[catapart]

The more I see of social media, the more I'm convinced that it's not really a fulfilling way to share and socialize on the internet. I've come to believe that anything that can platform every voice on the planet forces noise to drown out signal.

Since you've actually started a social media site, I wonder if you have any insight on that? You say you believe in this project; what is it that you think is valuable about letting everyone talk to everyone, as opposed to exclusive and curated spaces for people that semi-self-select based on community interests and values, like forums? Separately, why do you think that removing organizations/brands and psuedo users is going to be the crux of the solution?

Honestly looking to have my mind changed. But mostly just curious.

[ajsnigrutin]

> The more I see of social media, the more I'm convinced that it's not really a fulfilling way to share and socialize on the internet.

I kinda miss the "old" social media, where it was media and also social... you would open whatever (facebook, myspace, instagram...) and you'd see your friends, plates of what they're eating, some attention seeking statuses, wedding photos, invites to birthdays, etc.

I have no idea if people stopped posting all that or if algorithm hid all that content behind random content it wanted to push instead, so you get zero of that but a lot of random news stories, "reels" and random videos from influences you don't follow and are not interested in, and basically a lot of not-social stuff. I know there's more money for the social network if they show me artificially protracted diy wideos and "you won't believe..." crap, but that made me leave one "social" network after another.

[altmanaltman]

I think the whole influencer trend ruined it. You literally gave people an incentive to be as loud as possible so they can make as much money as possible. Where is the incentive to connect?

Also, Social media sold us the idea that hey you can stay in touch with everyone! But in reality, what is gave people was a new form of communication in broadcasting. In real life, you always directly interact with people or groups of people but the primary way you communicate in social media is basicslly shout into the void via status updates, stories, images etc. Its became about who you are, not a way to connect to people.

I really never bought or still buy the idea that you need social media to stay connected to your friends. I haven't used it in a decade and i still have friends who i interact with via messaging apps etc. I have never missed social media and realize most things people post have 0 relevance to my life so why am i spending my precious time going through this shit and making zuck and silly influencers money for free?

[ajsnigrutin]

Sure, i might want to follow an influencer or two and look at their videos, but I want my "feed" to be "social", so people i choose to follow, be it real life friends, or even influencers, but not "random" content from sources I don't follow.

I have a lot of friends who have moved abroad, changed jobs, had kids, etc., and social networks gave me all that info, plus I could contact them in a "lighter" way than taking the phone and calling them, plus you could make groups of people (classmates, coworkers from previous job, etc.). There were also a lot of "we're at <local bar>, if anyone wants to join us" posts back in the time, and since i lived 5 minutes away, I joined or even posted that status if I was one of the first people there, and other came... now it's hours of coordination just to meet for a beer.

Basically, it was easier to reach people who are "not that close" to you that you would directly call them, and you find out stuff (who moved where, who has a kid now, etc.). Now I don't know any of that, but I get served a fake video of someone inserting a battery into the antenna connector of a tv.

[altmanaltman]

From my personal point of view (because this is subjective of course) but like there was never any point of caring about any of those people to me. It just wasn't a good enough use of my time and the algorithims are literally desinged to make me addicted and suck away my attention. I couldn't care less if Ben who i met at work 10 years ago and havent spoken to in over 7 is having a kid or moved to Spain or whatever. I made a consious choice to step away from that and really care what I was doing with my attention which again imo has lead to better results and not a lot of social degradation (i dont think my irl social life would be different if i was on social media)

[zoom6628]

100% agree with this. The whole "influencer" industry (let's be honest it's about manipulating you) is peak enshitification.

I quit twitter cos it became a cesspool. IG needs aggressive curation and keeping notifications off. Even bluesky became rage bait. And only watch a few channels of YouTube thru FreeTube.

Maybe I just old grumpy geek but after nearly 2 decades of social media I've yet to find the "social" part. It is in the main a bucket into which anyone can vomit their media and hysteria du jour.

It was a good experiment but it's done.

