[switz]

I respect the time, effort, and engineering the author put in. But this sort of thing largely just makes me feel gross.

We’re moving towards an Internet that’s just one never ending loop of regurgitated spam. Call me naive, but I wish people wielding these skills felt more responsibility to be good citizens of the Internet, rather than spamming cyclical stolen content and “growth hacking” their way to followers by manipulating social networks. The Internet is in no way, shape or form, pure. But I do wish we would stop treating fellow users (humans) as play things just to get a free dinner.

Is it just because I grew up on the Internet starting 20+ years ago that I’m hyper sensitive to spam?

[lotsofpulp]

The signal to noise ratio has plummeted on the internet.

See this post on Reddit where someone is driving in people’s blindspots to give them an opportunity to use their modified car horn that sounds like a train horn. Inevitably, another account asks them where they got their car’s horn, and then they can plug their (or their client’s) website.

https://www.reddit.com/r/IdiotsInCars/comments/tjnsgt/my_tra...

[kyawzazaw]

Seems like it helps everyone here.

There are always gonna be social media marketers when the audience on the medium grows.

[switz]

The creator is getting free meals and the restaurants are getting some exposure. Sure.

But what about the average user. They post a picture of their night out at a club in NYC. Some automated bot comes along and follows them because the venue is tagged marking that they live nearby.

They’re sitting at work and get a notification that they’ve been followed. ::dopamine hit:: They pick up their phone, distracting them and check the account. Oh cool! This account has 20k followers and only follows 400 people, I must be special. ::dopamine hit::

This account has co-opted their attention via a push notification.

They follow the account back and get their feed filled with automated posts even though they’re under the impression it’s a curated account. They’re being subtly manipulated into looking at empty content, maybe even going to some of the restaurants, under the guise of genuine recommendations when it’s purely spam and noise.

Is this a travesty? Probably not. Am I being dramatic? Almost certainly. But it kind of sucks and can get out of control quickly. I know people who get thousands of push notifications each day, and who’s feeds are filled with doom scrolling-friendly garbage. It’s not healthy.

[lotsofpulp]

Maybe helps everyone individually in the short term. In the long term, loss of trust in basically everything increases friction for all aspects of interacting with others in society.