more
private teen comms culture, which replaced the
family-landline-phone-based gossip culture and of course IRL-based
one, feels weird to have lived through all those transitions - we
didn't even have a family landline phone in the early 90s and would
use phone booths to call family members in other cities).
The mainstream dominance of iWiW in Hungary was actually quite
short-lived (~2004-2009), though it feels longer in my memory, there
was so much happening, so much new stuff popping up. Note also that
iWiW got bought by the local subsidiary of Deutsche Telekom already
in 2006. So it was quite obvious that there's commercial value in
such sites.
Initially Facebook was also more profile-focused, where the main
activity was looking up profiles, checking their friends, reading
bios, looking at galleries etc. (where you actually clicked links to
explore, instead of being fed a feed and just scrolling), and the
newsfeed-focus only got introduced later.
Nowadays, Facebook is mostly a public agora in Hungary, the platform
for politicians and pundits and social critique etc (instead of
Twitter like in other countries). I think the eager culture to post
updates for real friends has dwindled, people are less naive about it
and also realized they don't really care all that much about their
second cousin's vacations or their old classmates' life updates. Real
personal "social media" is mostly in private Whatsapp groups I think.
URI [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IWiW
MagnumOpus wrote 10 hours 32 min ago:
> people are less naive about it and also realized they don't
really care all that much about their second cousin's vacations or
their old classmates' life updates
Young people do care - but the "checking on friends" and "showing
off my glamourous life/vacation" has moved to Instagram and
Snapchat. Partly because Facebook is full of "old people" and thus
less cool. As the Insta generation starts to have their own kids,
those kids indubitably will look for another platform...
pflenker wrote 14 hours 23 min ago:
I donât want to be limited to âmeaningful connections!â I stay in
close contact with those who are dear to me outside of social media. I
want to stay connected to some random coworker I enjoyed working with
in 2011, because I enjoy watching them from a distance, getting
married, settling down, that kind of stuff, and occasionally comment on
these things.
This used to be a strength of social media before algorithms came in
and decided that because I am not liking every post of that person it
follows that I am not interested.
baubino wrote 10 hours 49 min ago:
This desire to follow peopleâs lives from a distance without
necessarily interacting with them in the world is the root of the
very unhealthy parasocial tendencies driving social media. It seems
quite innocent and benign on the scale of one person just wanting to
keep up with the life of a cool coworker from the past, but it
quickly adds up to a bunch of people passively following other people
with very little actual interaction. It is more akin to reading a
novel or watching a movie except that social following tricks our
brain into thinking we really are keeping up a relationship with the
people that weâre voyeuristically watching.
IAmBroom wrote 1 hour 2 min ago:
Counterpoint: This ability to "follow people's lives from a
distance without necessarily interacting with them in the world" is
the only way I have of renewing old friendships with childhood
friends, schoolmates and friends from college.
It is a HUGE social benefit to me, as I've moved far away. I don't
need Abe's phone number, Betty's email, and I don't expect even
Christmas cards updating me on Charlie's family. But if any of them
post on FB that their parent or child or dog just died, graduated,
or got married (in a progressive animal-rights nation), I can make
an effort to let them know I care.
haijo2 wrote 10 hours 31 min ago:
Youre touching at something subtle and nuanced that most dont
understand.
bonoboTP wrote 13 hours 35 min ago:
I wonder if that voyeuristic use case is good for people/society.
People used to naturally fade from each other's lives, maybe you saw
each other in the street if you stayed in the same area, you could
ask them about their life in person. If you were closer friends,
they'd show you the photos of their wedding or vacation when you
visited for dinner or hung out.
Even in the early version, these life updates became a competition of
who has the fancier wedding pics, who went to a trendy vacation spot
this year etc., leading to an idealized picture of how the life of
everyone else is going.
