Social Media?

So I watched the following video this morning by Matt D'Avella:

By the way, I have always enjoyed his stuff, his videos are great.

He emphasized what is going on in the world of what used to be called social media. Basically it is a giant platform for ads. Something about how over 80% of what is viewed in Instagram, Facebook, etc. is algorithm and not follower based. People joined these platforms in order to connect with people they care about. But they connect less and less as these companies grow.

That is roughly what the video is about. Now anyone who knows me knows that I am strongly against using Facebook, Instagram, X, or most other social media platforms that have an algorithm. There are two reasons why.

First, the biggest reason is I love technology.

Seems counterintuitive I know, but what I mean by that is those who use large amounts of social media daily let these platforms do a lot of their thinking. If they want to have a voice, they feel they have to post it on social media. That was the only way they could "write" on the internet.

But the internet is incredible. No one person owns it. It is computers networked together, collaborating to create this infrastructure. There are lots of ways to get your voice heard on the internet that don't involve social media. Look at my blog here!

When humans are limited, we gain superpowers in innovation. We think outside the box. When everything is given to us on a silver platter, we become complacent, and forget how to do things. Now I am not perfect at posting on my blog, and I get bored of using other platforms that are user focused instead of company focused, (i.e. Mastodon), but I still have control over those platforms and my disinterest mainly comes from lack of connection with others.

But one thing that I constantly do with any interest I have (ham radio, aviation, naturism, etc.) is ask myself, "Why do I have passion for this, who am I supposed to help with it, and how?" And it is a hard question to answer, but I think that drives my interest and innovation in it.

Second, I freaking hate ads.

These platforms alone suck my soul away with ads. I almost always buy the in-app purchase to remove ads from apps I use regularly. I'm happy to support people who make things that I love.

What I can't stand is big rich tech companies always penny pinching and trying to make a quick buck on anything they can at the expense of others. And that becomes more and more prevalent as time goes on and these companies get bigger and bigger.

Now I am probably the biggest hypocrite when it comes to making sure I stay connected with people via tools like my blog or Mastodon. I'm not perfect at it, I have months (ha I checked and it was a year since my last post) between my posts and I rarely log into Mastodon anymore. The biggest reason why though is I can't convince anyone to join me in these spaces. Social media is too hard a thing for people to give up. They think if they leave social media they will lose so many connections with people they haven't seen in years, if they have met them at all.

I will also mention that there are some social media sites I still use. YouTube is probably the biggest one. But I learn a lot of things from YouTube. I don't go there to try to find people I know, I go there because there is something I want to know more about. Sometimes I will scroll through the algorithm and watch something (I'm still human after all!), but I try to stick to channels and topics I love. And I do pay for premium to reduce the need for ads, even if some creators still have them. I also use Discord, but there aren't a lot of ads there, and Discord is usually a connection to other people.

At this point I am just rambling. You should check out that video though and get an idea of how things are going. Thanks for reading up to here. Feel free to subscribe to my blog and comment where you can. I'd love to hear back from you and make a connection.