Comment on I was on social media before web browsers existed. I am Legion.
thewebroach@lemmy.world 2 days ago
23715769
Social media used to be about socializing and communicating. These days its all drivel that has bren productized into a vehicle where streaming addictive brain rot keeps the advertisements flowing and lowers self esteem.
Gen Z may have adopted the internet but it was born of us- AIM, yahoo messenger, ICQ, IRC servers, news groups… all on a dial-up modem. The good old days where there wasnt enough bandwidth for all the ads of today, and the most intrusive ads were a 468x60 pixel banner at the top or bottom of the netscape page
purplemonkeymad@programming.dev 2 days ago
I feel like those platform ideas came initially from people who wanted to build something cool. Something people would use. The ads were a side effect of being part of the tech company.
Now I feel they are built because it’s a way to show ads or harvest data.
suicidaleggroll@lemmy.world 2 days ago
Exactly, the priorities have flipped. It used to be that ads were a necessary evil to fund the development and hosting costs for the service you actually care about and want to provide. Now it seems like the service is the necessary evil that’s only there to justify selling ad space.