It's a bandaid on the lifestyle of having to move cities all the time
and cutting connections. Seeing their life updates doesn't really
keep the connection alive, it's an illusion.
wink wrote 12 hours 2 min ago:
Is it voyeuristic to read and observe what people are broadcasting,
either publicly or to a closed circle?
I dunno, if I don't want anyone to see the post I will not post it
or limit its visibility, I am very much in the same camp as the
person you're replying to.
People who I lost regular contact with but am totally happy to meet
again once a year or every couple years. (Does not mean more often
would be bad, just being realistic). Which we actually do, from
time to time.
We also have a Slack with old colleagues form one company, but it's
mostly a way to contact them or for the occasional tech question
and chitchat, so it's even more closed off - but no different than
broadcasting events, really.
But I'm also not arguing that it's strictly needed.
bonoboTP wrote 11 hours 50 min ago:
Maybe that's not the right word, it's too pejorative. What I mean
is looking at someone's private life without them narrating it to
you specifically and being aware in real time that you're looking
at it. I'm not claiming anything negative about its ethics or
similar. That's not my point at all. I'm just asking whether it
is conducive to real social connection and whether it really
produces and maintains the kind of ties that it supposedly
maintains or if it's an illusion. Sure, it's nice to reconnect
with a long lost classmate or "interesting" to see the baby pics
of that one college friend you last talked to in 2012. But to
what end exactly? If it actually leads to regular IRL hangouts
that's great. Otherwise it's just some kind of nostalgia trap.
> if I don't want anyone to see the post I will not post it or
limit its visibility
Yes, and nowadays people tend to share less. Exactly because in
the 2000s these instincts were less sharp and then people
realized that a wider circle of people is looking than they
thought and things remain online for long.
supriyo-biswas wrote 12 hours 21 min ago:
I disagree that being interested in the life updates of someone as
being equivalent to a voyeur.
There are people who fade out of oneâs lives for various reasons,
but it doesnât mean that the relationship has to end at that.
There are many schoolmates, coworkers, etc. who I wish l I had some
idea where they were now, which I donât have right now because of
my general avoidance of social media.
This is just a way of keeping on the pulse and generating common
context if said pair were to meet again, instead of simply
awkwardly smiling and trying to end a conversation as soon as
possible.
baubino wrote 10 hours 42 min ago:
Reading someoneâs life updates and watching their videos is not
keeping up a connection though. Itâs a parasocial relationship
that makes us feel like there is a connection whereas an actual
connection would require interaction between people. As you
rightly noted, one of the main outcomes of the parasocial
relationship is that it replaces real life interactions - you no
longer have to ask people questions about their lives or figure
out how to make conversation when you do see them; you can just
reference their social media posts.
qwertfisch wrote 7 hours 1 min ago:
But if I had the possibility of being updated in someoneâs
life, or even just having a contact option, would help me
evaluating if this relation is worth being kept or refreshed or
terminated.
Example: I was an employee with my first fulltime job for
nearly ten years. After I quit the job I instantly lost contact
to all people. I would have needed to actually go the company
building to chat with them (or calling at work), which I
didnât because it was Covid time. But on XING (LinkedIn-like
platform for Germany) one former colleague left his private
phone number for me, and I messaged him (after some years,
because I was in a depressive phase), and now we meet every two
or three months.
So itâs not about voyerism for me but keeping contact or at
least give me some hints if any relation might be worth
pursuing. I donât want (or need) people in my list just for
being a watcher of their life.
bonoboTP wrote 8 hours 20 min ago:
Yes, getting to know someone used to be a gradual process.
During the time window when public posting about frankly quite
private moments of life was common (Facebook ~2010s), it was
weird how much you would see of a person upfront. You saw
surprising overlapping acquaintances, prior vacations, party
photos, hobbies etc... See photos of your teachers or profs
with their spouse etc. I don't think it's normal. It was a
weird phase.
carabiner wrote 14 hours 25 min ago:
Minor formatting quip: At the top, the "dd mm yyyy" format should not
use a comma.
agnishom wrote 14 hours 28 min ago:
How about [1] ?
