[franzpeterstein]

Nobody needs a social network anymore, whether it is decentralized (Mastodon, Diaspora) or centralized (Facebook, Twitter). I think the social media bubble burst a long time ago and we just didn't realize it. I also have a Mastodon account, but used it only for a short time. I speak now only for myself personally, social networks bore me quite and I have no more interest to sign up somewhere.

[onion2k]

Nobody needs a social network anymore

This sort of comment is why people in tech are very often seen as being incredibly bad at solving non-trivial social problems by people outside of our industry. Somewhere between a third and a half of all the people on Earth see enough value in social networks to use one regularly. There are plenty of problems with the way networks work, and what they do to our mental health, but the notion that no one should use them any more is plain stupid.

[swsieber]

Somewhere between a third and a half of all the people on Earth see enough value in social networks to have signed up for one at some point.

Somewhere between a third and a half of all the people on Earth use a product designed to addict them.

I agree in general though - they can be useful, and they can fill a real purpose.

[mayniac]

I think a better argument is that between a third and a half of all people on Earth see enough value in some elements of social networks to sign up for them.

A lot of people I know only use Facebook for messenger. Some only use it for private groups. Some for events. Some for the newsfeed. Those people use twitter, instagram, whatsapp, snapchat, or discord for the features they don't use on Facebook.

IMO instead of looking for a service which could distribute the back-end servers of a single social network we should be encouraging the distribution of features, and make sure they can interact with each other smoothly.

[onion2k]

Somewhere between a third and a half of all the people on Earth see enough value in social networks to have signed up for one at some point.

I was referring to daily- and monthly-active-users numbers. That's people who sign in and interact with their accounts at least once a day or a month respectively. Those are the important numbers, and they're a fairly accurate representative of the number of people who currently use social media. I think it's fair to say people who stop seeing any positive value in their accounts stop being monthly active users.

[cryptoz]

> Somewhere between a third and a half of all the people on Earth see enough value in social networks to use one regularly.

That's a logical fallacy. You cannot possibly interpret the reasons why people use the social networks. They very well may feel forced to use them in order to get a job or otherwise be socially accepted. You call that "value" perhaps - they use it to get a job, therefore providing value. But that is an intentionally misleading line of thought and leaves the reader less informed than when they started reading.

The situation is a lot more complex than "providing value". People use social networks because they have been artificially forced into society as a near-necessity. Our society does not actually need them. But because we have them, people must use them. That they use them does not mean they derive value from them. They may not see it that way (I don't), and in aggregate, it does not seem to provide value to society at all. I would even argue that social networks have provided detrimental effects to society overall, and produced negative value.

[krapp]

>People use social networks because they have been artificially forced into society as a near-necessity

I mean, I don't think my mother chats with her COPD support group or shares pictures of her grandchildren on Facebook with our relatives because society has artificially forced her to do so, but OK. I guess she's just a slave to the machine, then.

> That they use them does not mean they derive value from them.

It kind of does, though. Social media is just an umbrella term for platforms that allow integrated, multimedia communication between a network of accounts. All other valid and legitimate criticisms aside, people find value in social media because of the people they network with, and because social media platforms tend to be more user friendly and accessible to the mainstream than were forums, email and telephone.

[qeternity]

> That they use them does not mean they derive value from them.

Yes it does, necessarily. This is basic biology, economics and self preservation. It may be temporal (i.e. good in short, bad in long) but nonetheless, people do not do things they do not value.

[bobwaycott]

> ... people do not do things they do not value.

They most certainly do. You are confusing doing X because one values doing X with doing X because they really want Y. Be it biology, economics, or (especially) self-preservation—among many other possible rationales—it does not follow that seeking any of those Ys means one values doing the X one believes necessary to get to the Y.

[toomim]

Exactly. It's called "revealed preferences" in economics: the theory that what humans value (their utility function) is revealed by their behavior -- what they choose to spend time on.

[chimprich]

Facebook alone has over 2 billion users, and keeps growing. I can't see how it is a bubble that has burst.

I've met many people in developing countries that don't have running water, or indoor sanitation, but still access Facebook through a cheap smartphone. It's important to a great many people.

Personally I find Facebook extremely useful; I just hate the implementation, which seems to be a buggy mix of dark patterns which attempt to manipulate my state of mind and do bad things with my personal data.

A realistic open competitor would be extremely welcome, but first you have to somehow get past the network effect.

[notyourwork]

I agree, for me it has become an advanced phone book more or less. I use it as a directory for those I don’t regularly talk to via phone, text or in person.

[jessaustin]

I prefer email for this purpose.

[mortenjorck]

> Nobody needs a social network anymore

Nobody needs another Facebook or Twitter.

The future of humans communicating, however, is wide open. Anything that succeeds on Blockstack will not be a clone of something that already exists, but rather something novel, even something that could only exist on the platform.

I've said it before, but the closest thing to the future of social networking that I've seen is Slack: Right now, outside of its marketed purpose, it's mostly used as an extension of existing online communities or as a way for people to stay in touch after departing a company, but the way it's it's centered around distributed groups is powerful, much more so than the way groups were grafted onto the core topology of Facebook.

A successful decentralized social network will not look like Slack, either. Just as Slack drew from IRC and Facebook drew from MySpace, a new network will have to draw on all of these and more, synthesizing a new experience that offers genuine value.

[swalsh]

I live 2000 miles away from my parents. I have 2 kids, my parents LOVE the small insights they get into their grandkids lives that happen on social media.

I could lose the no win political debates, the self-aggrandizing from my friends, the memes, but seeing my friends kids grow, my parents seeing my kids grow. That's cool.

[taytus]

Do you use FB to share those moments? Wouldn't be other tools better for that? Even when is owned by FB seems to me that WhatsApp would do a better job at this.

[philfrasty]

Try the Path app, exact use case

[LunaSea]

The billion plus active users on Facebook would like to disagree with you. It's undeniable that social networks are needed and are as popular as ever. It's not always the same ones (more people moved to Instagram) but the overall number is definitely higher than ever.

There is simply no replacement solution for staying in touch with people outside of phone number based solutions à la WhatsApp (which you could argue is also a social network).

[lccarrasco]

Do you mind elaborating on why do you think social media was a bubble?

[franzpeterstein]

Gladly. But I am not a scientist or start-up founder who may have a better insight into the subject.

When I registered with social networks at the beginning of the Web 2.0 hype, it was all exciting and new. There were many offers and most companies (MySpace and Co had no idea how much potential was available for advertising and marketing). After that came Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn etc. That's when it all got more professional. You went from a user to a customer, from a customer to a record with which you could earn money. It's getting around and everybody's jumping on the $$$-train. Youtube is like a TV channel, only that runs more advertising there and Instagram can also be seen as a advertising portal. Facebook dug its own grave because it became too greedy. Since only old people hang out on Snapchat, nobody wants to go there anymore. Not even my little nephew wants to join a social network and that's the point where I see it as a bubble that burst.

Social networks are like alpha versions of open World Crafting Games on Steam. there are hundreds of offers, but nobody wants them anymore.