The rise of Facebook. There's a lot of overlap between former forum users and current Facebook users because of the permanency of the posts and content groups. (Whereas I think the people of today who are active TikTok/Instagram/etc users would have been the devoted MSN Messenger people of 25 years ago -- different crowd)
But I feel like people are tiring of the big social media conglomerates a bit because of their intrusiveness. They are easy and accessible but I think a lot of people find the tailored ads and emotional engineering (promoting topics to promote engagement) tiresome. But because they are for-profit enterprises they have to do it to keep people on the site and make money.
I think there will be a swing back to decentralisation for that reason. People yearning for their own smaller communities with greater control. That swing might not all be back to web forums due to the ubiquity of mobiles, but I think some of it will -- especially departed Facebook users. It'll be interesting to see how it all plays out, I don't think there's a lot of love for social media companies any more.
But I feel like people are tiring of the big social media conglomerates a bit because of their intrusiveness. They are easy and accessible but I think a lot of people find the tailored ads and emotional engineering (promoting topics to promote engagement) tiresome. But because they are for-profit enterprises they have to do it to keep people on the site and make money.
I think there will be a swing back to decentralisation for that reason. People yearning for their own smaller communities with greater control. That swing might not all be back to web forums due to the ubiquity of mobiles, but I think some of it will -- especially departed Facebook users. It'll be interesting to see how it all plays out, I don't think there's a lot of love for social media companies any more.
Statistics: Posted by battye — Thu Jan 16, 2025 4:03 pm