Jessica TollkuhnJun 13, 2023
David Gerard

Twitter, Reddit and Discord are simultaneously going to shit - because enshittification is what happens when suddenly money isn't free any more and borrowing carries an interest rate

The fediverse is not very well connected suburbs, good for what it is but doesn't do the same job

bsky is gonna do its own fediverse (with beer and shitcoins) and it's fun right now as a single instance with good users, but the staff are the sort of barely-crypto-reactionary free speech warriors who will never block the nazi instances

[youth pastor voice] you know, there's someone else who talked about the tendency of the rate of profit to fall

.

EDIT: to clarify: Discord is ticking along for now, but they hired some ex-Facebook execs, employees are in revolt and the org is hollowing out. hence (a) bad decisions (b) glitching https://archive.is/fI3hq

Jun 12, 2023 at 10:24amWeb
Show threadCharlie StrossJun 12, 2023
@davidgerard I note that Google and DuckDuckGo have both gradually degraded over the past year—same pressure at work, only more slowly? (Especially as they monetize search results derived from the unpaid labour of the Twitter/Reddit/Discord communities.)
Show threadDavid GerardJun 12, 2023
@cstross see addition from youth pastor
Show threadDavid GerardJun 12, 2023
@cstross just struck that all three are going at the same time, for the same material reason
Show threadAlisonW ♿🏳️‍🌈♾️Jun 12, 2023

@davidgerard @cstross
It's a 'do unto others as you would have them do to you' thing. Reddit et al have taken advantage of people creating content for them without payment but have only now realised that other companies are using them in the same way and they don't like it.

It will all end in tears, obviously.

Show threadAdam DallianceJun 12, 2023
@cstross @davidgerard
Half the time these days Google just puts me in some sort of capcha loop and I give up after answering like ten and seeing no end to the questions.
Show threadDavid GerardJun 13, 2023
@pre @cstross how many animals can you see???? none they're fucking blurry dall-e-mini blobs
Show threadAdam DallianceJun 13, 2023

@davidgerard @cstross In the future we'll all spend ten hours a day solving captchas for crypto-credits to rent food from the machine rulers.

Human reinforcement training duty, expected of every citizen.

Show threadLars RosenquistJan 14, 2024
@pre @davidgerard @cstross Training an AI for this. 😎😜
Show threadOctorineJun 12, 2023

@cstross @davidgerard

I think that the two big problems with Google are

1) There's an entire industry devoted to gaming search results, and

2) There's barely any internet to search anymore. Everything has been eaten by Facebook and discord, and all the old static sites have turned into web apps.

Incidentally, I think 1) above is also the reason Netflix recommendations are garbage now. Their algorithm didn't get worse by itself, they destroyed it trying to fight the optimizers.

Show threadScott GallowayJun 12, 2023
@davidgerard "The fediverse is not very well connected suburbs," burbclaves as Stephenson put it :) http://www.technovelgy.com/ct/content.asp?Bnum=240 "Now a Burbclave, that's the place to live. A city-state with its own constitution, a border, laws, cops, everything."
Burbclave by Neal Stephenson from Snow Crash

Burbclave by Neal Stephenson: Contraction of suburban enclave; an extension of today's gated communities. (Text quote, book citation included.)

Show threadJohn Manoogian IIIJun 12, 2023
@scottgal @davidgerard solid fediverse analogy
Show threadDavid GerardJun 12, 2023
@jm3 @scottgal right down to suburban fascist HOAs
Show threadGlennJun 12, 2023
@davidgerard I have long wondered when this day would come. These social media platforms running on venture capital money and loans seemed to be bankruptcies waiting to happen. Eventually it was inevitable that they would need to charge customers money and those customers were going to rebel.
Show threadRodrigo CulagovskiJun 12, 2023
@davidgerard Twitter went to shit because it was bought by a 13 year old wannabe edgelord.
Show threadR. Leigh HennigJun 12, 2023
@culagovski @davidgerard Twitter was going to shit long before Musk took over, he just accelerated the process
Show threadRodrigo CulagovskiJun 12, 2023
@semioticstandard I dispute the idea that musk's twitter is just an 'acceleration' of an existing process. There's a qualitative difference wrt nazis, transphobes, antisemites, etc.
Show threadRichJun 12, 2023

@davidgerard Agreed, that's certainly a big part of it. In the investment due diligence world, we're seeing fewer deals and more scrutiny of existing portfolios' performance, sweating the assets and all that.

Money's still there, but appetite for risk is lower, so it's unsurprising that platforms from the "build a user-base and we'll figure the rest out later" era are finally under pressure to find revenue sources. [1/2]

Show threadRichJun 12, 2023

@davidgerard

The other shoe is dropping.

It's not the disaster for the VC world that some commentators are suggesting, but I suspect a lot of Valley investors are realising they should have spent a bit more time examining the competence of the teams they backed a while ago.

