Algorithms and Creative Destruction
I will probably not quit Facebook or Instagram for the time being, because my friends have really cute kids and dogs. But I am avoiding posting things that I consider valuable in any way. Twitter used to be a charming pub-like atmosphere where I made genuine friends, it is now a toxic cesspool. And that’s on a good day. I like to see how people’s jobs have evolved on LInkedIn, but the postings in my feed bear no resemblance to my stated interests.
Social media are not our friends anymore. They have become a necessary evil for businesses, schools, and even humans. Your work unit has an Instagram because it feels like it must. Your university has a Facebook presence because… well, I’m not sure why.
These sites had original visions. Connect people. Stay in touch more easily. These visions have been overtaken by advertising as their sole driver. Sure, these publishers bury posts based on subject matter or politics. But the publishing behemoths don’t just manipulate the traffic of news or large businesses; they also bury little things of much smaller consequence posted by individual humans. To wit:
I made a goofy quarantine song in May and posted it to YouTube. I posted the YouTube link to Facebook—6 impressions. SIX. I’m not a great musician, but jeez. A couple days later, I uploaded the video directly to Facebook at the same time of day—hundreds of impressions, scores of likes and comments. I wrote a blog post calling for Adobe to address student licensing problems during the COVID-19 crisis. Posting that link to LinkedIn—crickets. Reposting the text as a “LinkedIn Article”? All of a sudden there are replies and responses. I’m not a pundit, I’m not a media conglomerate, I’m not a brand. I’m just a person, and the sum of all mere people is the source of the real power of these publishers.
“All of these sites were designed to get us to put our content on their platforms, raise the psychological cost of leaving the platform, and then sell ads against our content.”
This is not new information: each of these social publishers wants every one of us, no matter the length of our reach, to a.) use their sites as the repository for what we create, and b.) pay those publishers advertising dollars to “boost” our content to “allow” other people see them. This was not the value proposition when we all signed up. Google purported to “organize the world’s information” under the rule of “don’t be evil.” YouTube was an idea to democratize video distribution. Twitter. Medium. Facebook/Instagram. All of these sites were designed to get us to put our content on their platforms, raise the psychological cost of leaving the platform, and then sell ads against our content.
Wherever we can, each of us who creates content needs to reclaim that content and truly own it. I have deleted my LinkedIn articles. I downloaded my entire history of Facebook posts so I can pick and choose which parts to enshrine here on my own site.
We gave the titans the power that they now wield. Schumpeter wisely observed that designs that begin as innovative tend toward monopoly, and that those monopolies tend to dissolve unless the state intervenes to prop them up. We’ve seen these very titans requesting some oversight and regulation. They are not foolish—if we somehow turn these companies into the equivalent of common carriers, the natural process of creative destruction will be forestalled and their monopolies will be enshrined for decades instead of merely years.
But beyond that—we must make our own spaces. Visit and share those spaces. Diversify. Turn away from internet monoculture. Escape the algorithm to accelerate the process of evolution and creative destruction of these publishers before they are enshrined by the state.