URI [1]: https://slowly.app/
URI [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slowly_(app)
qweiopqweiop wrote 14 hours 29 min ago:
I also dream for this. Personally I would remove likes/reactions
though. As we've seen with Instagram it's too easy to chase that
dopamine rush/compare number of likes. Comments are enough in my
opinion.
fnordlord wrote 3 hours 28 min ago:
Limiting the # of shares in some way would be nice also. If people
could only share one thing per day, they'd be more thoughtful of what
to spend it on.
I actually had a moment just yesterday, imagining/hoping my toddler
daughter will grow up and refer to my phone in the same way I did
with my parents cigarettes when I was a kid. My mom always claims
she had no idea they were dangerous when she started as a teen. I
wonder if we'll all sound the same with social media and our devices
to our kids.
prisenco wrote 14 hours 26 min ago:
Likes/reactions should be hidden to everyone else except the poster,
and not used for any kind of ranking.
And comments should be disabled by default. Users should have to take
the extra step to enable comments ("I would like feedback") and if
they're off by default, it won't feel strange or negative to the
viewer.
vjvjvjvjghv wrote 3 hours 25 min ago:
Likes shouldnât be visible to the poster either. Once you see the
number of likes you quickly see that radical posts get the most
likes and start posting more of it.
The best online discussions I have seen where at simple forums
where the posts were listed in chronological order without likes or
anything.
gman83 wrote 14 hours 30 min ago:
I guess if you could convince your friends & family to use something
like [1] it could work for you.
URI [1]: https://friendi.ca/
3RTB297 wrote 13 hours 45 min ago:
Exactly the same thing I thought of.
I expect that by suggesting something that is quite literally what
the author described, we'll both be downvoted to hell because HN has
a staunch "fediverse, ew!" mentality.
t1E9mE7JTRjf wrote 14 hours 51 min ago:
use nostr. it can be anything you want it to be.
incone123 wrote 4 hours 59 min ago:
Anything? Better than Zombo.com ?
danboarder wrote 15 hours 18 min ago:
A lot of his ideas remind me of the BeReal app, it limits posts per day
and is geared toward 'friends in real life' and with just a few friends
on it I've stayed engaged. But it's sparse for me and can be a ghost
town much of the time, but that may be just because my friend group
isn't using it much. There needs to be sufficient network effect to
maintain and grow it's reach as a network, which may be antithetical to
its founding principles.
haijo2 wrote 10 hours 34 min ago:
Lol I dont know how to say this but BeReal is flawed from the start.
IG is not about being real at all for the most part - hence its
popularity. People enjoy being able to cosplay and show their best
self, not revealing their true self.
WastedCucumber wrote 14 hours 31 min ago:
That's been my experience with BeReal as well. I seldom see posts
from people I'm close with, and so I post less as well, and
presumably that contributes to a similar feeling for other friends of
mine.
In fact, these days, I only post in it so that I can record the
moment, to add it to the record of fotos which are convenient and fun
to look back through.
emaro wrote 13 hours 46 min ago:
I liked BeReal while it was still just post 1 picture a day. Now
you have 'your brands' there, they try to increase 'engagement' by
trying to get people use the app more... I was there when it
happened on Facebook, I was there when it started on Instagram â
not again, thx.
intended wrote 15 hours 23 min ago:
Well intentioned, but never going to work. Social networks will always
create financial incentives that have to be contended with. No network
that can connect to âcloseâ people, will always result in some
nodes on the graph that connect to a âlarge portion of peopleâ.
Always. This broadcast ability is then a path to financial
renumeration, which will see the rise of copy cats and another arms
race to gather attention from people on the network.
Fundamentally, information / clout / something is resistant to being
distributed equitably on information networks, especially online
networks.
