Comment by tolerance
16 hours ago
What are incentives for the average person? Their logic seems straightforward: they want to be where their friends are at. And all they want to do there is cycle through their base emotions at a whim's pace.
Whatever politics or technologies that make alternative platforms "better" to some people doesn't matter to most. The idea that new platforms should even have the "millions" (read: the masses) in mind comes across as being antithetical to the trend toward decentralized tech.
> What are incentives for the average person? Their logic seems straightforward: they want to be where their friends are at
This is some sort of absolute, fundamental difference between the early web and now, at least how I experienced it as a teen in the late 90s in Hungary. Back then I made a site, because you wanted to make something of my own, in my style, as I wanted. There was nobody else online from my friends, and I made new friends online. I actually found my age people on ICQ, within the same subculture.
This "oh my friends are there" approach is what destroys everything. More precisely the people who can't decide for themselves.
That's kind of the same thing though - the people you wanted to interact with were there. They just were a different cohort than what you might find on something like Instagram today.
Then do you think that the average person's disinterest in moving to different platforms is a bad thing? How does this affect the ideal version of the web it seems like you're advocating for?
Those users indeed don't matter. The problem is the cool kids are on Twitter & co as well these days. Because that's where they have the most reach. Almost everyone on social media cares about reach, there isn't much of a point to posting things that no one reads.
The old web was a very different place, it wasn't as centralized and there were significantly fewer people around. There were specific forums that you'd go to for specific topics. Say you were interested in West African dances - there was usually the one forum where all the West African dance nerds hung out. At most a couple of different ones. And they were very small communities. If there were issues with the admins or moderation users could and did do mass walk-outs and create a new place.
What would an average person lose if everybody used more open platforms?
What is the average person losing now on closed platforms?
Think about why they should care about your answer and if there's any proof that it bothers them to the degree that they may view your alternative platforms as actual solutions.