It’s honestly really sad what’s been happening recently. Reddit with the API pricing on 3rd party apps, Discord with the new username change, Twitter with the rate limits, and Twitch with their new advertising rules (although that has been reverted because of backlash). Why does it seem like every company is collectively on a common mission of destroying themselves in the past few months?
I know the common answer is something around the lines of “because companies only care about making money”, but I still don’t get why it seems like all these social media companies have suddenly agreed to screw themselves during pretty much the period of March-June. One that sticks out to me especially is Reddit CEO, Huffman’s comment (u/spez), “We’ll continue to be profit-driven until profits arrive”. Like reading this literally pisses me off on so many levels. I wouldn’t even have to understand the context behind his comment to say, “I am DONE with you, and I am leaving your site”.
Why is it like this? Does everyone feel the same way? I’m not sure if it’s just me but everything seems to be going downhill these days. I really do hope there is a solution out of this mess.
If YouTube requires people to use adblockers that will be the start of another big platorm. The only thing is, is that many of these big YouTube channels get paid off and revenue, so they have no desire to move over to a different platform.
I think what we need to see is a humble platform, where there is no hunger for money, just the passion of putting out passionate content. Maybe even have a tip feature, so people can tip, but no ads.
Same goes with Facebook I’d love to see friendica or a new social media platform boom that is on the same vein, or better yet connects to different fediverse instances.
People need to all agree by the masses, that facebook is garbage, uninstall the app, and learn the ropes of a new platform.
Because of a generation gap, it would likely divide the older generation from the younger generation, as the older generation will be stuck feeding into Facebook. You would be surprised how many of them still watch TV.
I truly hope that we may see some YT alternatives become successful. What they’re doing isn’t really unprecedented in my opinion. The company has been finding increasingly more shitty ways to monetize their product in the last few years. Finding a way to incentivize the creators to move a new platform will be the biggest obstacle. It’s hard to see a competitor being able to match the offer that youtube gives to its to its creators, but if things continue in the same direction they may very well shoot themselves in the foot.
Trying to get the masses on board with alternatives to giant social media sites seems like a very tall order, yet these companies seemingly do everything in their power to push us closer to change. If it is any sort of solace, I and many of my younger friends haven’t used facebook almost at all recently unless we need to figure out each others birthdays lmao.