[HN Gopher] How we lost communication to entertainment
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How we lost communication to entertainment
Author : 8organicbits
Score : 146 points
Date : 2025-12-27 20:15 UTC (2 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (ploum.net)
(TXT) w3m dump (ploum.net)
| bryanrasmussen wrote:
| >A few days ago, I did a controversial blog post
|
| and
|
| >When I originally wrote this post, nearly one year ago,
|
| I am confused.
| 8organicbits wrote:
| Bloggers don't always publish immediately after writing a post,
| the start of the prior post explains the time line and the
| delay: https://ploum.net/2025-12-04-pixelfed-against-
| fediverse.html
| bryanrasmussen wrote:
| hmm ok, I thought it might be that, but then I would have
| expected "I did" to have been "I published"
| bryanrasmussen wrote:
| >Communication networks are not profitable.
|
| Ma Bell tells me they may not have considered all possible angles
| on this matter.
| pyvpx wrote:
| Ma Bell was never profitable without government cheese. And her
| offspring can't do much but complain about how every one else
| is making huge margins over "their" infrastructure.
|
| Telecom is very very broken.
| scotty79 wrote:
| We lost communication to advertising.
| PaulHoule wrote:
| It's kinda weird.
|
| Facebook started as a way to connect with family and friends
| and it is still really good at that. When I got back into
| Facebook to post my photos (e.g. in a "publish everywhere"
| strategy) I reconnected with distant family I hadn't been in
| contact with for a long time and I'm thankful for that.
|
| On the other hand _that 's_ not enough for a business so
| Facebook mashes that up with brands/businesses and community
| groups and "creators" and cleverly took the free publicity away
| from brands and started selling it back.
|
| I think the thing is friends and family don't generate enough
| content to be cover traffic for the ads and my feelings are
| kinda ambivalent for those people because there are people I
| care for who post vast amounts of content that I see as
| "cringe" (e.g. COVID-19 hyperchondria while I am seeing Gen X
| get their education and future friends, family and
| socialization stolen by school lockdowns) and thank God
| Facebook knows I don't click on that shit and shows me ads and
| stuff from "creators" instead!
| basisword wrote:
| >> On the other hand that's not enough for a business
|
| It could be. Once Facebook had everyone on board they could
| have pivoted to a model where people pay directly. It's easy
| to forget how incredibly useful it was in the early years.
| It's not enough for a business that needs to endlessly grow
| but businesses don't NEED to do that - especially tech
| companies where costs can be incredibly low once the initial
| website is built.
| plagiarist wrote:
| We lost civilization to advertising IMO. It feels like the
| majority of all technology is built around monetizing clicks.
| Astrophysicists are working at Stitch Fix.
| towledev wrote:
| We need a Caesar who will ban all advertising. Lacking a
| Caesar, we could start with publicly funded NFL stadiums e.g.
| MetLife to get a foot in the door and go from there.
| Something must be done.
| contrast wrote:
| This is one of those articles that is too obsessed with amusing
| itself with its own pretentiousness to communicate anything
| interesting - which is ironic given the author seems thinks they
| prefer communications to entertainment.
| majormajor wrote:
| Text and chat (and the voice forms) are alive and well for
| communication.
|
| Broadcast forms, on the other hand, are ripe for co-option by
| profit-seeking through advertising.
|
| That's not communication being lost, it's media.
| mschuster91 wrote:
| > Broadcast forms, on the other hand, are ripe for co-option by
| profit-seeking through advertising.
|
| The problem is, running broadcast networks is insanely
| expensive. You need either _a lot_ of antennas (or other
| distribution points such as coax and fiber) around the country,
| or you need insanely large and power-hungry antennas (i.e. AM
| radio), or you need powerful data centers and legal teams.
|
| _Someone_ has to pay the bill, and so it 's either some sort
| of encrypted pay-tv which most people don't want to pay (see:
| the widespread piracy), or it's advertising, or (like with
| social media) venture capital being set alight.
| majormajor wrote:
| Social media doesn't have to be that expensive to run.
| Countless forums out there for decades.
