A video essay on what we give up in exchange for the convenience that social media and algorithms provide.
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I have been chatting through convenience with my kids.
As an example music streaming. I have spent the last 15+ years paying for it, to generally accumulate a song or two extra per month. Switched from Spotify due to their warmongering. Tried an alternative. More expensive and the app is terrible for the car. Tempted lately to go back to an iPod and some sailing. At this stage it really does look like an option. It’s not the most convenient but balance out privacy, price and usability.
I feel like I am going backwards as I simply don’t know what’s coming and I can’t trust the services I pay for in several capacities.
I’ve been thinking that MK Ultra was successful.
They learned how to control people’s minds. While it might not have been as easy as they had hoped, they learned that by dictating the path of least resistance, they can control what most people are going to think and do.
Never thought I’d see an MMM article on here, but it’s definitely relevant.
That’s what Richard Stallman has been preaching since the 80’s
I’m not a big social media user myself. Lemmy is pretty much it, unless I count watching videos on YouTube social media. I still feel a lot of the points he makes in the video.
Richard Stallman is a household name to tech enthusiasts, but there’s a whole young generation that’s being brought up in a world where this stuff was already there. I’m lucky I remember not having the internet as a child and I worry about how this is effecting the people who are oblivious to it.
I mean, he worked (before going feral) in the place where much of what made our world different from the 80s was pioneered. Even if we hear about Berkeley or Stanford more.
It’s a situation where you want to follow those having potentially the best inside information. About the culture of the people involved, about their ideas.
It’s still unsettling how in Tolkien’s world Melkor is the weird one out, while the rest of Valar are good. Really seems to be inverted in tech.
And also delay-tolerant not perpetually directly networked systems don’t have to be inconvenient. They are made that by directed effort.
Fuck, I rather be inconvenience then dealing with this shit. I’ll make my own way and have with self hosting.
That’s 18 minutes I don’t need to spend learning a minutes worth. (He starts out complaining about the lost time he’s invested…)
This is true of the overwhelming majority of YouTube videos I see submitted here. The information density is just abysmal compared to a page of text.
And that is why I don’t click on or watch YouTube videos from here. Either I’ve seen the video already (as is the case with a lot of gamers nexxus vids), or I am not willing to give the amount of time it takes to watch the video when I could read a distilled version of it in a minute or so. I don’t care about your greeting (hey, this is [channel] here, back with another video. Today we’ll be talking about [insert topic], but first …[mindless garbage]).
I know that newer gems love video format and want it for all the things but I do not.
Harder to monetize a page of text
I have long said that convenience and security are opposite ends of the same line.
Not just you, that’s a pretty common principle.
What is explicitly convenient about social media?
It’s really convenient for finding events in my city. I wish the places I frequent would use RSS, that would be even more convenient for me, but alas.
May I ask how you use RSS? In an app? (If so, what one). Something else?
I use the “News” app from Nextcloud (horrible name). I doubt it’s the best, but it’s convenient for syncing
Once you’re signed in “everything” is there
“Everything”
yeah? Do you disagree or something
Ya, I disagree that it makes things more convenient, and I disagree it brings “everything” under one umbrella.
It makes some communication easier. That’s about how far I’m willing to go to describe its positives.
I am meaning it has “everything” the average user wants all in one place. For example on Facebook you can see news, talk with friends, share any media, play games, join communties for a wide variety of hobbies. Its also designed to keep you on site. This makes it a 1 stop shop for people. We can look at all the big platforms and see that they have a wide variety of content to keep the user entertained and methods to make them not want to go anywhere else.
I dont think its good, like the title of the post I think the convenience of everything being in a single site/app is a trap.
And I guess what I’m saying is it’s not a trap, it’s explicitly not even convenience. Yes, it’s full of dopamine producing trinkets that make you want to stay on the site, but don’t mistake it for convenience. Convenience is the wrong word.
