5 ms·

Can we just, I mean just stop using and caring about most social media. Especially facebook, it offers no meaningful value. It's slow, obtuse and haven't made l

Can we just, I mean just stop using and caring about most social media. Especially facebook, it offers no meaningful value. It's slow, obtuse and haven't made life better for anyone in the last decade I suppose. Maybe whatsapp has some use, but otherwise what's even the point. I don't even have ads on whatsapp not yet anyways, I will get my family to switch when they do. I don't care about you Meta/Facebook or whatever it is.

BLKNSLVR 5mo ago
The problem is it that it has a helluva lot of momentum from normies. Easily enough to outweigh the resistance of the likes of you and me. The only thing will break it is a better / easier alternative. And with enough success that will probably turn into the next big bad.
- ramon156 5mo ago
  > normies I would argue that it's more or less that humans don't like change, and that boomers get upset about change. It seems that the older you get, the more egotistical/selfish you become. I'm not saying my grandma is selfish for not wanting to switch away from WhatsApp, but I am saying that it'd be hard to convince her to switch, hence I don't try.
  - wiseowise 5mo ago
    > It seems that the older you get, the more self-respect you develop. FTFY.
    - BLKNSLVR 5mo ago
      Only if you switch off all the consumer hostile platforms...
  - lelanthran 5mo ago
    > I'm not saying my grandma is selfish for not wanting to switch away from WhatsApp, but I am saying that it'd be hard to convince her to switch, hence I don't try. Ever considered that you may be the selfish one for even wanting her to switch? You want to make your life more convenient at the expense of her convenience because switching from whatsapp is a huge inconvenience.
  - orwin 5mo ago
    It's not about age, it's about social connections that keeps you on your toes all life long.
Kiro 5mo ago
Easier said than done. You're still here, which is understandable since Hacker News is by far the most addictive one.
- nsowz 5mo ago
  Hacker News is a forum, not social media.
  - holmesworcester 5mo ago
    Good luck finding any objective distinction between HN, Reddit, WhatsApp, Signal, or email + listserv and "social media"! Or finding any one of "social media's harms" that could not, in some world where Facebook, Instagram, and Tiktok did not exist, be delivered in just as socially harmful (and beneficial) a form by sufficiently-accessible versions of the apps and protocols you value and use every day. I met someone recently whose primary addiction is Wikipedia. For me, Signal and Hacker News are the most addictive pieces of software I still use. Serial television (best delivered by WebTorrent and The Pirate Bay) is by far the most addictive, for me, so much so that I had to quit. And you can definitely run successful social movements and political campaigns (for both very good and very bad things) over HN or WhatsApp/Signal, given sufficient adoption.
    - nsowz 5mo ago
      > I met someone recently whose primary addiction is Wikipedia. I met someone recently whose primary addiction is whisky. Therefore, whisky is social media.
    - xigoi 5mo ago
      > Good luck finding any objective distinction between HN, Reddit, WhatsApp, Signal, or email + listserv and "social media"! Hacker News: • doesn’t have a personalized feed • encourages intellectual discussion rather than brainrot • doesn’t support images or videos
      - Kiro 5mo ago
praptak 5mo ago
You could make a similar noble call for everyone to just stop using cigarettes in 1950. It would not work. What ultimately worked were laws designed to curb tobacco use combined with public education campaigns.
- graemep 5mo ago
  I think attitudes mattered more than law, but some laws (e.g. advertising restrictions, and packaging requirements) may have helped change attitudes, but growing awareness of the health issues was the key. In 1950 tobacco was cool. By 2000 it was very definitely not. In western Europe at least, sales of premium brands were falling sharply and volumes shifting to cheap brands - a lot less profitable even for the same volume. Long before UK law changed to ban indoor smoking most offices started banning smoking indoors, and pubs started doing so too (a major chain, Wetherspoons, gradually banned smoking at all its pubs). The manufacturers tried to grow in other markets - one tobacco company investor relations person showed me some beautiful pastel coloured cigarettes in a very fancy box aimed at Eastern Europe. It did not work in the long run as attitudes changed globally.
  - jhbadger 5mo ago
    Definitely. Smoking used to be the default and non-smokers were viewed as being eccentric like vegetarians/vegans still are today and having a small non-smoking section was seen as something for "those people" like restaurants that have just one or two meatless options now. It was a huge social shift regarding smoking starting in the early 1990s -- decades after the health issues were known.
  - red-iron-pine 5mo ago
    it was not cool by 200 because there were explicit laws banning marketing campaigns to make it cool -- marketing works. literally, you can't sell this to kids and ads designed to make it seem cool to kids are verboten. the laws made the change.
swiftcoder 5mo ago
> Maybe whatsapp has some use WhatsApp is a real hard breakup in much of the world. It's the defacto standard for communication around here, and even a bunch of businesses use it exclusively. One can hope the EU will eventually mandate unlimited SMS on cellphone plans, but I don't see WhatsApp being dethroned another way
- unmole 5mo ago
  The UX and feature set of WhatsApp is much better than SMS. India has practically free SMS but WhatsApp remains pervasive.
  - finghin 5mo ago
    WhatsApp is the “best” Meta app by far. It does just offer an easy, secure way of contacting people using their phone number, through text, voice, images, video. None of their other apps come close. It doesn’t even look like a Meta product to me.
    - jeraldbenny 5mo ago
      Meta acquired WhatsApp, thats why its the best
      - swiftcoder 5mo ago
        They acquired instagram too, and somehow they transformed that into the same sort of shithole as modern Facebook...
      - finghin 5mo ago
        As the other user pointed out, it definitely stands out among other product acquisitions.
    - Timwi 5mo ago
      What makes WhatsApp superior to Telegram and/or Signal?
qgin 5mo ago
"Everyone will not just"

