I do think they will essentially die. They will morph into completely different websites, but I think they will be around for a long time, and I think their userbase won’t shrink even a bit.
Big websites are slowly adopting the facebook model: All the content is hidden and requires you login to view it. Creating an account requires some sort of personally identifying information like a phone number, photo of ID, mailing address, etc.
The old model simply turned out to be unprofitable. It was always done under the motto of “bring the people and the money will come” and so they made it as easy as possible to build up a large user base, but it turns out that motto is false on the internet, and investors have finally realized it. There is no point in having a massive user base if they don’t actually generate a profit for you. Anonymous internet users do not do this. They are indistinguishable from bots. If they don’t use adblock, they don’t click on ads. They don’t donate money. Yet they use up the majority of the server resources.
It used to be that you at least needed anonymous users to generate content for you, but (in part thanks to facebok) non-anonymous usage of the internet has become normalized. If anything the best content will come from someone who has their real name, and profile picture attached to the content they submit. The anonymous nobody is much less likely to post anything valuable.
I think the internet as we know it is dead, and tbh I don’t even blame big corporations for this. I blame mass tech illiteracy, and people’s willingness to sacrifice their privacy for some dopamine hits.
I agree with you for Reddit.
For Twitter, it will burn under Musk’s leadership
Are you sure about that? Spez seems like a huge fan of Musk.
The entire reason Twitter now called X is still around is because many news channels, politicians, well known people in entertainment, technology, science, etc. post their new content or notifications there, sadly they are not in Mastodon.
If large companies and influential people move to Mastodon then now it will make a lot of sense for people to go there and debate their opinions with the benefit of more privacy, less trackers and no ads.
I feel like these mainstream platform have provided us with the framework of what we want the internet to be. But they’re business with the goal of profit, and that’s ok. Just not ok for us because that’s not what we want/need. I’d like to believe that the fediverse is the future. A decentralised, true social media that actually match the name. The fediverse is the media for social interaction that are of the people, by the people and for the people of the internet.
I feel like these mainstream platform have provided us with the framework of what we want the internet to be. But they’re business with the goal of profit, and that’s ok. Just not ok for us because that’s not what we want/need.
Part of that is my issue with a lot of platforms; they try to be everything at once. I don’t want every social media platform to have featured articles, stories, a messaging function, and disappearing messages.
If Snapchat stayed the way it originally was I’d probably still be using it today.
The problem isn’t just profit, but maximizing short profit by any means necessary.
They are not content with providing a good product and making a bit of profit. They always have to press ultra hard to squeeze the last drop of profit out of the product. And they don’t care that it worsens the product and ultimately will kill it and its business end. But that’s more than two quarters away, so they don’t care.
Reddit is only the most dramatic example of this.
I think the fact that more information is becoming readily available on federated platforms due to more people moving over to Mastodon and Lemmy for example is definitely making the platform grow as well. With Twitt- sorry, “X” locking down threads to an account, the information on there, as well as other sites eventually, I guarantee, will become less accessible over time. The fediverse hardly has that issue of it’s information becoming less available, and if anything, the structure of hosted instances makes that near impossible for the time being to be phased out. If Threads, for example, went through with adding fediverse support, it probably would not be as widespread as others like Mastodon as such, because the sites that power ActivityPub were designed with users in mind instead of profit.
I fully agree with you, the internet must change, and it’s changing for the good with these non-profit decentralized networks like Lemmy.
These companies abused the internet too much and it’s hit a breaking point. People are taking the power back, I look forward to a user-owned internet again where the content I see is not entirely controlled by corporate interests.
All we can do is our best to create a positive user friendly place for them to migrate when they lose their favorite emoji or are unwilling to mine Bitcoin on their machine or don’t like the idea of having themselves cloned to moderate r/popping or whatever their breaking point is.
I mean, yeah. Even Yahoo is still around. Somehow.
I agree with some of your conclusions, but not others, and also not the overall concept. Yes, Reddit is not going to die or disappear. Twitter, I’m not sure how it will be thriving in the future, but it will likely still exist.
Essentially your main point is that the style of Facebook, mainly, a walled garden with profiling and targeted advertising, has beat more open commercial models. In terms of profitability, that is true. Companies based on that model, Google and Facebook, have been making a lot more money for years than companies less focused on user identity and advertising, like Reddit and Twitter. As far as whether there is profit in anonymity, I definitely don’t agree that non-profiled users are “indistinguishable from bots”, but yes, companies can make a lot more by abusing user privacy. Some people are growing tired of this, but not enough or for long enough. I also don’t agree that anonymous people are ‘nobodies’ who don’t post anything useful. Some of the most popular members of reddit either have no public identity, or it’s superfluous. Did I ever need to see a photo of gallowboob? No. Do I know who PoppinKREME is? No, and I don’t need to, other than their content. Anonymous content does make money for social media sites because even if those people had their ‘real names’ and profile pics, it would make no difference at all. Consumers? Sure, but only because ad profiling and selling data of real identities is more profitable. This is not even close to new as Facebook has been doing that to the tune of billions for over a decade.
Facebook as a product is not really thriving, and the only way Zuckerberg has found to grow his company is to buy and imitate other companies - bought IG, Whatsapp, copied Snapchat, now copied Twitter. I’d call that the Microsoft Model. Microsoft still exists and does quite well, but not to the same extent they did 20 years ago. Time will run out for Zucka when someone makes a new hit product that he can’t purchase or copy. We don’t know yet what that will be. Another interesting issue is Reddit, Twitter and Facebook have tried to move to charging money monthly vs only advertising.
The internet as we know it is not dead because my internet was not Twitter. I mean, you’re posting this on Lemmy. The internet does not have to be about making investors and CEOs billions of dollars.
Agreed. I’ll add though, I’m weary of the “internet is dead” rhetoric.
There’s a lot more spammy content on the Web now, but all the actual people are still around and still producing content. The only thing that’s really changed is where the actual people can be found.
I see a lot of opinions, no sources or justifications or even credentials.
I don’t feel you make any good or insightful points to be honest. And, as always, statements without proof can be dismissed without it as well.
If anything the best content will come from someone who has their real name, and profile picture attached to the content they submit. The anonymous nobody is much less likely to post anything valuable.
I couldn’t possibly disagree more. The reverse of this is true.
Next year you will see, some will change name and you never know what is what. No one cares and when someone do is fooled by using the first things he got offert. There eat this “threats” is yummy, here some other shit, who cares, billionares who plays with nothing.
Are you having a stroke?