|
| But _especially_ if you allow audio /video then your
| moderation costs can get very high if you're aiming for more
| "broadcast" and less "community."
| mschuster91 wrote:
| > Social media doesn't have to be that expensive to run.
| Countless forums out there for decades.
|
| Said forums existed because of volunteers paying in the
| form of time. Moderation is expensive, so are legal
| liabilities and associated cost that have only increased
| over the last decades - DMCA, anti-CSAM legislation, anti-
| terrorism legislation come to my mind primarily - and
| especially, there is a _huge_ workload to deal with abusive
| behavior from unrelated third parties: skiddies, ddos
| extorters, dedicated hackers hired by "competition",
| spammers, you get the idea. Someone _always_ pays the bill.
|
| There is a reason so many forums and mailing lists
| collapsed once Reddit took off. It just isn't worth it any
| more.
| PaulHoule wrote:
| It helps a lot for a community to have a specific focus.
|
| For instance if it is photography technique or sports
| talk or Arduino programming almost all problematic
| content is "off-topic" and easy to delete without
| splitting hairs or offending libertarian sentiments.
|
| Similarly "no explicit images" is an easy line to defend,
| but anything past that like "no CSAM" is excruciatingly
| difficult.
|
| For a general purpose platform where people can post what
| they want, particularly if there is a libertarian ethos
| where people cry about "censorship", moderation is a
| bitch.
|
| My personal pet peeve is that on any platform that has
| DMs I get a lot of messages, particularly when starting a
| new account, for things that are transparently scams and
| if I was starting one today my feeling of responsibility
| leads me to the conclusion that I would not support DMs.
| hamdingers wrote:
| What is lost is social networking. Texting or calling people
| you already know isn't networking.
|
| Every social network experiences convergent evolutionary
| pressure driving it to become social media instead.
| TheServitor wrote:
| I think the desire to not centralize identity has more to do with
| it than anything. We present different facets to different
| communities. The pseudo-indelible nature of internet commentary
| means saying something to anyone potentially means saying it to
| everyone, in any context.
|
| That's why people have multiple fediverse accounts, to limit
| context or purpose of communication channels. Not because they
| don't value genuine communication within those channels.
| PaulHoule wrote:
| I used to get into arguments with people in the Fedi who
| couldn't seem to make up their minds whether they wanted to be
| visible or invisible. To me it seemed like it made no sense,
| like if you really want to be invisible _just don 't post it_
| because you can't really take things back.
|
| At some point I realized those people were just like that.
|
| I worked at a startup circa 2012 or so which was unusually
| unclear in its mission but the paychecks and the parties were
| good and the idea seemed to be helping people partition out
| different parts of the identities in terms of interests so you
| could get Paul-the-mild-mannered-applications-developer, Paul-
| as-a-marketer/huckster, and Paul-as-a-fox, and Paul-with-an-
| embarassing-interest, etc.
|
| We had the hardest time explaining to the press (TechCrunch
| would say they didn't get it!) and everyone else, I could
| probably pitch it as well as anybody and I didn't do very well.
| kruffalon wrote:
| Docker for humans!
| shermantanktop wrote:
| Right, like the pods in the Matrix! Cool.
| plagiarist wrote:
| I think I somewhat agree with the author but I find the idea of
| a single account completely unappealing. My view on the
| benefits of federation is that you don't have a single entity
| gating your access. Having multiple accounts is a benefit.
| bentcorner wrote:
| I love this paragrpah and I think it provides an interesting
| insight:
|
| > _They are entertainment platforms that delegate media creation
| to the users themselves the same way Uber replaced taxis by
| having people drive others in their own car._
|
| Taking this analogy further, is today's end goal of social media
| to provide AI generated content that users can endlessly consume?
| I think Facebook is heading this direction.
| nicoburns wrote:
| > is today's end goal of social media to provide AI generated
| content that users can endlessly consume? I think Facebook is
| heading this direction.
|
| Platforms like TikTok, Instagram Reels and YouTube Shorts have
| already gone a long way down that path. I don't think users
| like this content much though.
