I remember moving to FB when my mom joined MySpace... I've since straight up quit social media, but I know folks that moved on to IG/Snap so they could broadcast content they didn't want certain social groups to see via FB. Of course now those social groups are joining the newer mediums.
Maybe social media platforms are inherently cyclical? At least under the "maximum growth" mindset:
* Innovators develop new platforms because they're unhappy with the old
* Early adopters like the new platform's features or community
* If it's good enough, the early majority slowly follows as knowledge disseminates
* New features and narratives are developed to attract the late majority and laggards
* The presence of those people, and tactics used to attract them, disenfranchise the early adopters
* Unhappiness rises until a new digital eden is discovered. Then the cycle repeats
Gave up on /. around the time cmdrtaco got married. Gave up on digg sometime before the downfall. Have stuck with HN (was fairly early here). Reddit on and off.
That makes me feel even more weird about going Slashdot, HN, sometimes-Reddit-but-mostly-HN.
but I'm a bit weird with account creation. A service generally has to really prove its worth before I bother to create an account. I spent a couple years on HN before before bothering with an account and commenting, and it took way longer after that until I finally found some Reddit communities that made me want to create an account (and even now, I comment sparingly), even though I looked at it occassionally.
My social media experience started with the program I wrote myself, in 1975 for a 300-user timeshare system. That's the last time I was even close to the forefront. Didn't pay any attention to Myspace until it was obvious there was no need to. I've completely avoided Facebook because I've never trusted them.
I've never heard of Digg, but I still read Slashdot (though it has certainly gone downhill since the 90s), Reddit (at least certain subreddits like r/boardgames), and HN daily.
This will date me but at one time Digg had a section that ranked how influential of a user you were on their platform. There was a superstar who used the alias "MrBabyMan" that ruled the roost.
I was in the top 100 users back in those days. I loved their platform. It's a shame what they did with it. It is my opinion that Reddit has gotten away with a terrible UI compared to what Digg once had.
The strange thing is, I've been using the WWW since 1995 (and the Internet since the late 80s). I don't know how I missed Digg, but it's not because I'm a newbie ;-)
I skipped Digg; it seemed always seemed irrelevant to me (EDIT: that's just my personal perception -obviously I was wrong).
My personal journey was:
BBS -> Usenet -> Slashdot -> phpbb/vb forums -> Ars -> Reddit -> HN
I haven't had any problems with Reddit as far as technical information goes, but I mostly go there for non-tech subs (eg AskHistorians).
I absolutely get what you mean about it being nasty though -it took me years and years to break down and finally make an account because of the nastiness.
You need to skip the main/popular parts of Reddit and choose your subreddits carefully. I personally spend a lot of time in r/boardgames which is an amazing community.
I prefer proggit to HN these days. This place is mostly political commentary. The rules around engagement - while outwardly all about having a good conversation - just make this whole place feel passive aggressive and limp-wristed.
A lot of the trolls and flaming on proggit is funny. HN feels too much like that episode of South Park where Kyle moves to San Francisco and everyone is huffing their own farts.
True. On HN i mostly don't even bother to write my own opinion if it's not in line with the mainstream. It will just get downvoted to death instead of sparking a discussion...
Agree. Apparently it's ok to downvote people you disagree with, rather than crap arguments. I've mostly lost interest. Too bad too, it was really great for a while.
This is basically what a heavily curated set of reddit subscriptions are. I know others do the same with Twitter except I find that doesn't work for me because you're following people rather than on-topic communities and nobody sticks to the topics you're following them for in the first place. Personally, I kept getting stuck with a feed full of useless virtue signaling with some of what I wanted to see peppered in every now and then.
Personally I think that's why a site like reddit has more staying power than a site like Twitter. Twitter has too much of your identity invested in it while reddit has a place for nearly everyone.
I agree with the Twitter comment but can't stand Reddit. It's a site that promotes trolls and actively punishes people for being civil. Add to that completely tone deaf policies from the owners and I just cannot support that site. The mods there are also terrible cretins that rule over their fiefdoms with whatever bias they feel wont to.
Most people whom have expressed this sentiment to me have generally not been exposed to much more than the defaults.
Reddit with defaults or r/all is a horrible experience. It is what you make of it though, and if you don't make anything of it then it is obviously not for you. The advice I always give to someone trying reddit is to 1. make an account 2. unsubscribe from all of the defaults and 3. search it for whatever interests you. Pretty much everyone can find something for them, and moderation is going to be variable which I think is actually a net positive. A well moderated sub is a gem, such as AskHistorians, but not every sub needs to be moderated to the same extent as AskHistorians to remain useful or relevant either.
I'm not saying that I've never had a positive experience on Reddit. I'm saying that I violently disagree with how they've handled themselves and their trolling. It's saying Well Fargo Bank has some amazing tellers if you can look past their horrendous policies meant to fleece people who bank there. FWIW HN is literally the only social networking site I still find valuable so I completely respect that your experience and value derived from Reddit may be different than mine.
Yep, that's why I am promoting custom filters. There are so many folks on Twitter who post awesome content but I have to unsubscribe so I don't get inundated with their politics.
Anything hobby specific generally has decent enough modding but the value of those depends on the quality of the community specific to the hobby, so for example I subscribe to a few Nintendo-related and Game-related subs. AskHistorians is generally always good. Changemyview is generally enjoyable but each thread can be hit or miss depending on the OP. I like listentothis for finding music, OldMaps, MapPorn and InfrastructurePorn are nice to look at. Neutralnews was pretty decent when I last looked at it but I don't use reddit for news anymore, and DepthHub is one of the few general purpose subs that generally always has something interesting.
As a rule, the more general purpose the sub is, the lower the quality of the community, especially if it has lax moderation. I'm not someone that is into gifs or "memes" so you'll have to ask someone else about those. I don't use reddit or any one site for news because I don't need that in my life, I have other channels for anything that actually matters. Programming subs are usually pretty good resources for whatever tool, language or technology they're promoting that you use or are interested in, but I steer clear from the pointless debates.
I would say search a few of your hobbies, whatever they are, there's probably a decent model train collecting sub but I wouldn't know, and if you want to use it professionally, search it for whatever tools you use. There's self-development subs like getdisciplined and most subs have others you can look for in the sidebar if you really want to dig down the rabbit hole, but go in prepared to unsubscribe from all of the defaults and build up your own personal collection of subscriptions from there.
> Maybe social media platforms are inherently cyclical?
I think so, because a huge part of social interaction is either being a trend-setter or following trends. Either one of those requires constant change.
Looking at my Facebook feed it’s mostly companies, “personalities”, a few groups and a handful of people over 50. Everyone else is using Facebook mainly for messenger and event planning. Everything else that Facebook were used for (pictures, status updates) is being handled by Instagram and Snapchat.
Maybe social media platforms are inherently cyclical? At least under the "maximum growth" mindset:
* Innovators develop new platforms because they're unhappy with the old
* Early adopters like the new platform's features or community
* If it's good enough, the early majority slowly follows as knowledge disseminates
* New features and narratives are developed to attract the late majority and laggards
* The presence of those people, and tactics used to attract them, disenfranchise the early adopters
* Unhappiness rises until a new digital eden is discovered. Then the cycle repeats