Like many people I’m here because of reddit going to shit. Twitter has increasingly been shit. gycat is shutting down in September. To me it seems like lots of bastions of social media are crumpling, but as a previous active reddit user, I’ve been personally effected. Is this just a frequency illusion or has something changed in the world that has changed the business case of these sites?
Exactly this. The money tap has dried up post pandemic and they are seeking new revenue streams while also slashing costs. The hunger for perpetual growth to sate the investor class and their matyroshka nesting yachts is driving these decisions.
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enshittification
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/enshittification
Yeah, someone else said that the other day on another discussion - we’re seeing the bubble bursting for social media. The VC money is drying up, so these websites with massive bloat and overhead suddenly need to come up with new ways to generate cash. So they turn to what they “think” works - charge the visitors for the privilege to use their website without ever considering that maybe people will simply migrate and go elsewhere, as they always have.
Just like when most people left Myspace, then left digg, then left twitter, and left facebook, and left reddit. There’s always stragglers that will keep the sites afloat. But they are a shell of the sites they once were.
Look at Facebook - back in 2005 it was an amazing site where all your friends were socially active and engaged. Now it’s a ghost town - out of hundreds of friends and family, I only see a few posts from friends/family and a ton of ads and posts from groups I follow.