| hamdingers wrote:
| They don't have to like it they just need to engage with it.
| BoingBoomTschak wrote:
| As KMFDM once said: _We want to stop reading magazines,
| stop watching TV, stop caring about Hollywood but we 're
| addicted to the things we hate_
| plagiarist wrote:
| Which users? I typically dislike TikTok and other shorts but
| the platforms seem to be wildly popular even despite my
| opinions.
| elemdos wrote:
| They only dislike it when they can tell it's AI, but that's
| becoming less and less of a possibility.
| lll-o-lll wrote:
| We are destroying ourselves; the very core of what it is to be
| human. I say this acknowledging the irony of writing this on my
| phone, on a Sunday morning, when I should be engaging with the
| real world and people in my life.
|
| Television was rightly criticised for being the opiate of the
| masses; a continuous stream of entertainment that allows you to
| 'stop thinking' to endure boredom. However it had some
| constraints. The box was in a fixed space, I could not bring it
| with me. The content was fixed, it could not always engage me.
|
| Social media, and every other 'content delivery' system is not
| like this. It is in my pocket, there is _so much_ content, it
| can keep me continually engaged. AI content generation
| _optimises_ this, perhaps, but we already live in this
| dystopia.
|
| Rise up and revolt! Put down our phones and refuse to engage!
| Our very lives, our _humanity_ depends on it!
| shadowgovt wrote:
| That sounds like work.
| kbrkbr wrote:
| The original opiate for the people criticism was leveled
| against religion by Karl Marx:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opium_of_the_people
| andrepd wrote:
| ... This is relevant how?
| lll-o-lll wrote:
| https://www.reddit.com/r/calvinandhobbes/comments/6pontu/wh
| a...
|
| ;-)
| __MatrixMan__ wrote:
| I appreciate the sentiment, but I don't think that calls for
| generic revolt are likely to get us anywhere. It's gotta be
| targeted and meaningful and executed with a measure of a
| restraint. It needs to be clear we can be reasoned with.
|
| So what kind of revolt are you calling for? Are we dumping
| GPU's into the ocean like we did with tea in Boston that one
| time? Are we disconnecting datacenters from the internet? Are
| we all gonna change our profile picture? Specifics please.
| tkiolp4 wrote:
| I think it's easier than that. We can literally start the
| revolution from our beds:
|
| 1. For every social media account you have: post "I'm
| leaving. You should too"
|
| 2. For every social media account you have: close it.
|
| 3. Profit
| lll-o-lll wrote:
| :-D I do love the image of hurling GPU's into the sea!
|
| My suggestion was much more modest. Put down the phone and
| delete your socials. Disengagement is the ultimate act of
| rebellion.
| rfrey wrote:
| Maybe the very core of what it is to be human _is_ to destroy
| ourselves.
| AlexandrB wrote:
| Would be funny if the "great filter" is not nukes or some
| other weapon, but social media.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Filter
| Nasrudith wrote:
| The Great Filter is just bullshit until we come across
| space ruins to prove that something has been filtering
| out civilizations. It is possible that we are just the
| "precursors" without any giants to stand upon the
| shoulders of.
|
| Catastrophazing new media hasn't gone out of fashion yet.
| Remember when it was Reality TV that was supposed to be
| the downfall of civilizations?
| walterbell wrote:
| Any real-world side effects of Reality TV?
| ben_w wrote:
| Arguably the election of Trump.
| ben_w wrote:
| The absence is the evidence.
|
| Being a precursor is not inconsistent with great filters,
| a great filter is why nobody else is there to be one.
|
| Great filter is anywhere at all in the progress of life
| from pre-life chemistry to stable interplanetary
| expansion; filters behind us, for example multicellular
| life or having dry land so we can invent fire, are still
| potential great filters and they would leave no space
| ruins to find.
|
| That said, my assumption is lots of little filters that
| add up. Eleven filters behind us each with 10% pass rates
| is enough to make us the peak of civilisation in this
| galaxy; eleven more between us and Kardashev III would
| make the universe seem empty.
