Ask Lemmy

Social media is fine if handled well. Like there were no problems with myspace or early facebook. The problem with social media is when it becomes more based on algorithm than communication. Mass communication isn't the problem, it's the algorithm

Algorithm curated content driven by engagement doesn't deserve to be called social media any more. The Feed, seems apropriate, malnourishing as it is.

You're probably not the only one.

However, the interest (on Lemmy-aligned circles at least) in self-hosting, reducing depedence on large tech companies, community building on smaller scale online and offline, has me excited again that the smaller counterculture can co-exist with the mainstream profit-motivated social media culture.

Social media brought all the normies into the internet. Normies ruin everything.

I'm not old enough to have known the old internet, but the photo- and video-based social media never felt attractive to me. The only social media that I used was Reddit, but now I'm here. I appreciate the genuine people speaking their own mind for the sake of speaking around here, instead of the vapid, superficial and clout-chasing ""people"" (read: [fascist] bots) of other websites.

Nah. Just corpos.

It's not 2017-18 social media, friend. It's just late state capitalism.

And the lion's share of it can be traced to increasing real estate and rent prices.

In its Facebook and onward phase, yes I agree. Prior to that we had this wonderful site called Livejournal where you could privately blog to a select group of friends, and it was the absolute best way to brain dump, have people give you real advice, and make the best online friends. Yes it had much controversy when it was bought by a Russian company, I can point you to a podcast if you want more detail on that, and certainly there was drama sometimes, but I would give a lot to just talk to my friends as a group that way again and really know each other deeply that way again, and other than the odd very ignorable ad, you weren't forced to be part of an algorithm or AI horseshit or fake news or verified accounts or any of that garbage. You could buy a permanent account for 100 dollars for the added features, but that was basically started to keep the site running after it took off. It really was beautiful and helpful and loving and felt organic and true for that time.

Have you ever noticed how hard it is for novels or TV or any other fictional platform to include anything about smartphones or using social media? When it is mentioned it feels very awkward and forced into the narrative.

The spirit of the internet was dead long before that.

It definitely desecrated the corpse, though.

Most people aren't made for the internet.

Most people can't handle the type of information. Most people fall for rage-bait, hate-inducing, right-wing propaganda.

We need to find a way to make the internet a thing where there's only people on it who actually want to use the internet in a healthy way.

One way to do this is to say no to commercialized parts of the internet. Say no to all commercial platforms selling ads or selling your data. These are full of rage-bait and only attract the worst in humans.

Yes. I'm a big fan of lemmy. I hope peertube gets going I feel it will be like the original YouTube

I think you're confusing social media and late stage capitalism. Social media hasn't done anything to anyone, capitalism has used social media to further its own ends.

The old internet was just an intermediate stage between the standardised internet, and before the internet when you had to find a clear channel through the ionosphere. Congratulations, however old you are, you've lived long enough to be bitter that the world has changed.

Now if we're talking about the specific way it's developed with a new generation of robber barons controlling everything, obviously few here will disagree.

It's all about the money honey....

It's not destroyed, it's just no longer dominant.

I’ve known Lemmy for a few hours and I feel like I’m back in the early spirit of the internet.

Welcome :)

It’s a bit of a digital version of rural exodus. And since 2017/2018, I’ve noticed that everything that, in my opinion, represented the internet has disappeared.

This a very interesting metaphor, real spot on.

But I would say a lot of that rural Internet has not disappeared, not yet. It's still there, very much alive. People are simply not visiting it anymore. They don't dare go outside the pretty walled-gardens they're used to.

But those people wanting to stay parked in their corporate-owned gardens, or silos, doesn't make that small and more humane web go away. And would they chose to, they could still come visit it freely, they could still easily interact with their creators. They could even create and tend to their very own part of it, making that small Web a richer place.

They just don't do it. Most of the time because they can't be bothered with doing the actual work, or because they're afraid to try and to fail. They want to be fed easy to eat content, not learn to cook it themselves.

They want the a Web that is like those shitty fast-food serving standardized and over-processed industrial food. Something ready to eat that is barely food at all but that will stuff their belly and, more importantly, that will never surprise them. Alas, this food is as much a poison for their head as it is for their body. They will realize that too late. It probably already is.

Too bad, because the alternative is still a thing, not that far away.

The small web is still a thing. Many blogs still exist that only share content their author sincerely care about or is interested in, that are ads and tracking free, that respect their readers... But the majority of people have quit visiting them, they simply don't go outside of, say, YT, X, Facebook, Reddit, Instagram, TikTok or whatever where they can all stay together parked like the cattle they have not yet realized they have become.

Back to your original metaphor. Digital rurality is still there and many could easily own a small part of it and make it exwactly like they want it to be, and be happy with it. But they prefer staying in the large over-crowed cities, in small overpriced apartments like most their friends are doing.

Lemmy is a great alternative to reddit but it could relatively easily become another silos—just plural and not corporate-owned but silos nonetheless. It's up to us to keep it open to the alternatives. I mean, sometimes I feel sad to see little posts & comments inviting people to go read/watch something they liked that is not already hosted on some corporate-owned platform. Heck, sharing personal content feels so much like a lost cause to me that I seldom share a link to my own blog posts: why bother? I also publish a lot less often than I used to, here again: why bother?

Pretty much but don't let that stop you from posting in other place. I try to make habit of posting in game forums of games I'm playing in. Sometime they have decent off-topic section where you can talk about other stuff. Only normies stick to social medias, us nerds stick to real internet.

Cuckerberg

I agree the internet feels a lot different than the eqrly 2000s, but breaking down what's different I can't pin anything concrete down.

There's pretty much no fundamental differences between how social media was and how it is now. People talk, share interests, get in arguments. What we feel is nostalgia for a wild west internet with less people and rules that will never exist again.

More people use the internet now so more people participate in the conversation. That's how it will be for the rest of human history probably.