First all the bs with Twitter and Elon, then Reddit having an exodus to Lemmy (not complaining lol), then Twitch. Are we like, in an alternate self healing dimension or something?
The timeline split after harambe. This is known
It is known.
I wonder what our alternate timeline selves are doing. Good for them, right?
In Timeline-α the Visitors didn’t turn away in disgust and Contact was approved. The Uplift process is well underway, environmental conditions have been stabilized and restoration is progressing well. Space travel is still restricted to the Solar System but Humanity is on track to full Membership. Ambassador Harambe has resumed his duties on the Council.
I have a sinking feeling that these moves are not about money, but more about power and manipulation. If you squeeze these user bases such that the savviest users are forced out, those more likely to ask “Why?” about damn near anything, you will own access to a group of people that can be influenced to think/do/buy whatever the top management and/or majority shareholders want. If you lose a few million users, what does it matter if they were dissidents to your goals?
This is where my mind goes. Kinda convenient that Twitter and Reddit, both likely particularly dangerous to those seeking power happen to be destroyed seemingly intentionally in the same year ahead of a sure to be insane U.S. election season.
100% power There’s parallels to the writer strikes Netflix ceo got like 2x the money that all the writers are asking for in bonus so it’s not about money It’s something else
From everything I have observed, businesses are hunkering down for a recession in the next fiscal year. It explains the lay offs, the penny pinching, and puzzling decisions that look like business suicide.
For services that are free for users, advertising revenue and investment fund raisers are the only thing keeping them afloat. With banks like SVB getting seized by the FDIC, it’s starting to scare investors. Advertisers are seeing the writing on the wall that people will stop spending as much as they used to. We are also probably seeing jacked up pricing across the board because businesses are taking what they can before it’s gone.
So what’s left? Squeeze users for money. Additionally, shed users that actually cost them money and these tend to be power users. The question, which everyone seems to be assuming is a foregone conclusion, is if this shedding strategy will end up killing the service. In reality, we don’t know but the idealists would sure feel good if someone else ate their market share.
I’m just glad that federation is picking up steam in the social media space.
So why do layoffs at all if they don’t actually work? “People do all kinds of stupid things all the time,” Pfeffer says. “I don’t know why you’d expect managers to be any different.” https://www.theverge.com/2023/1/26/23571659/tech-layoffs-facebook-google-amazon
That’s a very enlightening article!
I agree with most of what you said. I would say classifying SVB as a seizure is probably not accurate. The FDIC only came in when it was clear SVB was going to fold and in fact insured far more than the 250k per account guaranteed. Mainly to try and stem a run on midsize banks because
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Many companies had large holdings, undiversified in these banks
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The banks were borderline negligent with how they handled those deposits, sticking them all in “safe” government bonds that ruins liquidity.
Once the interest rate on the bonds was lower than the base borrowing rate, no one would buy the bonds instead of just buying new bonds with a much higher guaranteed return.
So, given that, I would say the FDIC instead bailed out the banks. Something they would never do for you or I, or even a business with similar valuation as any of the banks customers.
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The twitter thing is sad, but honestly not a huge deal. I rarely used it anyhow.
The reddit thing is depressing, since I’ve been a huge supporter and user of Apollo for many years. It feels like getting stepped on and I feel for the developer Christian Selig who devoted so much time and energy to the app.
I hope nothing happens to Twitch in the way that Twitter and Reddit have though, the small time streamers I follow and support won’t survive a thing like that.
I think it’s an important lesson in impermanence.
The net will always have good bits and bad bits, but they won’t always stay the same.
I hate it when things change, but you’re totally right.
Same, but ReddPlanet. I paid for Redd, but not Apollo because you can’t convince me to pay for something if I don’t have a chance to see if the features are worth it.
ReddPlanet, slide, Relay were all amazing.
I recently saw my wife use the official Reddit app. I… can’t take that kind of user experience.
What about switching back to YouTube from twitch? Some streamers I follow stream on both.
The reality is that nothing is really dying and nothing is really changing. Twitter is still fully operational and other than a small hit nothing happened. Twitch already did a step back. For Reddit we’ll see but only a really small percentage of reddit is using third party apps.