IAmBroom wrote 1 hour 6 min ago:
Agreed. Our local instance of NextDoor, which is explicitly aimed at
forming online social forums for geographically close users, forbids
self-promotion of businesses in the general chats.
The admins regularly ignore this, because the users like seeing posts
from "I'm a carpenter looking for work right now!".
So, even with a supposedly sequestered monetization area, it bleeds
into everything.
asim wrote 15 hours 40 min ago:
People are basically looking for a standalone Facebook groups that's
not owned by a corporation. Or Twitter for small groups but not what
mastodon has become. I think honourably some people have tried and many
continue to build niche products like micro.blog. Personally I just
want a service that is not commercially owned, for profit or by a US
corporation. My own attempts/ambitions get in the way of being able to
achieve it, so I started working on something that slowly solved my own
problems e.g news feed aggregation, videos without shorts or the
algorithm, chat with AI based on a model from Qatar. Soon I'll add
posting but only because I feel like I need some sort of personalised
way to bookmark and share my thoughts within it being about gaining
attention or validation from a world of likes and retweets.
There are no good answers, because the reality is the next medium is
probably quite different from the last. But yea personalised small
group chat, feed, news makes sense.
dimkr1 wrote 15 hours 41 min ago:
Most people wouldn't enjoy something like
URI [1]: https://github.com/dimkr/tootik
kelvinjps wrote 15 hours 53 min ago:
Now I have been using Whatsapp as my only "social media app" basically
as stated in another comment: Whatsapp updates, you can see the updates
of your contacts, then you can react or send them a message.
And these updates only contain the people who you have as a contact and
they have you as a contact, so you only receive the updates of the
people you care about and if there is someone you don't want to see
their updates you can turn off updates for them.
I hope meta doesn't ruin this feature.
It's Also available in signal I think
alamzin wrote 16 hours 9 min ago:
What he describes existed and didnât scale comparing to modern social
media. It was called LiveJournal.
bonoboTP wrote 13 hours 24 min ago:
And MySpace and GeoCities.
m4houk wrote 15 hours 33 min ago:
At the exact same time that Instagram launched, another platform that
is also almost exactly what this post describes also launched: Path -
and it's long dead, too. The author's views represent such a tiny
minority that is not worth the required effort to build and maintain
a platform for. Let's not forget network effects. You might love this
utopian platform, if it were to exist, but good luck convincing
everyone you care about to move over with you. You may as well then
just use a journaling app if you're talking to yourself.
The largest social platforms right now are hardly showing any signs
of slowdowns. The market signal is clear: this is what most people
want and are fine with.
Perhaps a journaling-focused platform where social is a second-class
aspect might succeed. You're documenting things for yourself anyway
and if friends happen to see them and engage with them, that's an
added bonus. Network effects would not matter here. In fact, this is
how I used Path back in the day. I intentionally kept no friends on
it and started using it like a journal, recording my thoughts, adding
photos and checkins.
bkettle wrote 16 hours 40 min ago:
I think modern social media is a huge problem but donât see we can
fix it without regulation. Itâs clear that all the current incentives
point companies towards engagement and rage bait and away from anything
actually âsocialâ, and I think itâs unlikely that any new social
network that tries to fix these issues would achieve widespread usage.
Have any countries proposed legislation to help reign it in? What would
that legislation look like? My main idea is to simply outlaw ML-based
recommendation algorithms, but obviously that is not as simple as it
sounds and is mostly based on looking fondly on the earlier days of
social media, when I felt like it was making my life better instead of
worse.
ismyrnow wrote 2 hours 37 min ago:
China already has such legislation. They have placed restrictions on
social media and internet use for children, and they censor content
on these platforms.
Personally, I'm against government intervention for this sort of
thing. I prefer government to be constrained to securing my
liberties, rather than restricting my behavior "for my own good".