Pieces has promise if they can come up with a curation process that matches the ideals of their platform. I truly hope it works out because part of me wants there to be a place online for people to share publicly without fear of doxing or advertising.

[domo__knows]

Hey, sorry for getting back to you late. Was watching a bunch of World Cup games.

I'll say this: when you log into one of the incumbent social networks like IG/X/SnapChat/Facebook and you see a post that you don't care at all to see, why are you seeing that? It's because they want you to see it. They think that this post with this content and these reactions has the highest chance of making you engage with it and see more ads. The best example of this is navigating reddit.com vs old.reddit.com. The fancier reddit.com always recommends me stuff that I don't really care about but end up clicking through on because I am weak and they know I am weak. old.reddit.com is closer to the old internet that I enjoy: I check in on topics/subreddits I'm interested in and then when nothing is new or interesting, I do other things.

Arguably, building a platform that's less addictive is foolish and leaving money on the table. But as someone who had to quit IG for 2 years (though I'm back on it now) I really don't want to sell people a digital drug addiction. I see YouTube videos which are basically just rage bait and I'm like, why would I want to support a world where acting in bad faith is the hallmark of a lucrative career?

To answer your question more directly, the internet has given me a lot. One of the reasons I'm so into soccer/football is because following the /r/soccer subreddit taught me about the sport and after browsing on/off for a couple of years I can tell you all the big storylines. I never in a million years would've been a football fan if it weren't for the subreddit. I've picked up hobbies like shuffling to house music by following various shufflers on IG. I keep in touch with friends from middle school who, if I grew up in earlier decades, I would've lost contact with a long, long time ago. All because of social media.

The internet can be a great place when the platforms themselves allow us to control our attention. I'm optimistic about PIECES and the other platforms we're building. I want people to feel connected to other people. Is there anything more important than that?

[tsumnia]

> I see YouTube videos which are basically just rage bait and I'm like, why would I want to support a world where acting in bad faith is the hallmark of a lucrative career

Just a tip that helped me here: I'd recommend going through a pretty significant Unsubscribe purge with those channels. I think its something that I ended up doing due to the pandemic, but I realized I was following too many "daily update" channels that just flooded my attention while the clickbait. I started by removing some of the more egregious channels and then when I'd pop into some of the more well known channels with longer "weekly updates", I realized they also would also do the same thing.

I'm still aware of news, but I'm no longer glued to the hour by hour coverage and remember to actually do and watch the things I see. I'm going to be sleeving some Magic cards later today.

Oh yeah. I'm wild baby.

[domo__knows]

lol yeah. I used YouTube as an example based on what I see people responding to. My actual YouTube feed is pretty good since I use the Unhook chrome extension and almost exclusively watch YouTube on my TV.

[pelagicAustral]

I think forums were, and are still largely the solution to the social issue, as you very well describe them... That's why there are still a few out there that thrive in their niches.

The problem is that way back when, circa 2005, all these places were kind nerd, and at that point in time being a nerd was still not something to be proud of, so for most people "the internet" was MSN and Fotolog, and today's internet for most of this cohort is still just an evolution of that stuff (Whatsapp and Facebook), and the newer generation didnt even get to know what the forum-scene was...

So anything people produce today, is either a replacement for nerd forums, which does not need replacement, or the social media that as crappy as it is, just works... The only new social media that is thriving is copies of other platforms that have become too much of an echo chamber to bare, so now we need another echo chamber but one for the other 50%.

I think that's why we see so many riffs on social media, people trying to make a breakthrough on things like, decentralized, more secure, less moderated, more moderated, crypto, paid, X-only, etc

And the reality is that nobody that is hooked, or cares about social media gives a shit about any of that, they want the feed, the masses want what they already have, and everybody else is just looking to be the next vBulletin watercooler reinvention.

[dofm]

Paradoxically, what social media is quite good at is forum discovery.

Facebook overall is a pox on humanity. Private Facebook groups, however, can be genuinely useful. I spend a lot of time in one topic-specific Facebook group (and as little time on wider Facebook as I can manage)