this post was submitted on 16 Jun 2023
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No Stupid Questions

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I mean there's Reddit ofc, as well as Twitter in its entirety, Discord is implementing some dumb updates, there are issues with Tumblr as well as everything to do with Meta, and I'm sure there are plenty more (and I haven't even touched other digital media, for example the Sims). Why is it all happening in the span of about a couple months?

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[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 months ago

Start making alternatives, open source alternatives.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (7 children)

Because capitalism, that's why.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

This is the correct answer. Even the most hardcore capitalists have to realize that endless year-over-year growth is impossible. The invisible hand will eventually correct the market -- we may be seeing the start of that now, and it's going to affect the biggest first.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

Even the most hardcore capitalists have to realize that endless year-over-year growth is impossible.

The fact that they continue this cycle of "extract every last drop of money and then move on to the next big thing" shows they really don't. They're more than happy to wreck everything as long as they have enough cocaine to hold them over.

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[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

The lie that eternal growth is possible has companies making really stupid moves to increase short term gains at the cost of long term stability.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (5 children)

Because most services we are using aren't sustainable. They all bleed money.

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[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

This is pretty typical for all big companies that take off there is a tipping point when it goes from agile and nimble start up to behemoth company that needs to pay dividends, only they have captured all the market share they can capture and may in fact losing people to other newer services. They're panicking and trying to make things look profitable before it all collapses like Yahoo and they can't sell it. Just my take on it all anyway.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

they are choosing money over people because machines can't say no

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

Are they, though? Twitter is going a really odd way around making money if that's their goal. To me, I see it as a mix of a few things: the post 2016/cambridge analytica wave of moderation and institutionalization of safety & responsibility, stagnation, meta's withdrawal from Facebook as a platform altogether, higher interest rates, and a rising wave of political reaction. Obviously Reddit doesn't necessarily hit on all of those, but it's not unaffected, either.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Silicon Valley Bank collapsing is putting pressure on tech companies to actually turn a profit, so they're turning to slimy tactics just to survive IPO

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[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

Hmmm if I had to put my conspiracy cap on it would have to do with the upcoming election. I haven't tested the waters enough to know how lemmy will react to me.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

Because a user base has yet to demonstrate that there will be significant consequences for such actions. Maybe there will be, but they will be less-tangible long-term consequences that can’t easily be attributed to these actions.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

It all happening in a span of months I think is sheer dumb luck from an entertainment point of view, but deep down the cause seems to me to be the expectation of continuous growth of profits on the part of a product free business model.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

I feel it's like a sellout on stock exchange: once the first company started to heavily monetize, the others felt like they needed to cash out now, before "stock values drop" i.e. the internet users find different models of social media that make the corporation owned ones obsolete. Thank you lemmy! :)

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Because you are the product, not the client. You are only catered to enough so that you may be coralled. You are basically cattle to these corporations.

As for why this is happening now:

  • The economy is in a downswing right now so we are going to see cost cutting and belt tightening.
  • Entrenched proprietary social media platforms are basically monopolies. You cannot choose to use an alternative because these are walled gardens and leaving means losing your ability to communicate with large groups of people. The larger and more entrenched these big firms get, coupled with lack of regulation means they can do whatever the fuck they want. You have no power and no choice (except for the Fediverse, a one-time pain to migrate to).
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[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Many tech companies were overvalued for a long time. Everyone was happy to invest and pump money into those companies because "those platforms are going to be the future and I want to be part of it when they are starting to make a ton of money". It didn't matter that many of those companies were not profitable because they always promised to make up for that in the future.

This classic idea is starting to break down a bit. Many Tech companies have become profitable in the meantime, but many of them also have various troubles like moderation.

So why are so many media companies making "shitty decisions"? Well, because from a business perspective, they aren't necessarily "shitty decisions", they are kinda smart decisions. Reddit makes money by gathering data and by showing ads. They cannot show ads on apps they don't control. So they have to handle a lot of traffic for which they get nothing back. That's why they are trying to push as many people to use their app as possible. They know that the hardcore oldschool community won't like that, but they are probably pretty sure that enough will switch to the app to make it worthwhile for them.

Meta is fighting to stay relevant as well. Facebook was the foundation of social media for a long time, but in the digital space, this can change very quickly, so they constantly have to try new things.

And if we look at games like the Sims, the game who really escalated the whole DLC thing, it's a similar story. From a consumer perspective, what they are doing is bad. From a business perspective, it's smart. And that's what it ultimately comes down to.

Companies' main goal isn't to satisfy their customers, it's making money. If fucking over customers makes them more money, they do it in a heartbeat.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

They've also made a lot of shitty decisions. Reddit decided to invest in NFTs when they had cheap money. That's been about as successful as a lead balloon. That also burned a bunch of user good will in the process. Meta went all in on VR and the Metaverse. They've admitted that's been a bust. This seems more like an A and B with A being cheap money evaporating and B being bad decisions.

I'm reluctant to call the latest Reddit thing enshittification, but it really seems like they're between steps 2 and 3.

On a slightly different note, does any think enshittification will be the word of the year?

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[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

only now? to me most social media platforms were shitty to begin with, or had become shitty long before.

I feel this is a matter of perspective. The average Joe whose concept of "social media" is Facebook probably has never noticed anything getting any worse. The mainstream users who just want to see funny pics and couldn't care less about 3rd party clients might actually be quicker to side with Reddit than with the protesters.

Twitter has never been attractive to me. Even back when its API was public (ancient history). Not only is their feed noisy and of poor quality, constantly swayed by "trending" stuff I don't care about, it also has always had you depend on a privative and closed source walled guarden. Things were much more open before twitter, when people used blogs to post their stuff instead.

Reddit might have been a bit more open once.. but it stopped being so long ago, this is not a change in behavior. Maybe this is an unpopular thing to say, but I'm actually glad this is happening. I think the API fiasco might be an overall good thing if it helps people get away from Reddit, and if so I hope Reddit does not backtrack.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I don't know honestly, greed probably. But it's such a shame. It seems like the internet as a whole is heading in a horrible direction, and not enough people care about it for there to be something done about it.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

But here we are dipping our toes in the fediverse, a bit early for the non tech savvy people but from my point of view we are currently proving that monolithic corps are no longer needed. They are convenient, but not alfa-omega.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

The climate is heading in a horrible direction, and not enough people care. Politics are heading in a horrible direction, and you know what? Not enough people care!

Sorry, the last 4 years has made me very cynical. And I'm in a particularly blue mood today.

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[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

A lot of these companies have never been profitable and have been running on VC money on speculation alone until they reach critical mass and can turn on the monetization streams.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

What were the bad decisions discord is making? Im out of the loop

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