That is because corporations took over the internet. Those chatrooms you mention were created by a hobbyist with no expectation to earn a living from it. Just wanting to make a fun experience for people.
this post was submitted on 02 Jun 2026
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Asklemmy
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This ^^ everything is just about selling you stuff now. And bots killed it too
because "social media" is the corporate buzzword for when people are not primarily consumers but product
Im with you. And i think social media didnt stop being social by accident. Once a platform becomes expected to grow forever:
- People stop being the product's purpose and become a resource to extract value from
- Communities become audiences
- Conversations become content
- Hobbies become enshittified engagement metrics
Id argue that the internet didnt suddenly forget how to be social, but that it was purposfully optimized not to be.
Welcome back to that place.
if it's possible to make money out of your hobby, capitalism will always be there to enshitify it and that's how you know you can trust lemmy since there's no money to be made out of leftism.
Well to clarify what you are talking about is not social media. Chatrooms are not social media. Also not of that stuff went away. IRC is still a thng. You have Instant Messaging with stuff like signal or matrix. All these are communication platforms. Social media is about status or with a few producers (influencers) and a bunch of consumers(followers). The biggest lie told by social media companies was it was a reflection of reality where its more inline with reality TV. Edited in such a way to invoked an emotional response from the audience for profit.
i mean yes that makes sense, but you get what i was talking abt
For the last 11 years.