Stop Talking to Each Other and Start Buying Things: Three Decades of Survival in the Desert of Social Media

Quexotic@beehaw.org to Technology@beehaw.org – 109 points – Stop Talking to Each Other and Start Buying Things: Three Decades of Survival in the Desert of Social Media
open.substack.com

This article from 2022 does a very good job of capturing the social media landscape and the condition of political discourse right now. It highlights one thing that I've been hearing a lot and agree with, the cruelty is the point.

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Beautiful article, perfectly articulates my feelings on this. Maybe Lemmy and the rest of the Fediverse can help us break the cycle.

Yeah. This cycle of advertisers infiltrating social media has to end.

^This^ ^comment^ ^brought^ ^to^ ^you^ ^by^ ^the^ ^refreshing^ ^taste^ ^of^ ^Coca-Cola™^

It's like, people only do things because they get paid. And that's just really sad.

I would disagree with the common assertion that that applies to everyone, but most people yeah.

Problem is, those that don't care about money and power usually don't accumulate those things and have little impact on discourse around them, leaving those who only care about money and power to grasp and maintain control over services that are important to shaping societal narratives: news, social media, politics (through lobbying), etc...

If someone with less shallow motivations does accumulate wealth and power it becomes a struggle to remain humble and not be influenced by said money and power.

No easy solutions here.

^Edit:^ ^Changed^ ^wording^ ^for^ ^clarity^