@Meyerweb It’s a forum with ads. We’ve all been using them since the dawn of the time (1/1/1970). They should/will go the way of MySpace, Digg, AOL, Delphi, Prodigy, Compuserve, BBSes, etc. And some other forum will take its place.

@Meyerweb I’m not sure Twitter has learned though. Not from the look of things anyway.

@Meyerweb weird that people have been talking about the slow decline of social media for a couple of years, doesn’t seem like this is the right approach to counter it.

@Meyerweb I think the #Reddit users learned from the #Twitter example too, that the first sign of decline won't be the last. As soon as it takes a bad turn, it's time to look for alternatives, because it only gets worse from there.

@Meyerweb

I don't think this is right, as, as far as I know, only a tiny minority of people (~ <5% of users) have left twitter

it is like all the Baseball fans who say, during a strike, we are never going back to the ballpark, and then as soon as the strike is over, they are 1st in line to get tickets

@Meyerweb Did they _actually_ learn though?

@Meyerweb Except most of Qwitter’s community has stayed. And is the reason reddit is trying out the same for their platform.

The blackouts have a better chance of forcing reddit’s hand if they last. If most are just for 48 hours, they’ll not succeed.

It is not as if that community has another place to move that is as convenient.

https://reddark.untone.uk/

It is promising though that 7200 of 7800 are joining in the protest.

@Meyerweb @Evoterra Did Twitter learn?

@Meyerweb that’s exactly why I’m here. I think even if Reddit were to roll-back their changes, I still won’t go back to my decade-old account. They’ve eroded the last of the trust I had, and sadly brought low such an amazing platform. That being said, this is such a fantastic opportunity for platforms like Mastodon, and I’m very excited to be along for the ride! :emoji_wink:

@Meyerweb that's what the lesson should be, yes. I fear that reddit isn't going to care much. They've experienced (intentionally) a pretty substantial shift towards a mainstream audience over the years. Powerusers leaving might not mean much, if others willing to moderate and produce content replace those before them. With the "supermod" culture of Reddit, I wouldn't be surprised if shut down subreddits just reopened with new (already experienced) mods.

@Meyerweb Community was the only thing that kept me at Twitter for 4 years after making my first account here.

When the algorithm intentionally tried to cause conflict between me & people I care about on a near constant basis, it helped nudge me the rest of the way away from the platform.

Most of the people I know still over there likely wouldn't be if their social circles dwindled.

@Meyerweb Using the word ‘learned’ is giving the platforms a lot of credit. I prefer ‘found out’

@Meyerweb

And the other collapses of Digg and MySpace

@Meyerweb one would've hoped Tumblr's collapse under Yahoo/Verizon and eventual sale to Automattic for literally fractions of a penny on the dollar would've been this cosmic sign to social media and forums companies to never screw up the vibe by UX nor by policy, but nope. Everytime they think they're different, and everytime they eventually are shown to be the exact same.

@Meyerweb People will leave and find a new platform (and that platform will go through a boom then bust cycle, if the 1998 style internet IPO hopes and dreams and VC demands do what they do).

Open source software is the only lasting community minded guardrail. And the community has seen enough cycles to want guardrails.

@Meyerweb @thomasfuchs Social part is important to social platforms? LOL

@Meyerweb what's going on on Reddit? Keep reading about it

@Meyerweb I have a feeling that Reddit will survive this protest. Twitter has become a unique dumpster fire of the worst decisions humanly possible. Reddit is just a typical big company being greedy and evil in a "normal" way. That hasn't killed Meta's platforms, so Reddit will likely weather this storm for better or worse.

@Meyerweb
unfortunately (for me) some of my community chose to stay there. I could not. I thought I could, but given personal history, I could not ignore what was happening so left entirely in Feb or March. It makes me sad to lose touch but maybe for the best. A few have moved here & some on Substack & Spoutible. Not quite the same, but it is what it is.

@Meyerweb
This requires the existence of alternatives. A big shoutout to the guys who Build These!

@Meyerweb really puts this quote in perspective https://edition.cnn.com/2023/06/12/tech/reddit-blackout/index.html

@Meyerweb you'd think an industry where the user is the product would get that.

@Meyerweb I miss old Twitter so bad

@Meyerweb

Twitter has lost advertisers, but have they lost a substantial number of active users?

@Meyerweb Twitter learned?!
I got what you're saying though, but I believe we're gonna see these shit from internet companies more and more.

They think they have leverage by potentially replacing community with AI.

@Meyerweb It seems like the requirements to become a CEO these days is not about making a quality product or have any business sense, but just to organize words in a confident and convincing way with no regard for facts, so that ignorant investors will dump money into something.

ChatGPT does exactly this, very well.

@Meyerweb
We will continue on our path to a more perfect union!

@Meyerweb We learned this at deviantart ~15-20 years ago, long before reddit or twitter existed.

Just like today, business interests always worked hard to trump community needs. We even had dedicated community managers because we knew the community was critical, but they were so frequently ignored or overruled due to corporate goals. Over time, the *community* dwindled and was replaced by simple users with no stickiness.