It’s not the services that are dying, but the internet as we used to know.
Change is natural, but the services are all changing in a way not beneficial forthe users.
I think the “the internet is dying” perspectives are all incredibly overblown. They aren’t going anywhere anytime soon. I remember all of the “Facebook is dead, I don’t know anyone using Facebook!” posts, but I suspect many here are invested in some index fund that is being pulled upwards by Meta.
This is the natural cycle. Big sites get greedy and kill off the user base for a payout and we go to the next one. The fact reddit kept alive for so long is surprising but it take a lot for people to bother moving.
Also pretty much everyone 25-45 in my local area is still very much using Facebook.
In my area (metro big city), the only way to get anything accomplished from an advocacy/fundraising aspect is through facebook. There’s just no alternative unless literally everyone shifts to an alternative that hasn’t been created yet.
Facebook is big in paintball circles. As much as I hate to say it their format works exceedingly well for organizing and buying/selling. As long as we censor appropriately it’s arguably the best format we’ve had thus far and I’m not sure anyone would be willing to part with it for a new platform.
Meta is trying to diversify away from Facebook though… Hence the name change.
The hit Twitter suffered might be bigger than you think: Yahoo Finance (from Bloomberg) link
Talking about use, not how much the company is worth. It was overinflated anyway like many of s&p500
I don’t think it’s fair to say nothing is changing, but “dying” admittedly seems like hyperbole.
Organizations can die slowly or not at all but still be gravely damaged. They are almost certainly making these moves to capture the least critical (most profitable) portions of their userbases and hunker down for survival. Even if the change is extremely painful, they’re (likely) planning for the specific goal of avoiding total death.
twitter was overvalued. reddit has made a lot of questionable business decisions over the last decade or so but their recent API change will be their death knell. it feel like a cash grab. I personally only use Twitch to watch Bob Ross reruns :P
There’s Bob Ross reruns on twitch?
https://www.twitch.tv/bobross ;)
great to watch & fall asleep to
I think this is “normal” and the previous status was a glitch due to the low interest rates. Investors threw money at tech companies and didn’t care whether they made any money. Not any more. It’s now “make money or go bust”. I am not sayiny these new trends will make them money, but IMHO it’s what’s driving them
That is a great point. I never considered this to be an effect of interest rates increasing. But I think Reddit was already profitable.
But it recently went public and I think the board is like, “Make more money now!”
They really just want to get everyone on the Reddit app so they can collect user data to sell and to show advertisements.
Reddit hasn’t gone public yet (it’s planned for this year) and very likely isn’t profitable — we don’t know for sure because it hasn’t published its financials.
Was there some sort article or post, I only heard people say they will.
Thanks for the heads up. I thought that it already happened.
It’s the thing with capitalism, init. Moar!!
I dunno. A lot of the investors were (are) on waverides from previous success. There are absolutely loan-backed ones, but as one startup investor said to me “I look for 200-300% return in 5 years to not call something a failure.” With expectations like that, you hold to record profits even if 2/3 the companies you invest in fail.
Nah. They always wanted money.
People aren’t reacting to this sudden interference with content aggregation with as much outrage and fear as they should.
The thing that Twitter, reddit, and so many other sites that have recently been bought up and swallowed, do so well is aggregate information for us. It provides us a pool of information, with which we as a collective society can sift through and analyze together through the lens of our experience, our professionalism, and our intelligence.
Before these types of sites, we were segregated and isolated. As much as I miss forums, for the most part they became bubbles that hyperfocused on singular categories. This kept us in our place. This kept us from venturing out and sampling things that were different and other. When sites like Fark took off, we suddenly had insight into things we may never have had interest in or knowledge of before.
Corporations and governments are trying to dismantle aggregation because it keeps us informed and it keeps us involved. It informs us of the other, and allows us to co-mingle in an environment where we might be exposed to new ideas and new ways of doing things that were otherwise not available.
We shouldn’t just be lamenting the downfall of reddit due to our lack of entertainment. We should be very, very afraid of the day when the only way you can find ‘other’ information is by using very specific search terms.
