[stcredzero]

It's becoming boring and boring, so that's why I believe people are leaving.

The problem with Facebook, is that either it's boring, or it's not boring, and in that case it's often far worse. Facebook latched onto the fact that outrage measures as "engagement" then other people latched onto that fact and started to use Facebook for their own outrage mongering purposes.

Still, Instagram and WhatsApp are running strong with barely no competition. We don't see any news about their user base decreasing and news channels don't seem to dislike them. Facebook is doing a good job making sure their biggest three platforms are seem as independent from one another, keeping Instagram and WhatsApp almost free from controversy.

So one company, three brands?

If I were to start my own crowdfunding app, I'd have one app with three "skins" and three different brands, each a different level of "edginess." In the Terms of Service would be the discretion for the site to "shift" your account from one of the three to another. The only effect of this, would be to shift the public information around the creator and subscriptions from one site to another. I would do this, so that "maintaining our brand" would never become an issue in funding creators, even edgy or downright controversial ones.

[ChuckMcM]

So much this: outrage measures as "engagement"

And yes it affects Twitter as well.

It seems to me that it takes "energy" to get people to change. Change being one of how they think about something, how they respond to something, or what they spend their time on. As far as I can tell, there are three very well known and very well studied energy pools that can be amplified and then tapped, one is fear, one is anger, and one is reward.

With fear and anger, a process is set up to increase levels in the target, while simultaneously offering a solution vector (ie a change in behavior that will address the fear or anger). I am sure psyche majors can quote all sorts of work here on that aspect of things.

For web companies, if your revenue is derived by ads, and you can only get people to click on your ads if they are looking at your page, it seems using fear and anger to drive people to page after page would be the best strategy to maximize their exposure to ads.

"outrage measures as engagement" is a perfect summary of the effect. The feedback loops are horribly exploitative.

[jsemrau]

I read that the "engagement" measure supported the Trump presidency since their ads were more clickbait than content-driven [1]

[1] https://www.mercurynews.com/2018/02/27/analysis-trumps-faceb...

[rmason]

I was never that engaged in Facebook, just checked it once a week. Then I started helping managing a private forum (for Michigan entrepreneurs) and got invited into another one. Now I'm on FB a couple of times a day.

Having the chance to engage with bright people who share my passion was the key. But the majority of my family has never been on Facebook.

[naravara]

This has been a common refrain from a lot of people. Facebook seems to have a lock on community it’s discussion forums for all sorts of small groups.

It works since basically everyone is on it and you don’t have to make people register and create an account as a barrier to entry. People used to have email listservs instead, but I think there is so much email marketing now that the signal to noise ratio on most people’s personal accounts approaches 0.

If someone could create a platform for an online discussion forum that doesn’t require signing up for a new service, will notify you of activity, and is free that would probably help a lot of people move over. NextDoor might have been able to, but they’re too focused on specific geographic neighborhoods and they have a serious racism problem.

[rizzin]

This is why I liked Reddit so much when I have discovered it.

You get thematic subreddits for these kind of discussions, and you didn't even need a full-fledged account. Just a nickname. No email confirmation, no phone authentication, no anything.

[throwawaymath]

Although now Reddit requires an email address for signup.

[northwest65]

I think it's just a UI dark pattern now. It doesn't look like you can skip past the email, but you can. As of last month at least.

[cmg]

You're right. There's an Email field on the first signup page, but you can just click Next and set up an account.

[hnzix]

I have a pseudonym FB account that I am forced to maintain for this reason (specialist interest groups). It's the new phpbb even though it completely sucks as a forum tool. The same questions get asked over and over. But worse is better I guess.

I went to great lengths to keep my account completely anonymized, so the suggested friends list is a hilarious cross-section of global randos. Of course being a pseduonym account I could be banned at any moment.

[jaxn]

My SaaS company has a user group on Facebook. It has been great and allowed us to build a strong community among our customers.

And one of my goals for 2019 is to shut that group down and move the conversation into our app.

[droithomme]

> you don’t have to make people register and create an account as a barrier to entry

Cool, I had not realized that Facebook now allows non-members to post and participate in their forums. That's really great! Not sure where on Facebook it is one can do that, but I'll be on the look out now that I know they've added this.

[exodust]

> basically everyone is on it

False.

[platz]

> latched onto the fact that outrage measures as "engagement" then other people latched onto that fact and started to use Facebook for their own outrage mongering purposes.

So this must be your assessment of twitter as well? Same current observation, Same predicted outcome?

[stcredzero]

Same current observation, Same predicted outcome?

I sincerely hope so!

[b1r6]

I find that to be a really intriguing idea. Offering a gradient instead of platform ultimatums. Could this scale, is the question?

[1stcity3rdcoast]

YouTube has YouTube Kids plus different levels of content filtering available to users. Similar concept, in a way.

[stcredzero]

I wish they'd accommodate news and opinion in the same way. Maybe that way, they could keep their employees out of the business of censoring the internet in line with their particular biases.

[stcredzero]

Could this scale, is the question?

In a way, it would be like shadowbanning, but more open.

[pandapower2]

>one app with three "skins" and three different brands, each a different level of "edginess."

They aren't a tech company as such but this reminded me of Coca Cola. There's Coke, Diet Coke, Coke Zero, Coke No Sugar plus whatever flavored variations they are currently doing. They are all slight variations on more or less the same product but it gives people the feeling that they are making a choice.

[naravara]

I think Coke No Sugar is supposed to be the replacement for Coke Zero. They also aren’t identical as Zero/No Sugar uses stevia as the sweetener while Diet Coke uses Aspartame.

I will bit the rebranding of Zero to No Sugar might have also been an attempt to get ahead of legislation to tax sugary drinks.