The end of social media?

THE END OF SOCIAL MEDIA?

Carnival Games are Rigged

If you've ever played a carnival game, you know it's rigged, but you're never quite sure how. The rings are too small for the bottle tops. Or the basketballs are just big enough to fit through the hoops. Of course it's fun to play. But it's rigged.

With our social media services and new information like The Social Network, we know that social media is actively and secretly trying to control our behavior. It knows who you're in proximity to at the coffee shop and who you have over to your house.  

Instagram wants you to pursue reels because it's trying to compete with TikTok. So it doesn't matter if you want to post photos or if your followers want to see photos, IG will privilege and promote reels. If you don't play the reel game, you're sunk. IG is doing what is best for itself, not for you. You and IG are not on the same team. And IG is not a value-free service. (Meaning: they have an agenda that is separate from yours.)

Your social media feed is not sequential, and it appears random. If you've been gone from the socials for a day or two, those posts from your friends have seemingly disappeared and you're going to have to hunt to even know they're there.  

Maybe it's time to:

1 Acknowledge the manipulation

2 Move to another alternative. Don't just accept that IG or FB or TikTok is messing with us. Let's move!

A Move to a Social Media RSS feed

From 1999 to 2005, RSS feeds gained traction. And by 2006, almost everyone who was blogging or checking blogs used an RSS feed. RSS feeds, short for "really simple syndication," went out and got your favorite blogs for you. You would paste the URL into the RSS app and the website would assemble the info for you. But by 2013, the major players began to remove their support for RSS feeds.  

-What if we transitioned to RSS feeds for social media?

-Independent services would go out and grab one IG account, for example. It would be an independent website or app that assembles your feed for you.

Would they try to game it? Would IG and FB and the Meta giant try to reclaim it? OF course!

But it's time for market disruption.

What if?

What if you could control what you see?  And what if you could see it sequentially or geographically, or spatially? You would cut and paste someone's URL in the RSS feed

And you could arrange it any way you want. You could prioritize the accounts you want to see and assemble them in any manner you like. You would know that there is a deck of cards that is 52 deep and contained 4 suits. It would be transparent who you're following and what they're posting.  

Bad Habits

In the 1950s everyone smoked. I think if they were honest with themselves, they knew it was bad to inhale smoke. Maybe it's time for some honesty and market disruption with what is happening with social media. Someone please invent the new social media RSS feed.

_______________________________

photo credit: https://unsplash.com/@weirick

_______________________________

Web feeds | RSS | The Guardian | guardian.co.uk", The Guardian, London, 2008, webpage: GuardianUK-webfeeds Archived December 15, 2017, at the Wayback Machine.

"My Netscape Network: Quick Start". Netscape Communications. Archived from the original on December 8, 2000. Retrieved October 31, 2006.

"Icons: It's still orange". Microsoft RSS Blog. December 14, 2005. Archived from the original on December 16, 2005. Retrieved November 9, 2008.