> Or at least just stop degrading your own existing product?
You know who degraded Facebook as a product first? Its own users - by reposting existing posts. I could be wrong, but I recall that not being possible when Facebook first came out.
This is a feature that turns anything into memetic garbage - when you do not have to originate your own posts, but can simply copy another one and have it appear on your feed - then it provides the conduit by which A) you have people basically being "repost bots" and not contributing all that "authenticity" so sought after today, and B) it incentivizes the creation of accounts whose entire purpose is to simply virally be reposted.
I want to say up until I quit Facebook entirely in 2014-15-ish, that seemed to be all that was on my feed - not so much ads really as just people reposting dumb crap from these random weird groups on Facebook.
I honestly think the demographic that is stuck on Facebook and spends hours just browsing through it totally deserves an AI-encapsulated fake-social experience. What are they doing now other than consuming slop? What have they done almost the entire time they've been on the network? Let it be AI slop. It's not like you're going to take Facebook away from the boomers.
> I have 1,400 Facebook friends.
Yep, totally authentic friends.
> There is still real value in that original version of Facebook.
Sure, it's in group chats now. If group chats get the ability to have a calendar, a decent private file sharing space, and something like a wiki, then the whole notion of social networks will only really be needed by advertisers and propagandists, and if they get caught in their own recursive AI maze, I'm fine with it.
RiverCrochet•9mo ago
The real customer: advertisers.
> Or at least just stop degrading your own existing product?
You know who degraded Facebook as a product first? Its own users - by reposting existing posts. I could be wrong, but I recall that not being possible when Facebook first came out.
This is a feature that turns anything into memetic garbage - when you do not have to originate your own posts, but can simply copy another one and have it appear on your feed - then it provides the conduit by which A) you have people basically being "repost bots" and not contributing all that "authenticity" so sought after today, and B) it incentivizes the creation of accounts whose entire purpose is to simply virally be reposted.
I want to say up until I quit Facebook entirely in 2014-15-ish, that seemed to be all that was on my feed - not so much ads really as just people reposting dumb crap from these random weird groups on Facebook.
I honestly think the demographic that is stuck on Facebook and spends hours just browsing through it totally deserves an AI-encapsulated fake-social experience. What are they doing now other than consuming slop? What have they done almost the entire time they've been on the network? Let it be AI slop. It's not like you're going to take Facebook away from the boomers.
> I have 1,400 Facebook friends.
Yep, totally authentic friends.
> There is still real value in that original version of Facebook.
Sure, it's in group chats now. If group chats get the ability to have a calendar, a decent private file sharing space, and something like a wiki, then the whole notion of social networks will only really be needed by advertisers and propagandists, and if they get caught in their own recursive AI maze, I'm fine with it.