| throwaway94275 wrote:
| One could argue modern social media like Tiktok and
| Snapchat is an evolution of reality TV, in app/smartphone
| form.
| tw04 wrote:
| > Remember when it was Reality TV that was supposed to be
| the downfall of civilizations?
|
| I'd say we've already got measurable statistics. When
| half of genz isn't dating or married, it's signaling
| trouble.
|
| https://aibm.org/commentary/gen-zs-romance-gap-why-
| nearly-ha...
|
| Now, we can discuss if that's good or bad for the planet,
| but it's not great for humanity.
| ben_w wrote:
| I've read that short story, but can't remember enough
| details to search for it.
|
| Humans do find alien radio signals, but they keep going
| dark after a brief window; the narrator suspects why,
| because they witness fellow humans disappearing into
| simulations far more fun than reality could ever be.
| agumonkey wrote:
| maybe there's no core just unchecked forces due to
| technology removing barriers
| api wrote:
| No, our nature is to satiate our dopamine system. That
| system evolved to keep us fed, nourished, and to make us
| make friends and belong and have sex to make more humans.
| The problem is that we are now so smart and clever that we
| can start learning how the dopamine system works and
| hacking it.
|
| This isn't new. We've been doing it for a long time with
| booze, porn, drugs, sexual excess, gambling, pointless
| consumerism, certain kinds of religious fervor, endless
| things.
|
| But almost all of those things are self-limiting. They're
| either costly, dangerous, in limited supply, or physically
| harmful enough to our health that we shy away from them and
| taboos develop around them.
|
| Addictive digital media may actually be more dangerous than
| those things precisely because it is cheap, always
| available, endless, and physically harmless. As a result it
| has no built-in mechanism that limits it. We can scroll and
| scroll and chase social media feedback loops forever until
| we die.
|
| AI slop feeds are going to supercharge this even more.
| Instead of human creators we will have AI models that can
| work off immediate engagement feedback and fine tune
| themselves for each individual user in real time. I'm quite
| certain all the antisocial media companies are working on
| this right now. Won't be long before they start explicitly
| removing human creators from the loop and just generating
| endless customized chum with ad placement embedded into it.
|
| Some people have the discipline to push back, but many do
| not either for psychological/neurological reasons or
| because they are exhausted and stressed and unable to
| summon the energy. Humans do not have infinite willpower.
| So I've been predicting for a while that eventually we're
| going to heavily regulate or tax this space.
|
| This concerns me too due to the free speech implications
| and the general risk of overreacting and overcorrecting.
| It'll be tempting for politicians to regulate or tax only
| the platforms they don't like, or to use the regulatory
| mechanism to crack down on legitimate speech by grouping it
| in with addictive chum. We've seen similar things with
| attempts to regulate porn or hate speech. But it's coming.
| I have little doubt. I think we'll see this when GenZ and
| GenA start entering politics.
|
| It's really still shocking to me. If you went back in time
| and told me in, say, 2006, that our engagement-hacking
| would be _so successful_ that it became an X-risk to
| humanity, I 'm not sure I'd believe you. I never would have
| believed how effective this stuff could be. It's just a
| damn screen for god's sake! I think a lot of people are
| still in denial about this problem because it seems so
| absurd that a touch screen can addict people as well as
| fentanyl, but it's true. I see it around me all the time.
|
| Edit:
|
| My preferred way to go about reeling this back in would be
| to strike at the root and start taxing advertising the way
| we tax booze, drugs, gambling, and other vices. Advertising
| revenue is the trunk of this tree. The entire reason these
| systems are created is to keep people staring so ads can be
| pushed at them. Take that away and a lot of the motive to
| build and run these things goes away.
|
| Another, which we're already seeing, is to age-restrict
| antisocial media. Young minds are particularly vulnerable
| to these tactics, more so than adults, and all addiction
| pushers try to addict people early.
|
| Lastly, we could start campaigns to educate people. We need
| schools teaching classes explaining to kids how these
| systems addict and manipulate them and why, and public PSAs
| to the same effect. It needs to be treated like a health
| issue because it is.
