It’s honestly really sad what’s been happening recently. Reddit with the API pricing on 3rd party apps, Discord with the new username change, Twitter with the rate limits, and Twitch with their new advertising rules (although that has been reverted because of backlash). Why does it seem like every company is collectively on a common mission of destroying themselves in the past few months?
I know the common answer is something around the lines of “because companies only care about making money”, but I still don’t get why it seems like all these social media companies have suddenly agreed to screw themselves during pretty much the period of March-June. One that sticks out to me especially is Reddit CEO, Huffman’s comment (u/spez), “We’ll continue to be profit-driven until profits arrive”. Like reading this literally pisses me off on so many levels. I wouldn’t even have to understand the context behind his comment to say, “I am DONE with you, and I am leaving your site”.
Why is it like this? Does everyone feel the same way? I’m not sure if it’s just me but everything seems to be going downhill these days. I really do hope there is a solution out of this mess.
Silicon Valley is feeling the backlash of not being able to deliver on their promise. The entire sector has been funded off the promise of forever growth, inflated valuations based on easily manipulated numbers and the concept that tech is the future.
Which yeah, tech IS the future - but it's not the future because some sociopathic individuals are good at social engineering.
It's a panic. Musk never intended to buy Twitter but was essentially forced to... and has ego issues. So instead of allowing it to function and making edits to the business model (that was already failing) he has simply shown that he has no idea how to run a Social Media platform. So he tries to exert force on his userbase so that he can monetize them. Reddit's CEO sees this powerplay, and that a vast majority of Twitters userbase stuck around, and didn't immediately leave, and decided to play the bullish part as well. Twitch has always suffered operating at a loss, so I can only assume Daddy Amazon has forced them to start making bigger changes to make a profit finally. Discord... well Discord is still mostly in its infancy. It's not completely a dominating force in the industry and it knows it. That's way their changes come much more incrementally.
If it's one thing you'll notice about big tech, it's that they have always operated at a loss. They grew, and their services kept expanding because Venture Capital kept coming in at the promise of this future mythical profit. Their model was never sustainable though.
The number one lesson to learn from all this is that investments are just a game for the rich... and I'm going to be real, they're often just as stupid as your average moron.
Moving on to the ActivityPub protocol will be for the good of everyone. It's a bit of a return to the old net... We lose some convenience for the benefit of freedom.
So yeah, they'll continue to make stupid decisions and ruin their companies... but keep in mind that ActivityPub and the Fediverse isn't immune to these sociopaths. We may well see a well funded VC backed venture that uses the protocol.
We'll just have to see how this holds out.