As a parent, I talk to my kids about social media like I talk to them
about junk food. I want them to recognize that it's bad for them -
it's addictive, and provides short term pleasure that results in long
term misery. Avoiding it, or making good decisions about how you
interact with it, is a personal responsibility issue.
duxup wrote 7 hours 10 min ago:
I agree that regulation is likely the only option.
With the caveat that it is very clear people want this horrible
social media we have. They consume outrageous content, they pass it
on, they create it for these platforms.
A lot of proposed regulation frames it as big bad tech companies
making people do things like they're victims. But without people
participating there would be nothing on there and in reality the
human factor feeds back into these loops ... and keeps them going.
I think a lot of the proposed legislation comes at it at the wrong
angle and is unlikely to fix it because in the end the users are a
key component, not just some terrible algorithm or creepy CEOs.
rhubarbtree wrote 14 hours 24 min ago:
Itâs a tricky one, but something that I repeatedly come back to is
that publishers are regulated, but social media is a free for all. A
newspaper canât just make up something without consequences (in the
UK), for example they may be sued for libel.
Social media companies, by contrast, can publish posts from their
anonymised users that contain almost anything, and it is permitted.
It can be racism. It can state that £300M a week could be spent on
the NHS if only the UK would leave the EU. And those posts can be
sent to millions of people without regard to truth or the damage they
can do.
The classic response to this is âwell, you canât expect us to
police such a large amount of content, itâs impracticalâ - a fair
response - but then thereâs a bit of sleight of hand from Meta et
al: they conclude that they should therefore be allowed to broadcast
anything a user shares. But an alternative conclusion is _well, then
perhaps you shouldnât be broadcasting inflammatory nonsense from
any person/bot who posts_ and you have to find a new operating model.
Itâs tricky because free speech is important, but I think weâve
seen enough times how dangerous, divisive, and destructive social
media is. If thereâs no way to prevent people and states from
abusing it, then it probably shouldnât exist. When the
retrospective is written on the fall of America and the west, social
media will be one of the key explanatory factors, along with
hypercapitalism.
rhetocj23 wrote 3 hours 52 min ago:
Newspapers have had a much longer history than social media.
I get why youre making the comparison, but, regulatory bodies tend
to be averse to acting quick because they want "all the data" to be
more certain in decision making. Such data only comes with time.
tayo42 wrote 14 hours 37 min ago:
I think banning algorithm based feeds is a start
Getting rid of any non personal accounts also. So no companies,
brands, or meme accounts, and accounts that exist for non personal
content only.
duxup wrote 7 hours 9 min ago:
I've seen a lot of algorithm type proposed legislation, sorting by
date is an algorithm ... I kinda want that.
I think legislating what is good and bad math is going to be
exceptionally difficult.
asukachikaru wrote 13 hours 24 min ago:
Never thought about it but banning non personal accounts sounds
like a good start. I doubt such social media would gain any
meaningful popularity though.
haijo2 wrote 10 hours 39 min ago:
Lol it would be dead. IG is running off of the fact that people
utilise its platform to make money... I dont see how this is
going to be practical.
HankStallone wrote 4 hours 27 min ago:
It's not, that's why people want a regulatory body to do it.
The only way to get people to use such a system would be to
regulate the current ones out of existence.
kovezd wrote 14 hours 48 min ago:
Yes. We should only allow social media in a printed format.
klondike_klive wrote 12 hours 13 min ago:
I'd go further and stipulate spoken word only. Or shouted in town
squares by someone wearing a tricorn hat.
Ekaros wrote 11 hours 40 min ago:
I am more partial to various jester caps. Good range of options.
albert_e wrote 16 hours 47 min ago:
Should internet based chat platforms develop a common protocol (like
SMS for mobile networks) so that people don't all need to use the same
app (Whatsapp and the like) to be able to have 1:1 or group chats?
