@Salvo
@aussie.zoneWhen I was at a Holden dealer, CarPlay (and Android Auto) would sell cars.
Customers would wander in, drooling over a cars performance, styling, economy, luxury etc. they’re oils then ask about CarPlay (or Android Auto): if the car did not have it, they would go cold straight away and just walk straight out the door, without even thanking the salesman for their time.
Social media company’s don’t understand what makes a Social network great. It isn’t advertising, or social manipulation, or exorbitant subscription fees and API charges. It isn’t restriction of speech or freedom of speech, it isn’t algorithmically controlled moderation and curation.
It is the people that make a social network great.
The majority are either commercial accounts and “influencers” or placeholder accounts for Instagram users.
There have already been cases of people who never even downloaded the app being recommended to other people because they have an Instagram account.
II should be alright as long as I don’t expose myself, like posting on the fediverse… /s
The subs I have witnessed (although it is difficult because I did delete my account in protest of the API changes), are all full of Astroturf and Ads and are no longer usable.
They all died due to competitive market pressure. Reddit and Twitter are dying due to managerial incompetence. I believe that Threads will be stillborn due to managerial incompetence, but we are yet to see.
Back in the '90s, ISPs would provide subscribers with Email (POP3/SMTP) access, NNTP access and even basic web hosting of static pages. They also used to provide FTP mirrors of most large software repositories. This saved them wholesale bandwidth and also a faster connection for their users. Maybe modern independent ISPs can reimplement this Service for their subscribers. For instance (pun not intended) Telstra and iiNet (in Australia) could offer access to a Lemmy instance, or a consortium of independent ISPs could sponsor a regional Lemmy instance.
I did have an account, until the API changes made Twitteriffic unusable and all the people I follow left. Then I started using Reddit.
Now I use Mastodon and Lemmy. I will not go back to using a Social network that does not have; A) an open API which allows my choice of third party apps. B) a way to migrate my data and content.
The exceptions are Apple Messages (for family and close friends), SMS (for family and close friends who do t have iPhones) and Facebook under a fake name, sandboxed in FireFox Focus.
It will be interesting to see how quickly companies will substitute the “follow us” troika of icons on their website and brochures from a blue f, camera and blue bird to a blue f, camera and stylised black T.
I assume that printing companies will make a packet reprinting all those brochures, or selling little stickers to cover up the little blue bird.