Welp, this blew up! No way I’m gonna be able to read/follow all the replies, so I hope you’re all being civil to one another in there. Also, a special shout out to my fellow Olds, who I noticed pointing out (long-)past services that also learned this the hard way.

@Meyerweb ...and then the sort of people who are attracted to the community you now have left will come and join up. And now you're a Nazi bar, or a content farm, or whatever.

@Meyerweb We're drawn to the #content, discussions and brainstorming generated by the #community, but we want to determine how to intake that content. Take away our favorite ways to digest what's there to offer, and the search for another viable solution occurs. #reddit #reddark #Mastodon #twitter

@Meyerweb
community built it, and if they destroy community, they destroy their raison d'etre to us. Our raison d'etre to them is opposite...meaning what we want from it & them is different from what they want from it and us and that is their first mistake.

We are not their customer...we are their value proposition to investors. Which means we have huge value.

@Meyerweb Well, one of the reasons I rarely come here is because of the platform. It's clunky and I just end up moving on fairly quickly. Twitter's UI is much better.

@Meyerweb It was never really about their fancy toys made from digiblocks. It was always people.

@Meyerweb @torb 👆🏻and that people like to pile on the bully. Feels great, doesn’t it?

@Meyerweb
Except #Twitter ruined their communities intentionally.

Twitter is being #Gawkered. The fallout is by design.

@Meyerweb Oh, but the Reoublicans are going to love bashing Vijaya Gadde regarding Hunter's laptop. They'll never shut up about that.

@Meyerweb It's ironic as well considering Reddit got huge due to the massive Digg exodus of 2010.

@Meyerweb "the community" isn't being ruined, the ability of people to use the platform for free and also not have to see ads is. User fee or ads. How else do you expect the bills to be paid?

@Meyerweb pretty sure they don't care anymore, they want it to be profitable or they're going to let it die, plus we don't have very many viable options anymore.

@Meyerweb Indeed. It seems to me that people running Twitter would be smart enough to figure out that while the small number of people trying to reach a large audience might pay for the chance to do so, the members of the audience are unwilling to pay. They should figure out a way to charge an account by the number of followers. Less than one hundred followers should be free. Ten thousand or more followers should cost a bit.

@Meyerweb

I would reword it to "they’re addicted to the community they *created* there."

Reddit, the company, didn't create anything like communities for people to find; others homesteaded the place and made it into communities that attracted the rest.

@Meyerweb it's all about community. Now to rebuild the communities we've left behind

@Meyerweb

They’re in that finding out stage and it’s sweet to watch. 🍿

@Meyerweb I hear Reddit is having all kinds of problems today

@Meyerweb this reduces to a simple motto I've been repeating over and over:

The community is not the platform.

Just like the map is not the territory.

However, reddit did have unique value as a platform for heavily moderated specialist/expert driven niche communities that is proving very difficult to replace.

@Meyerweb They are trying to monetize the internet. People are starting to get sick of it. Meta is trying to stick its claws into anything it can to save itself. We are seeing ourselves become slaves to a system that has money as its blood and it is just as uncaring as the cold steel and broken bones it is made of.

@Meyerweb Who even runs Reddit? An Elmo clone?

@Meyerweb this is tremendously important to recognize. Every time a platform realizes its "too popular to fail" - it begins failing. We're here for community.

@Meyerweb Yeah, although it has turned out harder to leave completely than I expected because it was so ubiquitous at the time of its implosion.

@Meyerweb In the case of Reddit, screw them, even though all of those third party apps make a profit and pay nothing to Reddit for all those API calls, which Reddit has to maintain.

@Meyerweb And Elon sure ruined the Veteran and CPP community that was built there. Houndreds if not thousands of folks were exchanging helpful info. there. All gone now. 🖕🏻twitter and 🖕🏻Musk

@Meyerweb agreed. On top of thay the app is horrible. I wont use the app and if apollo goes away then I check out reddit when I have time on my desk and not on my phone

@Meyerweb they should have learned with Google and ruin the platform first (g+) 😅

@Meyerweb lets get a source on "twitter learned". people stay on that shit fuckin scrolling and shid.

@Meyerweb @YusufToropov Wait, there’s a platform?

(jk)

@Meyerweb i moved from Twitter to Mastodon real easily due to the community here being what I was looking for. I hope to find the same in #lemmy

@Meyerweb @liampomfret WELL SAID!!

@Meyerweb considering twitter is still dying of argue that it completely ignored the lesson

@Meyerweb

It’s important to gather on other secure sites. Many of us formed groups on Wire and found each other here.

@Meyerweb globalized capitalism 🚽🔥💩

@Meyerweb

I came here from Twitter and made my own community by following people. I am on reddit, mainly for r/GardeningAustralia. I have just terminated my reddit Premium account over there. I'm not part of the #RedditMigration but I am rethinking my participation on the platform.

The garden people are so cool though.

And r/Newcastle.