BLKNSLVR 5mo ago

The problem is it that it has a helluva lot of momentum from normies. Easily enough to outweigh the resistance of the likes of you and me. The only thing will break it is a better / easier alternative. And with enough success that will probably turn into the next big bad.

ramon156 5mo ago
> normies I would argue that it's more or less that humans don't like change, and that boomers get upset about change. It seems that the older you get, the more egotistical/selfish you become. I'm not saying my grandma is selfish for not wanting to switch away from WhatsApp, but I am saying that it'd be hard to convince her to switch, hence I don't try.
- wiseowise 5mo ago
  > It seems that the older you get, the more self-respect you develop. FTFY.
  - BLKNSLVR 5mo ago
    Only if you switch off all the consumer hostile platforms...
- lelanthran 5mo ago
  > I'm not saying my grandma is selfish for not wanting to switch away from WhatsApp, but I am saying that it'd be hard to convince her to switch, hence I don't try. Ever considered that you may be the selfish one for even wanting her to switch? You want to make your life more convenient at the expense of her convenience because switching from whatsapp is a huge inconvenience.
- orwin 5mo ago
  It's not about age, it's about social connections that keeps you on your toes all life long.

Kiro 5mo ago

Easier said than done. You're still here, which is understandable since Hacker News is by far the most addictive one.

nsowz 5mo ago
Hacker News is a forum, not social media.
- holmesworcester 5mo ago
  Good luck finding any objective distinction between HN, Reddit, WhatsApp, Signal, or email + listserv and "social media"! Or finding any one of "social media's harms" that could not, in some world where Facebook, Instagram, and Tiktok did not exist, be delivered in just as socially harmful (and beneficial) a form by sufficiently-accessible versions of the apps and protocols you value and use every day. I met someone recently whose primary addiction is Wikipedia. For me, Signal and Hacker News are the most addictive pieces of software I still use. Serial television (best delivered by WebTorrent and The Pirate Bay) is by far the most addictive, for me, so much so that I had to quit. And you can definitely run successful social movements and political campaigns (for both very good and very bad things) over HN or WhatsApp/Signal, given sufficient adoption.
  - nsowz 5mo ago
    > I met someone recently whose primary addiction is Wikipedia. I met someone recently whose primary addiction is whisky. Therefore, whisky is social media.
  - xigoi 5mo ago
    > Good luck finding any objective distinction between HN, Reddit, WhatsApp, Signal, or email + listserv and "social media"! Hacker News: • doesn’t have a personalized feed • encourages intellectual discussion rather than brainrot • doesn’t support images or videos
    - Kiro 5mo ago

praptak 5mo ago

You could make a similar noble call for everyone to just stop using cigarettes in 1950. It would not work. What ultimately worked were laws designed to curb tobacco use combined with public education campaigns.

graemep 5mo ago
I think attitudes mattered more than law, but some laws (e.g. advertising restrictions, and packaging requirements) may have helped change attitudes, but growing awareness of the health issues was the key. In 1950 tobacco was cool. By 2000 it was very definitely not. In western Europe at least, sales of premium brands were falling sharply and volumes shifting to cheap brands - a lot less profitable even for the same volume. Long before UK law changed to ban indoor smoking most offices started banning smoking indoors, and pubs started doing so too (a major chain, Wetherspoons, gradually banned smoking at all its pubs). The manufacturers tried to grow in other markets - one tobacco company investor relations person showed me some beautiful pastel coloured cigarettes in a very fancy box aimed at Eastern Europe. It did not work in the long run as attitudes changed globally.
- jhbadger 5mo ago
  Definitely. Smoking used to be the default and non-smokers were viewed as being eccentric like vegetarians/vegans still are today and having a small non-smoking section was seen as something for "those people" like restaurants that have just one or two meatless options now. It was a huge social shift regarding smoking starting in the early 1990s -- decades after the health issues were known.
- red-iron-pine 5mo ago
  it was not cool by 200 because there were explicit laws banning marketing campaigns to make it cool -- marketing works. literally, you can't sell this to kids and ads designed to make it seem cool to kids are verboten. the laws made the change.

swiftcoder 5mo ago

> Maybe whatsapp has some use WhatsApp is a real hard breakup in much of the world. It's the defacto standard for communication around here, and even a bunch of businesses use it exclusively. One can hope the EU will eventually mandate unlimited SMS on cellphone plans, but I don't see WhatsApp being dethroned another way

unmole 5mo ago
The UX and feature set of WhatsApp is much better than SMS. India has practically free SMS but WhatsApp remains pervasive.
- finghin 5mo ago
  WhatsApp is the “best” Meta app by far. It does just offer an easy, secure way of contacting people using their phone number, through text, voice, images, video. None of their other apps come close. It doesn’t even look like a Meta product to me.
  - jeraldbenny 5mo ago
    Meta acquired WhatsApp, thats why its the best
    - swiftcoder 5mo ago
      They acquired instagram too, and somehow they transformed that into the same sort of shithole as modern Facebook...
    - finghin 5mo ago
      As the other user pointed out, it definitely stands out among other product acquisitions.
  - Timwi 5mo ago
    What makes WhatsApp superior to Telegram and/or Signal?

qgin 5mo ago

"Everyone will not just"