by 1337p337 on 11/8/17, 2:18 AM with 256 comments
by jdietrich on 11/8/17, 8:07 AM
While I sympathise with the general anti-social-media stance, it's clear from this phrase that OP does not understand the most basic elements of how internet services function at scale.
Of course Google serves different results to different users, that's why they're the market leader in search. The entire job of a search engine is to return relevant results. If I search for "takeaway pizza", I'm going to be pretty annoyed if the results are generated using PageRank alone, with no weighting for local relevance. If an American searches for "cricket", they almost certainly mean the cellular provider or the insect rather than the sport; if a British person makes the same search, the odds are reversed.
Google's "broken" email service came to dominate the market because it offered a vastly better user experience than the realistic alternatives at the time - Hotmail, AOL or some crappy POP3 server with no real spam filtering. The things that people hate about Gmail are all rational, defensible design decisions that serve the majority of users well.
The internet is a big place. Most statistics suggest that there are about 3.5bn people regularly using the internet. If you're optimising your service for the median user, there will be millions of outliers who hate your service with every fibre of their being. If you hate something, it might be irredeemably awful, or it might just not be for you. It's all too rare that people entertain the latter possibility.
by busterarm on 11/8/17, 6:54 AM
My hope is that me and others like me who are young enough to have long careers (I'm in my early 30s) and have this knowledge can keep our feet on the brakes when needed, for as long as possible. At least as far as systems that people depend on.
Education is key here. Call it preaching, even. I'm constantly showing my peers how to solve their problems more easily with old, standard tools that fit into existing ecosystems.
by jf on 11/8/17, 6:52 AM
by Semaphor on 11/8/17, 7:42 AM
I use messenger to chat with people (I'd love to use my jabber account more, but everyone is either on FB, GTalk or WhatsApp), I read a few groups and use events to keep things organized and I post sometimes, either forgetting about it soon or if it strikes a point reading interesting discussions.
The vast majority of my friendlist are people I know IRL, some exceptions are online friends I know via other channels. I also regularly delete people (usually on their birthday, thanks for the reminder facebook) I'm not in contact with anymore (well, and anyone who invites me to play a game more than once, first time I tell them never to spam me again, 2nd time they are gone).
I'm just wondering how anything would improve for me without it?
by kome on 11/8/17, 10:14 AM
Commercial web sucks, and what it's worse: it's boring and predictable. The resistance has started. So many people share the same feelings, that's why things like the tildeverse (tilde.club, tilde.town, neocities) do exist.
Revolution won't use JavaScript.
by IanCal on 11/8/17, 8:03 AM
This is not an example of low search quality and can easily be the opposite.
If I search for ruby gems, I probably want code. If someone else does, they may want actual gems.
> The quality of ads displayed alongside various Google services has steadily devolved from semi-relevant to absolutely irrelevant at all times. Yes, I am aware that this is no accident.
What possible incentive would they have to serve up less relevant adverts?
> telepathic contact
Reading and writing != telepathic.
> Not a replacement for anything.
That's a bad thing?
by PeterStuer on 11/8/17, 7:23 AM
I feel better. Facebook lets you communicate about the things you feel passionate about. In a world gone crazy, this often means things that are deeply disturbing, extremely wrong. Writing about these just re-tears the wounds over and over.
Another thing: there are so many new dogmas and taboos that rational discussion is hardly possible about fundamental things.
I do miss the distant contact with faraway friends, but think I am more sane now.
by 13of40 on 11/8/17, 6:19 AM
Did, uh, anyone else understand that bit?
by trzmiel4 on 11/8/17, 7:54 AM
"There is growing concern that as well as addicting users, technology is contributing toward so-called “continuous partial attention”, severely limiting people’s ability to focus, and possibly lowering IQ."
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/oct/05/smartphon...
by ggm on 11/8/17, 8:58 AM
So I just stopped. Three months ago. Not missing it.
by jccalhoun on 11/8/17, 11:33 AM
by wybiral on 11/8/17, 7:16 AM
Or a stigma develops around being overly addicted to these platforms and their use balances out some.
Right now it seems like people are pulling the "social reward lever" over and over and the nature of the situation ensures that these platforms will try to maximize that behavior. But I suspect that in the long run some form of moderate usage and an appreciation for privacy and personal space will be obvious.
by toomanybeersies on 11/8/17, 11:55 AM
Because for me it's my primary link between my home country, where I live now, and all my other international friends. Sure, I could use email to keep in touch, but the problem with email is that it's an active communications medium, unless you have a mailing list and email everyone what you're up to, you don't keep up to date with what your friends are doing.
by dylanz on 11/8/17, 3:28 PM
by jamix on 11/8/17, 9:21 AM
> I paid them for the app. Then they sold the app to Facebook. Now I see targeted ads and promoted posts.
Was Instagram really a paid app at some point? Couldn't find any references to this.
by ilvez on 11/9/17, 1:21 PM
Sometimes I feel left out, because FB is so overwhelmingly taken role of event organizing etc, but I still hope that one day something breaks, people take back their freedom and more natural independent communes appear.
by phreack on 11/8/17, 11:12 AM
by zaarn on 11/8/17, 9:00 AM
by uladzislau on 11/8/17, 8:31 AM
by autokad on 11/8/17, 3:12 PM
I always forget how much this bugs me. I get wall posts from friends saying they are going out if anyone wants to join them, 24 hours after they post it.
by dnautics on 11/8/17, 4:23 PM
by EGreg on 11/8/17, 2:45 PM
by swlkr on 11/8/17, 4:11 PM
by lmaker on 11/8/17, 10:18 AM
by trisimix on 11/8/17, 5:35 PM
by jochung on 11/8/17, 12:07 PM
The internet of old was also preselected, towards the people most likely to have early access. It did not transcend borders, it was a new country. That country has vanished, and we should mourn it, and figure out how to bring it back. But that doesn't change the fact that real life is highly compartmentalized, and people want and need it to be in order to function. As real life bled into the virtual, this was inevitable.
One of the most instructional things is to move to a completely different place and culture. People's experience of the last couple years will be entirely different, because everything that's been reported has been implicitly filtered by the question of "how does this affect our tribe/region/nation". Famous personalities won't be known, landmark events will be vague footnotes, and instead there's a whole parallel universe of facts and people. Everything you thought you knew is wrong.
The internet is a poor fit for humanity. Good luck in getting away from that fact without feeling alienated from everyone around you. They don't like Cassandras and they don't like reality.
by BucketSort on 11/8/17, 2:03 PM
by draw_down on 11/8/17, 5:46 PM
by dingo_bat on 11/8/17, 7:40 AM
> I paid them for the app.
What? IG is a paid app?