Why does everything seem like clickbait?
Things are going downhill far too quickly. Attention grabbing headlines and no useful content from articles rule the internet.
It makes no sense.
I cannot understand if this is due to AI, corporate greed, propaganda, or a mixture of all of the above.
I love exploring new and creative content. It brings me such great joy to learn new things.
Recently I've felt that I've been backed into a corner on every platform/service that I use and can't get out of getting the same spoon-fed content they think I'll like rather than allowing me to actually discover something fun and new.
Simple. Companies don't get money from you reading the title.
Honestly, when you feel like you've consumed enough, it's time to get offline. Find your hobby, go for a walk, cook something good, go to a museum or a planetarium or a national park, live your life in real time.
It has this power because we give it this power. The second we step away, its hold weakens. Stepping away more often is difficult, but a good and necessary change.
I agree with this completely. It's essential to step outside, enjoy time with friends, and disconnect for a bit so as to not go too far down the rabbit hole.
I wonder if it's because people are starting to see the commercialisation of every waking moment as normal. My hobby forums, which have mostly been a safe space from all this, are starting to see an increasing number of people trying to monetize the fun.
You make an interesting point, and I can see it a little across many hobby sectors...
Sports was about cheering your home team, waving colours and fawning for your favourite star players or rookies, now the gambling and betting aspect is pushed front and center to the point that you can't go to any game or broadcast without hearing about it.
Crypto and NFT bullshit came and went through a number of industries.
Etsy (not that this is necessarily bad) has people spending more effort in selling their hobby because it's easier to do than ever.
Hobbies involving collecting things other than bullion, coins and beanie babies has had more focus on the monetary value or rarity rather than design.
Add scalpers to the mix buying up anything expected to be limited in order to make a quick buck. More and more it's about the money part and less the fun part...
SEO and the attention economy are the main drivers of clickbait that are increasingly pervasive in our lives.
Since we don't like to pay for stuff, advertisers are competing over our limited headspace, to get us just to think about them enough to spend money (preferably in a recurring manner so that you forget you're paying when your attention is driven elsewhere).
I dunno how you made it here to Lemmy, but I'd consider it a step towards searching and contributing to communities and their contents that are user driven instead of advertiser driven, and finding things that you are interested in rather than being force-fed to you. This is how I like to use the internet, anyway. Maybe I'm getting o l d.
I try to contribute when I can. I miss organic feedback and interaction.
I'm sorry if it feels contrived. In my opinion it's like a combustion engine that needs to be primed, you need some activity, even if mostly from power users or people posting for the sake of it to get things going...
Even Reddit started out with company employees pretend to be random people posting and commenting with each other, what we have is way more organic than that, at least.
*As someone correctly points out, maybe taking a break from being online all the time can help you better connect with the world around you, if you find yourself frustrated and bitter.
You wrote you like new and creative content. How do you like this?
People's attention has become one of the most valuable commodities on Earth. If someone is looking at your thing, that means you can sell them stuff, influence their views, and entice them to look at more of your stuff. That's why companies are constantly clamouring with psychological trickery to get you to give them your attention in the first place.
Because it is.
Sure, but are you willing to pay for it?
If not, this is just a popular form of choosing beggars.
I'll pay my dues and sit though ad breaks. That being said, I loathe the current model of being endlessly tracked. There's a firm line in the sand for me between collecting anonymous user data and direct user data collection.
You could explore RSS feeds as a way to consume content. It's more work for you up front but will be worth it. Feedly is very popular. I like feedbin but pay for it.
Corporate greed! Algorithms essentially decide everything now and if you want to make money you have to appease the algorithm.
Google is useless now. Everything is some clickbait AI blog. I use metafilter.com, the weblog, which at least is an organic selection of interesting content.
corporate sites make money by selling your info to advertisers and data brokers. Their goal is to keep you on the site and clicking links. Youtubers make money by people waiting their stuff; they are incentivized to clickbait for watches, some channels are very effective at this. I don't know that you will fall into interesting things as there is no incentive in the algorithm for it. You have to seek it out, forums, small sites, blogs, small communities or instances here...
Clicks = More money
More Money is always the goal of any company and most individuals
People don’t click if there isn’t clickbait. It’s been well proven on YouTube
Beyond the emotions which are stoked from these practices, we are seeing technology help refine these practices for business purposes at a rate never seen before.
It can really tilt the table to one's favor quickly. We are seeing these refinements in investing, markets, and pricing practices too.
It will be interesting to see how it continues as the efficiencies are squeezed out of these processes and what is left after.
It's because of marketing & blogging "gurus" giving advice like this: https://copyblogger.com/10-sure-fire-headline-formulas-that-work/
The goal is for you to... click the headline when you see it in Google search results or elsewhere, so that they can then convert your visit to ad revenue when you see their ads and/or click on them or even buy stuff through their affiliate links (mostly the case when they link you to a product on Amazon) in which case they'll earn a commission.
This one WEIRD trick will get you to UPVOTE my comment!
It’s the algorithm that rewards 10sec engagement. An enraging title is enough for clicks, which means ads.
Because everyone wants your attention. Whoever gets the attention gets the advertising money
Clickbait works, and that's all there is to it. People click on clickbait, so the algorithms promote clickbait, and subsequently the authors need to use clickbait or their content won't be visible. Counter it by finding people with integrity and good content to follow, regardless of whether or not they use clickbait to keep pace with the algorithms.
It sadly could never not be a mix of the three. I tend to gravitate to local news and wonder how different things would be if news was federated like Lemmy where national news was a federation of local news studios. At least in ancient times people sung the news and one couldn't deny they got something from it.
I've been using all the tools I can find to proper curate shit.
block youtube channels that are notorious for click-bait titles.
block blog/news sites from my feeds that also do this.