Comment on Welcome to the Age of Paid Social Media
FigMcLargeHuge@sh.itjust.works 8 months ago
Last line of the article: “Just like choosing not to ride on airplanes isn’t really an option, for many, using social media isn’t much of a choice either.”
Holy crap. We have reached that point. As someone with no social media, it just amazes me how people have let these apps become ingrained in their lives. Sad in my opinion.
Last line of the article: “Just like choosing not to ride on airplanes isn’t really an option, for many, using social media isn’t much of a choice either.”
That, and not only is not riding on an airplans an option for a lot of people, its their reality for a lot of people and out of reach financially. Way to be completely out of touch, Gizmodo. Couldn’t have used a worse example lol.
I think it’s referring to flights required (and paid) by your job. When a job of mine required me to be in Brussels in two days, I couldn’t tell them that I‘m hitchhiking there for the next month instead.
Depending on where you are and where you're going, an airplane ride isn't that expensive. Just a matter of why you need to do so, and if you're willing to put up with budget airline issues. Oh and I guess the carbon footprint.
Dunno your financial situation, but a lot of people are having a hell of a time affording groceries, gas, rent, and utility bills, let alone a plane trip or even a vacation right now. And as for the carbon footprint, typically flying is more carbon friendly than driving somewhere at scale (a plane with ~100 people as opposed to ~50-100 cars on the road).
Here in Ireland, it’s often faster to go to the hospital emergency department by hopping on a flight to Belgium or Germany than to drive to a Dublin hospital. Before Covid, it used to be cheaper as well.
Wow, that I didn't know. What happened to Irish healthcare?
I think you’re misreading it. In the same way as there are people that need to ride on planes (for example for their job, or to move to where they have a job, etc), there are people that need to use social media.
For example, if you own an online store you really need to have a social media presence. Same if you are an artist, and live off of commissions. I’m sure there are plenty more examples.
Also, Facebook groups are now how most extracurriculars are handled in schools, so if you have kids and you want to be involved in their activities you don’t have much of an option.
I think the author might be referring to businesses who use social media to reach and connect with customers, however if your customers don’t see a value in paying for social media they won’t use it and it won’t be that necessary for those small and medium businesses.
Yeah that’s one of the stupidest comparisons that they could make. Transportation is a necessity, sharing what you’re doing to the entire world isn’t a necessity. I’m 37 and grew up with MySpace and I was part of Facebook back when it was still The Facebook and was only open to 4 years universities (I got in about 2 years after I was created).
I wouldn’t give two shits if every social media company was destroyed tomorrow, including Lemmy and Reddit. They’re just time killers to me.
I never scroll my facebook wall, but in my country people use fb messenger instead of whatsapp to communicate with each other, so I’m stuck with it as a communication tool. Also, most of birthday/event invited come with a facebook event, so I would also miss those.
It’s just so integrated in to a lot of people’s lives, that it would be hard to remove individually.
I am going to say this, and it’s because this is such a cliche’ response to me at this point, but I call bullshit. People making these excuses are laughable to me now with this. You aren’t talking about scaling Mt. Everest levels of effort here. Everyone you are communicating with has a phone number, and you could take the time to call them if you wanted to communicate with them, use text messaging, or email. As for the birthdays and events, go to the dollar store, or an equivalent and buy a calendar. They sell them with cute pics, or funny quotes, or whatever. Then mark the dates down. It’s fucking comical to me now how people act about getting rid of facebook. If facebook was waking up every morning and driving you to work, then yeah, it might be hard, but come on people… I feel like I am watching a b movie where everyone has been put in a trance and is just walking around mindlessly all saying the same mantra. “It’s too hard. Can’t break free.” And none of this has even touched on privacy, of which there is none on facebook. People spouting this are just willing to give up any shred of privacy for some minor convenience and it’s frustrating to watch.
It's beyond sad. And what's even sadder is the junkie excuses people come up with to convince themselves that their use of corporate social media is justified and healthy. Just read a few of the replies to your post here. The one about asking for a woman's Instagram made me laugh out loud. It's so profoundly pathetic.
I mean they’re probably taking about Shitfluencers and the people who’s careers she strictly online outreach based (YouTube)
If that’s how you connect with a certain community it’s not a serious option to stop using that kind of social media without solving the collective action problem of getting that whole community to switch.
I’m over here on lemmy giving it a go, but it is a real challenge.
Blizzard@lemmy.zip 8 months ago
Doesn’t Lemmy qualify? Well, it’s definitely not paid.
FigMcLargeHuge@sh.itjust.works 8 months ago
Depends. Everyone claims they are on social media platforms to stay in touch with family and friends. I know no one on here and am fine with the anonymity. So it’s up to you if you count this.
rikudou@lemmings.world 8 months ago
I personally never counted Reddit and am not counting Lemmy as a social media. Both Reddit and Lemmy are just a really huge forum which contains many subforums.
MxM111@kbin.social 8 months ago
Forums are social media though.
illi@lemm.ee 8 months ago
This is how I see it as well. Though Reddit ws certainly trying to become social medium I feel - which was one of the reasons that helped me leave
ericisshort@lemmy.world 8 months ago
But you are still socializing with us despite not knowing our real names, so this and Reddit would definitely qualify as social platforms. Twitter was also mostly anonymous for its 16 years prior to Elon, and it is definitely always been considered social media.
MxM111@kbin.social 8 months ago
Addiction has many forms.
uis@lemmy.world 8 months ago
Matrix then?
Alto@kbin.social 8 months ago
In tbe strict sense, probably. In what most people would call social media, probably not.