Anecdotally, it sounds like Reddit's management has been a shitshow for years - easy to brush it off when cash is cheap, not so much right now. [2/2]

Show threadBlue TysonJun 12, 2023
@davidgerard what happened to discord - don't use reddit, but that explained what happened when I saw a link to something on there earlier presumably - slashdot anyone?
Show threadAlex@rtnVFRmedia Suffolk UKJun 12, 2023
@bluetyson @davidgerard I'm not sure of big changes at Discord (other than removing some privacy safeguards), and I only occasionally use it as some younger friends do, but I noticed on my tablet the UI had been set into dark mode which I didn't do myself (making my friends community quite unreadable due to the custom colour scheme she uses) and for the second time I will need to ask my young friends *how do I work this bloody thing?* which makes me feel old, and thus less inclined to use it...
Show threadBlue TysonJun 12, 2023
@vfrmedia @davidgerard I don't use it much but I least I haven't been randomly darkmoded by the looks
Show threadLandrin201Jun 12, 2023
@bluetyson @davidgerard I'm not really sure what he's referring to there, I use discord regularly and haven't seen any issues. My friends and I have a big server that's all IRL friends in it, and it works great. I haven't really seen anything that makes me think of what reddit or Twitter are doing
Show threadDavid GerardJun 12, 2023
@Landrin201 @bluetyson it's getting slightly shakier at the user end, but they hired awful ex-Facebook execs, the employees are in near revolt and the org is hollowing out
Show threadLandrin201Jun 12, 2023
@davidgerard @bluetyson that is worrying, but we will have to see what happens.
Show threadEl DuvelleJun 12, 2023
@davidgerard what’s happening with Discord? 😳
Show threadMatthew (Moved to blahaj.zone)Jun 12, 2023
@elduvelle @davidgerard They changed the username system so instead of user#1111

The username would not have the discriminator and the username has to be unique meaning nobody can have the same username at all!

https://piunikaweb.com/2023/06/07/discords-new-username-system-gets-heavily-criticized/
Discord's new username system gets heavily criticized

Discord announced a new username system that has been heavily criticized by users. The petition for the return of discriminators is live.

PiunikaWeb
Show threadDavid GerardJun 12, 2023
@matty @elduvelle the reason: they hired ex Facebook fuckwits as execs https://archive.is/fI3hq
Show threadLandrin201Jun 12, 2023
@matty @davidgerard @elduvelle I personally don't really mind this change; since you can have nicknames in every server, I don't really care what my username is.
Show threadbenmcramerJun 13, 2023
@elduvelle @davidgerard I second this question, quality of sevice at discord seems to be pretty stable. They asked me to choose a unique username yesterday, but that seems like an increase in qol cause I dont need to remember my indentifier numbers any more…unless this is a precursor to some other change?
Show threadsub_oJun 12, 2023
@davidgerard what’s happening with discord? I’m completely out of loop. Also Twitch was just trying to screw over the content creators like a week ago. This will happen more with internet companies.
Show threadDavid GerardJun 12, 2023
@sub_o Discord is getting pushier and shittier to its users, and the reason turns out to be that they hired some ex-Facebook fuckheads https://archive.is/fI3hq
Show threadHolir_Jun 12, 2023
@davidgerard What's happening with discord? I think I missed that news.
Show threadmsgbiJun 12, 2023
@davidgerard @charles_ex
Show threadNoah CookJun 12, 2023

@davidgerard Bear with me here:

What if part of the problem is that we as a society have spent years denigrating "management" and especially "middle management" to the point that basicslly nobody wants to do the simple thankless day-to-day jobs that allow societies to function with less friction.

Those are the people you need to pay, either with money or prestige. You're honestly better off paying cash, otherwise you suffer a catastrophic logistical failure once the prestige is gone.

Show threadChristmas TreeJun 12, 2023
@davidgerard has something been happening with Discord recently? I'm out of the loop
Show threadwizdumJun 12, 2023
@davidgerard It seems like centralizing the internet into the hands of a few large American corporations, was a bad idea. Who could have guessed. All of the popular forums I used to frequent are gone now, as they migrated to Discord or Reddit because that is where the users are/were. Now decades of history and information is at risk of vanishing, because one person made a dumb decision.
Show threadcaseycblankenshipJun 12, 2023
@davidgerard damn, what happened to Discord? I assumed they ran on Nitro subs
Show threadBruno NicolettiJun 12, 2023
@davidgerard Profit maximising slow AIs gonna do what profit maximising slow AIs gotta do. They were always going to go this way, lack of cheap money just accelerated it.
Show threadCubeOfCheeseJun 12, 2023
@davidgerard what's happening with discord? I haven't been on there in a while
Show threadBig TentacleJun 12, 2023
@davidgerard extra points for “enshittification”
Show threadDavid GerardJun 12, 2023
@bigtentacle from @pluralistic https://pluralistic.net/2023/01/21/potemkin-ai/#hey-guys
Pluralistic: Tiktok’s enshittification (21 Jan 2023) – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow

Show threadaardvarkJun 13, 2023
@davidgerard I don’t need to be on an Uber-NextDoor. I’m happy to enjoy a few neighborhoods.
Show threadKevin Karhan Jun 15, 2023
@davidgerard #discord has always been shit from day 1!
Show threadMDKJun 15, 2023
@davidgerard yep I deleted my Bsky it’s just the same shit as Twitter but with an air of fake sophistication