(Before someone says I have rediscoered email -- I know email exists
for a similar reason but not for instant messaging for a smartphone
weilding generation)
NathanaelRea wrote 16 hours 35 min ago:
URI [1]: https://dsnp.org/dsnp_whitepaper.pdf
TheDong wrote 16 hours 28 min ago:
Begone blockchain whitepaper.
... Really though, if you've got a whitepaper from 2020 about
"building a protocol", and 6 years later you've got exactly 0 users
actually using the protocol, it's maybe not even worth linking.
Writing a vague hand-wavy paper that says "We need a distributed
graph, we'll use blockchain, there are IDs" is very easy.
Getting enough users that people can talk to each other, that's
hard, and real usable applications help with that, while
whitepapers do not.
rhetocj23 wrote 3 hours 47 min ago:
I always wonder what goes on in the minds of people who focus
intensely on the technology and not the experience...
The experience is what people want. Not the technology. The
technology is this thing that delivers the experience but the
consumer does not need to know of its existence nor how it works.
TheDong wrote 16 hours 38 min ago:
What you've re-invented is XMPP.
The original Facebook Messenger and Google Talk both used XMPP, it
has support for encryption and push notifications.... For a brief
period, you could actually chat across ecosystems.
And it died, everyone closed up their ecosystem.
We do have matrix now, but it's still largely irrelevant, and doesn't
really feel fully baked yet.
At this point, all the major companies have a huge vested interest in
keeping things closed.
Without blue bubble lock-in, I, and quite a few people I know, would
ditch increasingly mediocre iPhones for Android, so apple has to keep
building iMessage exclusive features and has to avoid ever releasing
an iMessage android app (most recently, Apple Invites, which
integrates with iMessage cleanly and is impossible for third-party
apps to integrate so neatly).
I expect Apple to continue to leverage "Apple Intelligence" as a
feature that only integrates well with iMessage so that they can
continue to lock users in, and keep the conversation as far away from
open chat protocols as they can.
In the AI age, unencrypted textual conversations are a new source of
training data, so Instagram, Twitter, and Google want to keep their
own messaging systems to themselves.
GCUMstlyHarmls wrote 15 hours 58 min ago:
> And it died, everyone closed up their ecosystem.
I think this is more accurately
> And it was killed, everyone closed up their ecosystem.
Not to say there were not problems with XMPP or Matrix,
"innovation" always feels slow because its federated, committee,
opensource, etc.
andrethegiant wrote 16 hours 53 min ago:
> I think there should also be a reasonable cap on the number of
connections that can be made. Something like 300 friends sounds right.
Any more than that and you're a collector, and not using the platform
to foster connection.
Path[1] did that, but with a cap of 50, and then 150 (based on the
Dunbar number of meaningful human connections one can retain). They had
a crazy growth period but eventually went kaput.
URI [1]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Path_(social_network)
prisenco wrote 14 hours 23 min ago:
I'm not sure vc funding and ads are compatible with a slow, quiet and
healthy social network.
sbinnee wrote 17 hours 8 min ago:
I also wish there will be a lot of diverse social media for specific
interest groups. I am fine that not many people would use them. I would
actually prefer that because I can at least expect people with genuine
interest on the topic. Discord in this regard is pretty close to this
direction I think.
hboon wrote 17 hours 8 min ago:
What are people using now instead of Facebook (for broastcast and
interaction with friends/family)?
Chat groups in WhatsApp, Signal, Telegram etc fulfills part of it but
that's only a subset since people in one chat groups know each other to
a certain degree.
mrweasel wrote 1 hour 12 min ago:
Nothing mostly. Closest family have a group chat, and I have a few
friends hanging out on IRC. For broadcasting, nothing, and I probably
never will again.
One thing many forget when presenting new ideas for social media
platforms is that we've been burnt by Facebook, Instagram, Twitter,
Reddit, Imgur and even LinkedIn to some extend. I'll never trust a
social media platform again because of people like Mark Zuckerberg.
There's nothing you can say or do that will convince that your new
platform won't turn to shit just as fast as Facebook did.
