Comment by rainbowmverse
8 years ago
>> The entire concept of social media is toxic. And all to show you more ads.
Social media funded by venture capital, maybe. Most Mastodon instances big enough to need outside funding run on a few Patreon or Liberapay contributions. The main one gets enough for the developer to work on it full time.
Social media doesn't have to be the way Facebook and Twitter convinced people it has to be.
Well said. Social networks don't have to have an exploitative business model; Facebook and Twitter aren't the only possible models.
It seems that the previous, open, free social platforms are dead or agonizing -- from Usenet newsgroups to blogs, RSS readers, and even mailing lists. 90+% of my immediate family and relatives only communicate via Facebook. All of my past colleagues only communicate via LinkedIn. None of them have personal websites or blogs.
So, what are the successful, alternative models that I can use today with like-minded people, family, or friends?
IRC still works a treat
Sms, calling, talking irl.
The mistake made here is assuming the issue is social networks and not people.
Media has gotten increasingly vile with every new iteration of attention absorption.
People and human brains are the issue.
People and human brains are the issue
Yes and no. As a human you have certain behaviours or reflexes or instincts that have been programmed into you by evolution. They operate without conscious thought, because they have to. They mostly are about the tribe or the pack if you will; straying too far from that tribe would compromise your survivability, being ostracised by the tribe meant certain death. Those instincts have been weaponised by Twitter and Facebook, they carefully set things up to push the buttons that trigger the urge to form a mob, or the terror of being left out or pushed out. They trigger the serotonin rewards of feeling like one of the tribe when you do what they want (engagement) and they keep you in line with threat of punishment if you don’t participate, retweet this, like that.
We’ve been hacked in other words.