[rconti]

My question is, what happens to social media when it stops being social? I _liked_ the fact that everyone I knew in college was on Facebook, and _disliked_ having to remember what silly username my friend was using on Twitter this week, or how I knew this Joe Blow person I followed at some point for some reason.

I _like_ seeing my friends' vacation photos and other friends commenting on them.

I _hate_ how reels and stories move from social to broadcast. Why can't my friend group comment on an IG story and have a discussion? Why does it have to be in DMs? (Unless we do that stupid thing where you share out a scene from a story (ugh, yes, I realize how old it makes me that i don't even know what to call it) and tag everyone involved)

The less a platform has the _kinds of content_ that drives the network effect, the less reason for there to be a network at all. It just becomes TV. And I use that comparison purposefully; television is extremely popular, I watch plenty of it myself. But without the active network effects of social media, what drives user-to-user engagement? How do you get new people to sign up, beyond "hey, look at this tiktok I saw"? Or is that enough?