|
| Taxes, education, and age restriction is how we almost
| killed cigarettes in the USA, so there is precedent for
| these three things together working.
|
| We also need to be a lot more precise in our language. The
| problem is not the Internet, phones, computers, "tech," AI,
| etc. The problem is _engineering systems for engagement,
| specifically._ If you are trying to design a system to keep
| people staring at a screen (or other interface) for as much
| time as possible, you are hurting people. What you 're
| doing is in the same category as what the Sackler family
| did with oxycontin. Engagement engineering is a predatory
| destructive practice and the people who do it are
| predators.
| poisonborz wrote:
| It is in the distant future still (if we ever get there
| without apocalypse first) but I think the goal was set out to
| be, from the very first bits of digital data, is to
| completely transition ourselves to a digital world. Living it
| in parallel will make less sense if Earth conditions get
| worse, and even less in space or on a hostile planet. In a
| digital world possibilities become limitless, disabilities,
| distances, shortcomings of the mind eliminated. Once you
| can't see a difference, will it matter if something is
| "real"? Sure, it can also become a hell and inhumane much
| easier, but this doesn't make it a less compelling dimension.
|
| Looking through this lens, fighting, limiting internet usage
| is akin to moving to the rainforest to avoid capitalism -
| lone rebelling acts in the wrong direction of history, a
| temporary, partial victory for the few who dare this hassle.
|
| Time is better spent to make this emerging space better, for
| everyone.
| OptionOfT wrote:
| Given to the direction we're going, I don't believe this
| digital world will be one in which we're free either.
| cess11 wrote:
| Perhaps one could frame it as "The Self under Siege".
|
| https://rickroderick.org/300-guide-the-self-under-
| siege-1993...
| rlmp_89 wrote:
| It has been well theorized by A. Dugin : Were now in the era
| of full realization / triumph of postmodernity. After having
| crushed all its 20th-century adversaries, western liberalism
| and its ideology of universal 'progress' will destroy
| everything that makes us truly human
| spwa4 wrote:
| > Taking this analogy further, is today's end goal of social
| media to provide AI generated content that users can endlessly
| consume?
|
| The singular purpose of social media has always been
| advertising. That 100% depends on the ability of platforms to
| control the message, which Facebook achieved to an extent that
| politicians started paying them in order to game elections.
|
| Then "influencers" came, and largely control the message on
| essentially all platforms.
|
| By contrast, on Youtube and Twitter, advertisers are making
| deals directly with specific influencers so their advertising
| remains on-target. Only "old-style" generic geo-targeted
| advertising, what you used to see on TV, uses the platforms
| themselves.
|
| AI achieves many things for these platforms:
|
| 1) get rid of influencers by creating AI influencers (done both
| by influencers themselves, attempting to create fake/AI
| influencers that are cheaper, and by the platforms that want to
| control the process)
|
| 2) allow advertisers to control the message (think of a
| guarantee not to get shown on pro-Nazi channels)
|
| 3) force advertisers to come to the platforms instead of
| specific influencers
|
| 4) also get the ability to influence and later even control
| elections
| PaulHoule wrote:
| Well, I'd be careful about the "always", when Facebook and
| Twitter started out they understood virality but they did not
| understand monetization -- early on the likes of Zynga and
| King were making money off Facebook and it wasn't until
| Facebook was forced to go public and Sheryl Sandberg was
| running things that they figured out that they could capture
| the free publicity brands got on Facebook and sell it back to
| them.
| basisword wrote:
| >> The singular purpose of social media has always been
| advertising.
|
| This just isn't true. There was a time when we had a
| chronological feed, only containing content from friends and
| family, and no advertising. The business model end goal was
| always advertising but social media doesn't necessarily need
| to be for that purpose (e.g. the fediverse).
| emptybits wrote:
| Maybe what I need is an AI agent to consume AI generated
| content on my behalf.
|
| Then I can continue with my strong preference to direct my time
| and attention toward content generated, mostly, by my fellow
| humans.
