Years ago it was really interesting, could follow all my friends and see what they were up to. Now it’s ads, suggested content and sometimes, accidentally, I can see some uninteresting post from someone I barely know
That’s because it was in it’s money-losing “growth” phase. The Facebook we have today was always the point.
The whole “one individual talking to another” aspect of the internet of the 00s is gone. It feels more and more like an “everyone is talking to you and hearing you, like it or not”. Facebook is only an example of that - and even if it didn’t enshittify, I find unlikely that it would’ve kept that aspect.
I also wonder if my experiences with Orkut wouldn’t be similar to the ones of the author with FB, if only Google didn’t kill Orkut. (It was a big thing here.)
It’s not gone, it has gone underground, i like this model to describe the current internet
That’s a great analogy. And a fair point - it got burrowed, but it’s still there.
At least when we deal with individuals using the platform. The platform is still listening to you, and sharing it with advertisers; that’s the whole model behind Meta (WhatsApp) and Snapchat. They’re still hearing you, and want to talk with you (shhh, I’ve heard you bought [product]? Here are some offers for even more [product]!), regardless of what you want.
And that’s one of the many reasons why we want private communications, we want no creepy megacorp listening in
I dislike the whole concept of “social media” in the Facebook sense.
I think the ideal form of “social media”, which was also popular in 2004, was the web forum. I want that back, not something where I have to follow people, but something where I can meet and find people with common interests and discuss those interests with them.
There was an article recently talking about how forums are still around. Has a decent list too:
Now how about forum signatures?
boots up cracked Photoshop
Omg I miss making forum signatures!!! My fav part about it honestly