People in power have been working very hard for a very long time to take us back to a time before the Internet, and a time before aggregation. What I sincerely hope comes out of this is the realization that we are all stronger together with our complex variety of ideas and perspectives, and our ability to question things and provide information to each other.
In case anyone has forgotten, Twitter is a lifeline to many corners of the world most of us will never touch and have no way of accessing otherwise. Twitter was the tool for dozens of uprisings and protests around the world. Twitter was the catalyst for so many young people to connect and realize that the situation they were in could be changed. And that’s been taken away. It’s been made a joke, and people are leaving in droves. People whose experience and support could help the next protest. That’s exactly what they want.
But what do I know, I’m just a rando on the internet, who may be able to tell you the answer to your very niche question, who may say just the right thing when you’re needing support, or who may pass on your story to someone else who knows a journalist, which may lead to your voice or your injustice being heard.
They’re trying to isolate you. Don’t let them.
This action that we all have taken, by using this platform instead. Is it the “correct approach”? Lemmy being open source and de-centralized system. The apps and server software being organically developed in public by those knowledgeable/ skilled in the community.
I would favor this place, where dev team can receive donations for their work. Have an clear plan for the year with objectives on their github page or website. So that the overall thing contentious to operate/ function. Even OK to have informative & valuable ads but not being disruptive on the sides.
Doctorow’s Enshittification describes it pretty much dead-on. It’s basically the cancerous form of late-stage capitalism that we’re living under now.
Wow that’s a great read!
Definitely accurate to the situation lol
Spot on! We are seeing it happen before our eyes and I love it!
Thank you for this! I never really thought about late stage capitalism but this post helped a lot.
I suspect that we’re at end-stage capitalism, essentially every company feels they should be constantly making record profits and they think of predicted profits as granted, when they didn’t reach predicted profits it was seen as losing money which in the CEO’s eyes meant they needed to increase their income to make up for losses and the only way for companies that rely on user generated content for revenue was increased advertising which is the route youtube is currently going for the rest they had no way they could see to increase their income till elon decided to crash twitter with introducing the payed blue checkmark. What we saw when elon did that was a failing company but what twitch and reddit saw was an opportunity to not be blamed for following musks example, funnily enough though they fucked up on the attempt and everyone saw them as money grabbing
This is it. When there are millions of people using a platform every day, the advertisers start foaming at the mouth. Corporate greed (capitalism?) Is a poison and will eventually destroy anything it touches.
Its really funny though cause as dwarf fortress proved when they released their game on steam its more profitable to not run a company solely for profits, as when you get down to the details profits get in the way of things people enjoy.
We’ve reached the end of the VC-funded golden age where they are all now demanding a return on their investment, hence why the screws are now all getting tightened.
I’m honestly surprised it even got this far. It was just common sense to me, even a decade ago, that companies that burned through VC cash and tried building up user bases with little regard for actual profitability couldn’t possibly keep it up forever.
It also coincides nicely with web3 becoming a less nebulous thing and investors starting to shift their focus from user created content to practical applications of ai.
is reddit a zirp phenomenon?
Well, while it is surprising it’s all happening within a year or so, it’s not unexpected at all.
They’re ultimately for-profit companies. They have openly demonstrated the obvious truth that when push comes to shove, users don’t matter to them, at least not as much as money. Our attention was the product.
These companies have proven time and time again that a quick moneygrab will win over retaining the people who make the site work. capitalism 101 baby.
Yep, think of the math like this:
1000 users that we can get $1 of profit from totalling $1000 profit
Or 500 users we can get $3 of profit from totalling $1500 profit.
$1500 > $1000 Therefore it’s a good decision.
Welcome to the mind of corporate executives
Source: I work with these dumbasses
F
Sustained or not ultimately it’s a big circlejerk of all the rich people trading money amongst each other that they siphon off of us 🤷🏻♂️
please can youtube be next?
I really want to stop using my google account and that’s the only thing keeping me from moving away from it.
Check out Odysee
The issue with replacement for YouTube is that it needs to be both sustainable AND pay the professional content creator. This is not an easy task and the main reason why alternatives are usually running behind a subscription service.
The issue with replacement for YouTube is that it needs to be both sustainable AND pay the professional content creator. This is not an easy task and the main reason why alternatives are usually running behind a subscription service.