| tw04 wrote:
| We've started instituting a "no phones" policy when the kids
| have sleepovers to try to combat this at least a little bit,
| and have constant conversations about why things like Instagram
| are toxic and we should just try to spend our time enjoying
| life.
|
| Obviously I'm also posting here while I wait in the car waiting
| to pick someone up, but I actively make an effort to unplug on
| a regular basis.
| criticalfault wrote:
| isn't HN more like professional news/discussion place?
|
| is it considered social media?
| basisword wrote:
| I think in 12 months we're not going to know the difference
| unless we put in some serious effort. I use AI quite a lot and
| it's great, but don't like it for 'media' in general.
| Personally, I don't want to support AI generated audio, video,
| or text content. This past week I came across an Instagram
| account, found it interesting and followed it. Admittedly it
| was some high-level cookie cutter self-help stuff. Easy to
| catch your attention. Eventually I dug into it a bit more and
| it was 100% AI generated. I'd missed it completely and there
| were no comments suggesting it was AI content either despite
| over 1m followers. If you want to be sure the media you are
| viewing is actually created by real people, algorithmic feeds
| are no longer an option. It will be interesting to see over the
| next year or two whether there is a large backlash and people
| start seeking out content they are positive is created by real
| people, or if that becomes a subculture and the masses are
| happy with their circus.
| mojuba wrote:
| > I apply a strong inbox 0 methodology
|
| Tangential to the main topic, but this is the only sensible way
| of running an email inbox, always has been to me, and it boggle
| my mind, why would anyone let clutter and a piling number of
| unreads in their one and only inbox, one of the most important
| things in our digital lives?
|
| Each email is an action item. If it's not or if it's been
| addressed, it's gone, period.
|
| Archive vs. Delete is another question but not as important. Over
| time I've found that I'm probably deleting too much (e.g. where
| did I buy that <nice thing> 5 years ago? want it again, can't
| find the order). Then business emails are all archived with the
| exception of business spam of course.
|
| So why would you have more emails in your inbox than items you're
| supposed to act on?
| hrunt wrote:
| > Archive vs. Delete is another question but not as important.
| Over time I've found that I'm probably deleting too much (e.g.
| where did I buy that <nice thing> 5 years ago? want it again,
| can't find the order). Then business email are all archived
| with the exception of business spam of course.
|
| An executive co-worker of mine used his Deleted Items folder as
| his Archive. Problem solved.
| baxtr wrote:
| But what about the joy of deleting 112 messages from the
| trash folder every day?
| shermantanktop wrote:
| Because my attention should be directed at what I want to do,
| when I want to, not a nagging number that sits there being more
| than zero.
|
| And when I do pay attention to it, I don't want to spend 20
| minutes going through the 180 emails that I've been cc'd on.
| It's literally not worth my time or dilution of my attention.
| When I have attempted to get on top of this by doing all the
| curation and rule-authoring that productivity mavens shout
| about, it works for a little while but entropy sets in.
|
| I'm just not into scripting my own life and maximizing my
| productivity, and my job does not pivot on prompt email
| responses. So my email is a garbage dump with tire fires in it,
| and I know that, and I get on with the things I know are
| actually important.
|
| I'm not recommending this! It's just the compromise that I have
| settled in to. But if you wonder "why would anyone," this is
| it.
| mojuba wrote:
| Thanks. So no fear of losing important stuff to the noise?
|
| Also mind you, this is not about productivity. If you don't
| want act on something, you delete it.
| Kiro wrote:
| Because I feel like it. Thinking of every email as an action
| item sounds exhausting. I think you need to chill more.
| ofalkaed wrote:
| Communication was mostly lost before the rise of social media--
| assuming we ever had anything more than isolated pockets of
| actual communication, which I am not convinced we have.
| Literature has been exploring this for a good many decades, The
| Heart is a Lonely Hunter is a good example and even shows how our
| relation to it has changed in the 80 odd years since its release;
| these days when it comes up the interpretation/discussion about
| it is more often than not, about social causes, which is
| depressingly ironic, it is using the novel in the same way the
| characters of the novel use Singer.
