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by jldugger 2018 days ago
> no likes, no profiles, and no connection to Facebook at all

You can absolutely thumbs up stuff. And accounts do have a profile -- a name, a phone number, a profile pic, email address, probably your apple ID somewhere in the metadata, etc. And this is not connected to Facebook, but to your Apple account. All your activity is sync'd between devices.

> Since there is no “Apple social network” to be spoken of, there would be little reason to include them.

In a sense, iCloud is the social network: https://www.androidauthority.com/green-bubble-phenomenon-102.... Beyond being able to send special effects with your chats, you can also send money via apple pay, video call via FaceTime, and, with Apple One, share your subscriptions.

> They want you to have a good time and sell you another device next year, not glue your eyeballs to the screen.

True, but what do you think the metrics execsy are thinking of when they introduce thread replies or Memoji? And with Fitness+, News+, TV+ and Apple Arcade, more and more of Apple is increasingly reliant on customers paying them for the privilege of staring at screens.
1 comments
zepto 2018 days ago
Would you say Fastmail is a social network?
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_2d30 2018 days ago
Does Fastmail limit any of the social features of its product to communications with other Fastmail users or is Fastmail an interface to the generic, open email protocols?
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zepto 2017 days ago
What had that got to do with anything?

Is Matrix a social network?

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_2d30 2017 days ago
Can you define what a social network is then?

As for Matrix, I’m not personally familiar with it but a quick look up suggests it’s a protocol so by my offered explanation, the answer is no.

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zepto 2017 days ago
“Can you define what a social network is then?“

In my view, we’re talking about a term which is in general usage in the mainstream media.

It means things like Facebook and Twitter, but obviously others like Instagram, Gab, etc.

These all seem to enable public discourse of one kind or another.

Private 1-1 messaging platforms and merely social features - e.g. an Apple Music family plan, seem to have very little to do with this.

Just because a feature involves more than one user, it doesn’t become a ‘social network’.

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