@Meyerweb well said!

@Meyerweb network effect works in reverse too

@Meyerweb - But did Twitter actually learn that?

@Meyerweb i go where the furries go, simple as

@Meyerweb I never found a use for Reddit. I was on it a few months in 2009 or 2010 and quietly left, never to return.

@Meyerweb I don’t see any evidence that Twitter has learned a bloody thing.

@Meyerweb This is so well put. This is exactly why I left Reddit because after struggling to find a safe community it's now becoming unsafe.

@Meyerweb the 48 hour blackout is the equivalent of a drop in the well for Reddit. It’s like participating in the blackout but we’ll continue using the site anyway - saw a video from Louis rossmann on this.

Some subreddits will go dark permanently though so that’s something.

@Meyerweb The desire to be happy, and find togetherness, will always overcome the desire to sycophantically praise corporate strongmen and brand names.

@Meyerweb Definitely been feeling this way lately. So tired of it. I am hoping that this one continues to stay the way it’s going and more people come onto and also that it doesn’t get corrupted like others.

@Meyerweb Agreed

@Meyerweb Reddit got affected much worse than Twitter imo. the whole multiple instances + communities model translates very well into Reddit. Also given the fact that you follow communities and not people is a factor as well

@Meyerweb #voteWithFeet

@Meyerweb Yep. Without the communities, the website is nothing, just an angry manchild CEO throwing temper tantrums about not making enough money as if he doesn't already have enough.

@Meyerweb its happened repeatedly. Usenet, Slashdot, Digg, DeviantArt, and on and on....

It's astonishing how the tech-VC axis has the industry memory of a punch-drunk goldfish on this aspect.

The "revenue opportunity" always outstrips the basic understanding of how to alienate the user base.

@Meyerweb so, has anybody quantitatively compared their self destruction to digg? Do they not even have the decency to implode at least that fast?

@Meyerweb like

@Meyerweb@mastodon.social In addition, they somehow fail to see that their Platforms don't add inherent value, it's the user content that makes those platforms great!

@Meyerweb I can Digg it.

@Meyerweb Twitter want really in danger, though, because it isn't as community-dependant as reddit is. Reddit is literally held together by its voluntary mods.

@Meyerweb

Yup, it's about the people we meet and able to connect, never been about the platform itself.

@Meyerweb Absolutely all of this!! Being off twitter now for about a year and finally giving this place a shot has been boosted by the fact that I can find all of my old people again! 🙂

@Meyerweb I hope Instagram is next. They have no security, and people are getting hacked there daily, including myself last year.

@Meyerweb well, it also depends on how many people actually stick to the new platform.. I mean on Twitter, lots of people moved to Mastodon initially but later returned to Twitter again because lots of people also didn’t make the switch. Mobilizing the whole community is incredibly hard, and lots of people also just stick to what they know

@Meyerweb Has Twitter learned though? If anything, they created an entirely new toxic community that they seem to be quite happy with.

@Meyerweb not only that but the people who value community most leave, leaving an increasing number of those who don't to further degrade the experience.

@Meyerweb Curious if the inversion of that is also true, that the people who remain are the ones who don’t care about community and have only ever wanted to see it become a hellhole.

@Meyerweb Unfortunately this risks overstating the degree to which people have left Twitter. They simply haven't—yet, anyway—in any meaningful numbers. Not nearly enough people moved, and not nearly enough who did stuck it out, most quietly shuffling back in the ensuing weeks and months.

It is sadly therefore not at all simple. And Musk has sadly therefore learned nothing other than "I can get away with far more than I thought I could". If the same happens with Reddit, they will too.

@Meyerweb Indeed!

@Meyerweb I followed my favorite community over to discord. And then I remembered this app and started checking it out. I dont think Ill go back to reddit now unless my discord friends do as well

@Meyerweb if thats the case, people would not stay on Twitter despite what it has become

@Meyerweb

The old laissez-faire capitalist approach of "establish market control, then jack up prices and cut costs" simply isn't workable on the internet as it currently stands; you can cartelize oil or real estate or taxi services, but you can't capture conversations on the internet.

... *Yet.*

This is another reason net neutrality is so vitally important — the ISPs are salivating over the prospect of FINALLY being able to establish captive markets on the internet.

@Meyerweb It doesn't seem like Twitter learned a damn thing to me.

@Meyerweb For me, it’s less about an “addiction to the community” but more about the I content need. The platform, and to an extent the people on them, are replaceable. Content will find ways of being shared as the developers build replacements in the open -- like the good old days. As we are witnessing now, that model is not easily accomplished nor sustainable by companies supported and controlled by investors or advertising.

@Meyerweb Is there data to back up the contention that people are leaving Twitter? I know a few people who have, but the vast majority of journalists and security folks I used to follow on Twitter are still there any happily tweeting as if nothing has changed.

@Meyerweb I have been saying this for 20 years. The value in social networks is the PEOPLE. The leaders at Twitter never seemed to understand even before the current childish asshat regime.