| Esophagus4 wrote:
| > But what was created as "ride-sharing" was in fact a way to 1)
| destroy competition and 2) make a shittier service while people
| producing the work were paid less and lost labour rights. It was
| never about the social!
|
| Framed this way, sure. But for the most part, I like Uber. The
| competition it "killed" was monopolistic and stagnant, and the
| "shitty service" was the legacy taxi industry that Uber forced to
| modernize. Yellow taxis got phone apps and credit card processing
| devices because Uber forced them to keep up.
|
| I remember trying to order a taxi to the airport 15 years ago in
| one of the most populated cities in the world. I had to look up
| taxi companies on Google, call their dispatch, and ask for a
| ride. 40 minutes and several calls later, none arrived, so I had
| to call a different company's dispatcher as I scrambled to catch
| my flight.
|
| Now, I've called countless taxis with the push of a button in
| several countries. I get an estimate of pricing and arrival times
| up front.
|
| For me, Uber/Lyft is an incredible service. I'll leave the labor
| rights discussion for a different thread. (inb4 a HN contrarian
| jumps down my throat about this.)
|
| But that was a long winded way of saying: to me, the author's
| analogy seriously weakens his point. I could argue that highly
| personalized entertainment is way better than 800 cable channels
| of bleh. We still have plenty of non-enshittified communication
| (I text and call and Whatsapp and Telegram my friends).
| oblique wrote:
| > We dreamed of decentralised social networks as "email 2.0."
| They truly are "television 2.0."
|
| > They are entertainment platforms that delegate media creation
| to the users themselves the same way Uber replaced taxis by
| having people drive others in their own car.
|
| Either this is written poorly or way off. Social networks are
| already television 2.0. Decentralized social networks circumvents
| having the algorithm controlled by some central authority. Media
| creation has already been delegated to users over a decade ago,
| think content creators.
|
| Personally I'm a fediverse evangelist. Having decentralized
| entertainment platforms makes corporate/state influence much more
| difficult.
|
| The methods of influence in modern centralized social networks
| are much more sinister than television ever was.
| rileymat2 wrote:
| I don't think the article disagrees here? The issue is not
| control or decentralization, but consumption v. back and forth
| (communication).
| hshdhdhj4444 wrote:
| You seem to be agreeing with the article?
| Barrin92 wrote:
| >Having decentralized entertainment platforms
|
| How? I don't even think decentralized is the appropriate term.
| They're distributed entertainment platforms in that they're
| protocol based, but regarding the distribution of content
| there's nothing in it that decentralizes reach. The social
| graph of Twitter and Mastodon could in principle be identical.
|
| Malicious actors don't need to control algorithms. States
| running influence campaigns on say, Youtube or Facebook don't
| actually control any algorithm, they adapt their content to
| what does well on the platform. And they could equally do this,
| one could argue even more effectively, on the fediverse.
|
| Saying the Fediverse solves top down influence is like thinking
| that Bitcoin solves wealth inequality. The distribution of the
| network is completely agnostic to the centralization of the
| content.
| buildsjets wrote:
| Social media is yet another strange game where the only winning
| move is not to play.
| terminalbraid wrote:
| > They believe those platforms are "public spaces" while they
| truly are "private spaces trying to destroy all other public
| spaces in order to get a monopoly."
|
| There's nothing I can add to this.
| mrkeen wrote:
| This is so dramatic it's hard to recover the original complaint.
|
| Dansup has built a photo-sharing app on top of ActivityPub, and
| we humans are a lost cause because the app doesn't also do text-
| only messages?
|
| Is that the gist of it?
| hshdhdhj4444 wrote:
| Not really.
|
| The gist of it is if Google decides to build GMail but Gmail
| silently deleted emails that it did not find entertaining
| enough so you didn't even know they were ever sent to you.
|
| The article is saying some people see ActivityPub as a
| communication protocol like Gmail where you expect all messages
| to be delivered, while others see it as an entertainment
| protocol where the goal is to entertain the user.
| vanschelven wrote:
| I wonder if the author is aware of Neil Postman's work,
| especially "Amusing ourselves to death". It seems very relevant
| to this article.
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