I use Discord all the time and barely notice any of these other social media networks. Is this what those networks were originally like, where you have control over exactly what you see?
To your list at the end you could add a list of companies so long, in industries so varied, that there would be no other conclusion except that capitalism and the structure of corporate power is the problem.
This tech-fueled removal of agency parallels perfectly the corporate removal of agency in local communities through local takeovers like Walmart shutting down local businesses and corporate lobbying against which no individuals can feel empowered.
>Seriously, Facebook can literally perform unethical psychological experiments on hundreds of thousands of people, and there’s nothing you — or anyone else — can do about it.
My personal disenchantment moment with YouTube was when I set up a new account in 2018ish, and looked up an album with an orange cover. I then was recommended 6 videos with orange covers.
The hedonic treadmill continues apace. Perhaps the gears will jam for a couple years someday.
Also, you are writing about the same exact thing I wrote this Substack about, namely, that Silicon Valley operates like Big Oil except with overt psychosis since everything's made up and the points don't matter.
I logged in to facebook again to see if your claim about the lack of posts from people you know was true. It wasn't. Not that it was anything for Meta to boast about as roughly one in three items were "sponsored" or "people you may know" or similar. But the first one was from someone I knew and the third was a group I'm a member of and so on
Mind you I think this is the first time I've logged in for a good month and I have done nothing on this log in other than see if you are correct and then check a group that used to be busy but which has now mostly migrated to discord. At least I don't get any more notifications for posts being banned retrospectively which was a thing a year or two ago when FB got all worked up about the covidiocy
Now discord is making ominous mutterings about enshittifying itself in the run up to an IPO but so far the discord servers I'm in are unaffected with everything in chronological order as God intended
my latest example of this is how all the podcast creators are starting to make videos to go with their podcast because the big podcast distributors like like Spotify punish them if they don’t, even though all these creators would rather just stay pure audio because they think it yields better shows because guests feel more comfortable
I use Discord all the time and barely notice any of these other social media networks. Is this what those networks were originally like, where you have control over exactly what you see?
Facebook before 2012, and Twitter before 2016, absolutely.
The more discrete changes I mentioned in this piece, however, are relatively new. Those pertaining to things like notifications and search results.
To your list at the end you could add a list of companies so long, in industries so varied, that there would be no other conclusion except that capitalism and the structure of corporate power is the problem.
This tech-fueled removal of agency parallels perfectly the corporate removal of agency in local communities through local takeovers like Walmart shutting down local businesses and corporate lobbying against which no individuals can feel empowered.
This is really, really good writing.
Thank you so, so much.
>Seriously, Facebook can literally perform unethical psychological experiments on hundreds of thousands of people, and there’s nothing you — or anyone else — can do about it.
Of course there is. You can stop using it.
My personal disenchantment moment with YouTube was when I set up a new account in 2018ish, and looked up an album with an orange cover. I then was recommended 6 videos with orange covers.
The hedonic treadmill continues apace. Perhaps the gears will jam for a couple years someday.
Also, you are writing about the same exact thing I wrote this Substack about, namely, that Silicon Valley operates like Big Oil except with overt psychosis since everything's made up and the points don't matter.
I logged in to facebook again to see if your claim about the lack of posts from people you know was true. It wasn't. Not that it was anything for Meta to boast about as roughly one in three items were "sponsored" or "people you may know" or similar. But the first one was from someone I knew and the third was a group I'm a member of and so on
Mind you I think this is the first time I've logged in for a good month and I have done nothing on this log in other than see if you are correct and then check a group that used to be busy but which has now mostly migrated to discord. At least I don't get any more notifications for posts being banned retrospectively which was a thing a year or two ago when FB got all worked up about the covidiocy
Now discord is making ominous mutterings about enshittifying itself in the run up to an IPO but so far the discord servers I'm in are unaffected with everything in chronological order as God intended
also waiting for how Substack enshittifies
my latest example of this is how all the podcast creators are starting to make videos to go with their podcast because the big podcast distributors like like Spotify punish them if they don’t, even though all these creators would rather just stay pure audio because they think it yields better shows because guests feel more comfortable
I actually have a few ideas along those lines! Stick around. I think you’ll like what you see.