social media

So, I joined the Fediverse.

Social media is a fundamentally exploitative business model. Social media platforms work by providing a communications medium that can then be used as an advertising platform far more powerful than previous Internet direct response systems. They work on the basis of getting detailed profiles of all of their members and using it to shape what advertising they get. It's barely effective; enough to pay the bills but not to provide a sustainable, long-term growth model.

YouTube recently made Google+ identities a mandatory component of the comment system as part of a large upgrade to their shitty commenting system. This is, strangely enough, actually provoking a user revolt on YouTube for reasons I mostly understand. However, I'm writing this post because I think this is the worst thing to revolt for. It's not like there's no reason to revolt - I'm actually thrilled that YouTube is facing a real threat of a Digg-style exodus. But Google+ is not a reason to exodus. On it's own it's actually an improvement and I'll explain so further down the post. But read on first.