The business model doesn't work out, because not enough people will
pay and you cannot run these platforms on ad revenue and be
trustworthy.
crabl wrote 4 hours 19 min ago:
We have a shared iCloud photo album which works pretty well, and a
group chat in iMessage
kashunstva wrote 5 hours 5 min ago:
> What are people using now instead of Facebook
Email, phone, text.
I have a few friends who wonât communicate outside of Meta products
and I just donât interact with them any longer.
duxup wrote 7 hours 6 min ago:
Nothing :(
Most everyone is on facebook that I know of and they're not going
anywhere and I'm not. I actually missed that an old coworker had
died recently. Frustrating.
hboon wrote 6 hours 57 min ago:
Facebook just mostly show me ads now. I donât have many friends
active on it anymore. I did find out a few years ago that a
coworker has passed away though. Itâs really useful, pity there
isnât a similar viable alternative
rhetocj23 wrote 3 hours 51 min ago:
FB is practically dead, particularly from an innovation stand
point. Theyre just pumping as much cashflow as they can out of it
before its inevitable death.
3RTB297 wrote 14 hours 6 min ago:
WhatsApp and Signal are considered "social media" technically, though
plenty of people are still on FB telling the world about their trips
and what they ate for breakfast.
I'm always surprised at how HN folks are either unable or unwilling
to admit that the fediverse exists beyond Bluesky or Mastodon. I far
prefer lemmy to reddit, and Friendica is essentially that the author
is describing. This stuff exists already, and it's the perverse
incentives of social media such as walled gardens and a critical mass
of people that are what keep them alive.
simianparrot wrote 15 hours 5 min ago:
Nothing. I see them when I see them. If thereâs something urgent we
call each other or send an SMS. Thereâs no need for daily, weekly
or even monthly updates. This makes meeting and talking in person
always interesting because thereâs so much to sync that weâve all
had time to digest beforehand.
In the beginning when I left Facebook over ten years ago it felt
alienating. Then it felt too quiet. Then whenever I met people,
months apart or even years for distant family, I realised it didnât
matter. We connected like it had been days since our last meeting.
Eventually more and more of them have also quit social networks
entirely, though most use group chats for their immediate family â
parents and kids to orchestrate activities etc.
bonoboTP wrote 13 hours 27 min ago:
I think culture is more private again. In the early social media
phase, people very nonchalantly posted all their random thoughts
and drinking pics, vagueposting publicly about a breakup etc.
People now feel more surveilled, and feel that the public internet
is icky. HR sees all etc. It's similar to how people changed their
behaviors in response to ubiquitous phone cameras.
It feels paradoxical to say that, but I think it's true both that
social media is bigger than ever in terms of flurry and activity,
and that normal people participate less (outside scrolling the feed
passively). A few people are semi-professionalizing in it now,
influencers with sponsorships, local celebrities and trendsetters
etc., while normal people's normal life updates are dwindling. The
Pareto split is sharper.
simianparrot wrote 12 hours 20 min ago:
I think that's definitely a part of it. I also think the signal
to noise ratio has simply gotten so low that it's started taking
up too much energy for most people, so the value is lost. There
will always be "feed junkies", I suspect, but they're a dwindling
minority.
kelvinjps wrote 15 hours 56 min ago:
Whatsapp updates, you can see the updates of your contacts, then you
can react or send them a message
hboon wrote 15 hours 47 min ago:
Ah. Kind of "decentralized" in a sense. Thanks.
aleken wrote 15 hours 57 min ago:
That's all I use now for REAL social media. My family is in one
Signal chat, and my in-laws in a other one. All the social media I
need. School groups are unfortunately on Facebook Messenger groups.
pram wrote 17 hours 20 min ago:
âblog as a social networkâ was/is pretty much Tumblr. Most of the
content was structured as posts and updates on your personal page. You
didnât even need to engage with the social part.
