<story><title>Stop trying to make social networks succeed</title><url>https://ploum.net/2023-07-06-stop-trying-to-make-social-networks-succeed.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>mym1990</author><text>The ironic thing is that he lists monetization last, but simply by uttering that sentiment he tells us that they are really thinking about monetization first, aka the end goal of the product.</text></item><item><author>wavemode</author><text>lol it&amp;#x27;s so explicit&lt;p&gt;at this point he&amp;#x27;s the world&amp;#x27;s leading expert on the enshittification cycle</text></item><item><author>lapcat</author><text>&amp;gt; It has really made me pessimistic about tech and products in general. There&amp;#x27;s the free and great stage, then the market is captured, then enshittification, then death.&lt;p&gt;Mark Zuckerberg an hour ago: &amp;quot;Our approach will be the same as all our other products: make the product work well first, then see if we can get it on a clear path to 1 billion people, and only then think about monetization at that point.&amp;quot; &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.threads.net&amp;#x2F;t&amp;#x2F;CuW5-eWL34x&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.threads.net&amp;#x2F;t&amp;#x2F;CuW5-eWL34x&lt;/a&gt;</text></item><item><author>vinyl7</author><text>It has really made me pessimistic about tech and products in general. There&amp;#x27;s the free and great stage, then the market is captured, then enshittification, then death.&lt;p&gt;I don&amp;#x27;t get excited about new products or new tech because I know the cycle. Hype then bust. &lt;i&gt;New thing&lt;/i&gt; comes out and I&amp;#x27;m just meh about it, because it&amp;#x27;ll bust soon enough so it&amp;#x27;s not worth getting invested in it. Or &lt;i&gt;new version&lt;/i&gt; will come out next year and break what I was used to, or it&amp;#x27;ll be an implicit subscription of having to buy new thing every year. But it&amp;#x27;s not really going to fix itself because it seems like everyone else loves the dopamine rush from the hype cycle, and they don&amp;#x27;t really seem to care about how ephemeral everything is.</text></item><item><author>mattbuilds</author><text>I think the VC world&amp;#x27;s obsession with growth has tainted how we (me included) view things, especially stuff like social media. There is a fixation with growing and doing it rapidly that I believe is harmful. I don&amp;#x27;t know when this switch flipped, but I&amp;#x27;ve felt it gradually building up over time.&lt;p&gt;Things can just be what they are, grow naturally and then die naturally. I suspect that injecting cash and attempting to achieve an unnatural growth is probably not good for both the quality of the product and the long term stability of it.&lt;p&gt;I would love to see more niche things grow organically and fill a role for some people, at some time and not try to be everything for everyone. Because when that&amp;#x27;s the case, does anyone really enjoy it?</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>cableshaft</author><text>Even if he didn&amp;#x27;t say it, it&amp;#x27;s implicit in who they are. Do you really think a massive social media corporation is going to launch another social media platform, just for funsies?</text></comment>
<story><title>Stop trying to make social networks succeed</title><url>https://ploum.net/2023-07-06-stop-trying-to-make-social-networks-succeed.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>mym1990</author><text>The ironic thing is that he lists monetization last, but simply by uttering that sentiment he tells us that they are really thinking about monetization first, aka the end goal of the product.</text></item><item><author>wavemode</author><text>lol it&amp;#x27;s so explicit&lt;p&gt;at this point he&amp;#x27;s the world&amp;#x27;s leading expert on the enshittification cycle</text></item><item><author>lapcat</author><text>&amp;gt; It has really made me pessimistic about tech and products in general. There&amp;#x27;s the free and great stage, then the market is captured, then enshittification, then death.&lt;p&gt;Mark Zuckerberg an hour ago: &amp;quot;Our approach will be the same as all our other products: make the product work well first, then see if we can get it on a clear path to 1 billion people, and only then think about monetization at that point.&amp;quot; &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.threads.net&amp;#x2F;t&amp;#x2F;CuW5-eWL34x&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.threads.net&amp;#x2F;t&amp;#x2F;CuW5-eWL34x&lt;/a&gt;</text></item><item><author>vinyl7</author><text>It has really made me pessimistic about tech and products in general. There&amp;#x27;s the free and great stage, then the market is captured, then enshittification, then death.&lt;p&gt;I don&amp;#x27;t get excited about new products or new tech because I know the cycle. Hype then bust. &lt;i&gt;New thing&lt;/i&gt; comes out and I&amp;#x27;m just meh about it, because it&amp;#x27;ll bust soon enough so it&amp;#x27;s not worth getting invested in it. Or &lt;i&gt;new version&lt;/i&gt; will come out next year and break what I was used to, or it&amp;#x27;ll be an implicit subscription of having to buy new thing every year. But it&amp;#x27;s not really going to fix itself because it seems like everyone else loves the dopamine rush from the hype cycle, and they don&amp;#x27;t really seem to care about how ephemeral everything is.</text></item><item><author>mattbuilds</author><text>I think the VC world&amp;#x27;s obsession with growth has tainted how we (me included) view things, especially stuff like social media. There is a fixation with growing and doing it rapidly that I believe is harmful. I don&amp;#x27;t know when this switch flipped, but I&amp;#x27;ve felt it gradually building up over time.&lt;p&gt;Things can just be what they are, grow naturally and then die naturally. I suspect that injecting cash and attempting to achieve an unnatural growth is probably not good for both the quality of the product and the long term stability of it.&lt;p&gt;I would love to see more niche things grow organically and fill a role for some people, at some time and not try to be everything for everyone. Because when that&amp;#x27;s the case, does anyone really enjoy it?</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>hobo_in_library</author><text>I mean, did you think he was pouring money into this out of the goodness of his heart?</text></comment>