this post was submitted on 12 Jul 2026
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580
The Death of the Status Update: Why 55% of Americans Stopped Posting on Social Media (ca.pcmag.com)
submitted 1 day ago by stumu415@lemmy.zip to c/technology@lemmy.world
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[–] reddig33@lemmy.world 111 points 1 day ago (1 children)

See also the privacy-invading aggressiveness of most platforms, and the political ads and propaganda inundating people’s feeds. If social media had just remained a way to keep in touch with friends and post pictures, it would probably have remained popular.

[–] Supamanc@sopuli.xyz 1 points 22 hours ago (2 children)

But unprofitable

[–] Zombie@feddit.uk 33 points 22 hours ago (1 children)

No, just not as profitable.

They could have had guaranteed medium long term return, if they played nice. But now there's backlash against both the brands and even the very concept of that form of social media.

So they've had high short term gain that could all come collapsing down relatively soon.

[–] Supamanc@sopuli.xyz 4 points 21 hours ago (1 children)

I thought all of the social medias were bleeding money until they had the customer base locked down enough to exploit with all of the aforementioned shit?

[–] Zombie@feddit.uk 20 points 21 hours ago (1 children)

Bleeding money expanding as fast as they could so nobody else got there first.

Huge capital investment to capture the market, and as you rightly put it, exploit with all of the aforementioned shit.

But that doesn't mean they had to go down that route. Income via vaguely targeted advertising has been a standard practice for decades by newspapers, radio stations, and TV channels. They could have improved upon that old model without turning to the evil manipulators and spyware companies they are now.

Take, for example, DuckDuckGo, this is their model:

It is a myth that search engines need to track you to make money. The majority of our revenue is from private ads on our search engine. On most other search engines, ads are based on profiles compiled from your personal information, such as search, browsing, and purchase history. Since we don’t have that information per our Privacy Policy, search ads on DuckDuckGo are based on the search results page you’re viewing instead of being based on who other companies and their tracking algorithms assume you are as a person. For example, if you search for cars, we’ll show you ads about cars. We’ve even created a way to show localized ads while still keeping you completely anonymous.

https://duckduckgo.com/duckduckgo-help-pages/company/how-duckduckgo-makes-money

[–] Dpek@lemmy.zip 2 points 10 hours ago

Reminds me of royal road

Think about people asking for a feature to view ad history (what ads they have been served)

And at least some being willing to pay for such a feature

[–] EowynCarter@lemmy.world 2 points 15 hours ago

How long can you be profitable if users are leaving though?