Itâs hard to explain the difference between it and Twitter if you
never used it, but the platform itself creates very different posting
ideologies.
giveita wrote 17 hours 22 min ago:
It exists: Whatsapp
Also Discord and Reddit are not too bad for more strangers with common
topic based chat that isn't too algorithmic.
BeetleB wrote 3 hours 58 min ago:
> It exists: Whatsapp
Whatsapp groups are as terrible as the alternatives. Every group I've
been a part of that has more than N people (all who know each other)
has devolved into endless memes, political talk etc, and very little
connecting.
Give me Whatsapp where I have a setting to simply not show me any
forwarded message, and I'll be happy.
bonoboTP wrote 13 hours 23 min ago:
It's still possible to host a phpbb as well. Easier than it was in
2005, but harder than using a big platform.
baubino wrote 10 hours 33 min ago:
I miss all the old phpbb forums. I occasionally toy with the idea
of hosting one.
prisenco wrote 17 hours 22 min ago:
Iâve been dreaming of building this.
I miss chronological feeds the most.
xnx wrote 17 hours 24 min ago:
Slowcial Media
Emerald_dreamer wrote 14 hours 35 min ago:
This is what we need
joules77 wrote 18 hours 3 min ago:
> I posit that any for-profit social media will eventually degrade into
recommendation media over time.
For profit social media is totally possible. But a "healthy" version
won't happen until govts reform social media such that Attention is
demonitized or remonitized.
The post is right in that Attention has been monetized by social media
companies. How much Attention you pay to something and how much
Attention you receive both got monetized. They monetized Attention by
adding View, Like, Share and Follower counts to everything.
And those counts started acting like Currency does in the real economy.
For example a key feature of Currency is that it acts as Store of
Value. That value can then be exchanged at whatever time for something
else in the real economy.
But in the real economy the Money Supply is regulated and controlled by
the Central Bank. Why did that happen?
Before Central Banks (a very recent invention) showed up individual
Banks printed their own currency. If they printed "too much" all kinds
of strange phenomenon started emerging in the real world. For centuries
no one connected that back to how much money was being printed. Because
people had no idea what the level of the money supply was. Just like on
social media there is no tracking or visible signal of the global Money
supply and interest rate setting to control it.
So any time there was a price rising in the market, bank runs, bubbles
in the market people would blame everything under the sun other than
those responsible for money printing. After centuries of chaos Central
Banks started emerging to control what individual Banks could do. Same
story will repeat with Attention(which is acting just like a Currency).
This is why Elon and Trump rush to start their own Attention Banks
cause they understand better than anyone being able to print a store of
value that everyone else uses gives you power.
This is also why having China influencing the money supply (Attention)
of US is via TikTok is non-optional.
So people eventually land on 2 paths forward -
1. Demonetize Attention - which is what the post is talking about
2. Remonetize Attention - where there is tracking of how much Attention
anyone can receive, and how much Attention anyone can pay. Similar to
what controls exist on Banks in what they lend and how much cash they
need to hold. And Banks can then run for-profit without doing as much
damage as they did when they controlled the money supply.
haijo2 wrote 10 hours 24 min ago:
Yeah the government - the large and powerful institution designed to
take care of its people - has to step in.
Lots of scamming behaviour takes place on those platform by means of
acquiring wealth on the platform in the form of social currency
(likes, followers and so on). And Meta is there to help them exploit
- and perhaps hopes to dumb people down further - so they get hooked
to the platform more.
abnercoimbre wrote 14 hours 58 min ago:
Agreed in general. Only appropriate regulation will convert
for-profit social media into its healthy version. We're already
seeing the seeds of it with bi-partisan bans on smartphone use at
school.
SilverElfin wrote 18 hours 26 min ago:
The problem is whenever wise people sit out of the popular platforms
like todayâs social media, society continues most of its speech and
politics on those big popular fast social media platforms. So we are
all still exposed to its risks.
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