alt Hacker NewsBack in 2005-ish era, I helped reboot a college club (I was the coach/advisor).
We started out using forum software to co-ordinate what we were doing but eventually (2008-ish) switched to Facebook as the president of the club pointed out "Alex, everyone is already on Facebook and the notifications from us are in the middle of the notifications for when the next party is" etc.
Fast forward to today and the club is rebooting again. I asked the current club president "What social network is everyone on these days?" His response: "Really there is no one place where everyone goes anymore." I then asked him how clubs share their info etc and he says "The bulletin board at the student center?"
While social media definitely has its downsides (echo chambers, extremism etc) I do feel like it's a bit of a net loss to not have a "commons". That model makes it super easy to start up new organizations, get the word out etc.
Part of me hopes that we got back to the late 1990s dedicated websites/forums. That seems to be the Discord model but let's see.
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I think we’re seeing a similar thing pan out with AI. When the barrier for something is too low, people realize that it’s not actually worth the other party’s effort to communicate it to them.
For me, physical communication is quickly becoming a signal that someone actually put effort into things.
I tried hard but am failing to see how what you say couldn't just be fulfilled by a chat group today (or even back then).
The terminology explains what happened.
The Zuckerberg movie was called The Social Network. At the time we saw the likes of Facebook as networks intended to build 1-1 communications.
Since then, it’s become social Media. It’s now about centralized structures broadcasting messages to subscribers and followers. The only difference from the past is who the broadcasters can be, but it’s no longer about building networks between people.