Have you tried https://yewtu.be/donate yet?
the problem is that google takeout does not let me export my subs for some reason so I haven’t really used it. (it says no data found)
also google sent them a legal notice
Big sites have made surfing the web so boring. I will end up spending the day on 2-3 sites. All this shake up will hopefully force me to look at more websites again.
Agreed. I really miss stuff like StumbleUpon and Google Reader which were my mainstays before Reddit.
It’s up to us to make the web/Internet not boring again. There are many ways to do so:
- Participating in the Fediverse
- Building your own web page and adding it to a webring
- Using alternative protocols, namely gopher, gemini, IRC, NNTP
- Using alternative search engines (wiby, marginalia, etc)
- Bulletin board systems
I just got into gemini! Sorta, just have a gemlog on gemlog.blue. I have to remember the early internet days where you just had to go from link to link to find interesting pages and check them again at my own will, but it is a nice little break from the everything that is the modern internet.
You are right actually. I just find myself reloading reddit and the guardian. But the reason for that is that it’s hard to find good sites that have constantly updating and changing content. I will try my luck on the fediverse but I’m bummed about it. I hope I find some good stuff here.
The big sites got big by being there when a previous big site died. But nothing lasts forever, and eventually a social site becomes desperately uncool because there are people old enough to have grandkids on it. And they totter on, like a zombie, until they fuck out badly, and most people leave. But not everyone, I still get linked to blog entries on Livejournal now and then, sometimes I even end up on Blogger when I’m following a trail and people are still updating some of those.
It’s probably just confirmation bias, but I also like platforms small, before all the rabidly negative 500k+ sized communities show up. When stuff gets too large, sites become impersonal. Regulars drowned out by a megaphone of spam, rage content, mass downvotes, “have you ever touched a boob? I’m not horny I just really wanna know” type questions, and which X is best X type threads.
Reddit was getting far, far too large for its own good in regards to some default and even non default subs. Some went from meaningful conversations to just images drowning out all text threads. felt like shouting into the void after that.
I am feeling the same, reddit became too large for me, and while I think they could at least try to make it good place for smaller communities (like recommending small subreddits, allowing for beter moderation…) they focused just on growth.
I am not certain advertisers will be happy with just teenagers (who don’t spend much money) over there.
Same as YouTube, I get it that big channels make money, but I don’t like all polishing and teams of professionals “creating content” for me. I want to listesten to my peers, sharing their thoughts and hobbies, maybe promoting themselves amd their business… but current situation is unusable. I never see recommend video without milions of views, I don’t even know how to find those small channels - if they even exist anymore.
I’m with you on that last paragraph. I’ve dropped all my streaming apps for YouTube and Twitch at this point. I just genuinely like the feel of smaller YouTubers. I follow some that have millions of subscribers, but the ones I enjoy the most are small time creators. One of my favorites has a few thousand subscribers right now, and I get excited every time they upload a new video.
WhAt TuRRNs yoU oN WxMen Of REDDiT??? 45k upvotes on r/askreddit every day…
Forearms. It’s always forearms.
September came for Reddit long, long ago. Personally I stay way the hell off of any popular subreddit because they’re just a total wasteland. And September comes for the small subreddits now and then, too - they’ll grow too big, the active mods get overwhelmed, and it starts to turn into 4chan. And I unsubscribe. If I’m lucky I hear about the mods starting up a new offshoot subreddit that’s trying to be small, relatively quiet, and aggressively unpopular.
I agree with absolutely everything you said. Always been a fan of much smaller and tighter communities.
Hey, I’m still on LiveJournal!
Okay, mostly DreamWidth with an echo to my LJ. And all of my friends are gone. But it’s still a damned good service. Frankly, I suggested it as an alternative to Reddit if Lemmy fell through.
The last straw for LJ for me was when they made any mention of queerness illegal so as to conform to the laws of their new home country. I logged out and never logged in again. I still get badly-translated email about anniversary gifts for my various 13-year-old accounts now and then.
I have a DW account but it lies fallow, mostly because I could never get the auto-crossposter plugin to work on my Wordpress site.
@EgyptUrnash @BobQuasit oh I miss the old lj every day