Stay niche

The quality of a social network (or a community more generally) tends to decline as it grows to encompass a larger portion of the general public. This is because the network starts to reflect the “median” of the human condition, which is typically of average quality. The median represents the orthodox, mundane, and conventional aspects of society.

In contrast, progress occurs among the outliers. Humanity could not have been progressing towards betterment without the at-that-point-in-time fringe-heterodox thinking normally associated with creativity.

This explains why social media was captivating in its early years but has become increasingly restrictive and of average quality over time, largely due to censorship.

Decentralization

The core problem here is the monolithic nature of these social networks, not their size per se. One solution is decentralization, ¹ making it impossible for there to be a large monolithic network thus discouraging any form of universal group-think, for there will be no such universal group.

It is time we humans (i.e., each of us individuals) let go of the idea of “humanity” (i.e., as a “group”); decentralized social networks today have a fantastic opportunity to play their technological role in it.

Decentralized networks to look forward to:

• Matrix: https://arewep2pyet.com/
• Nostr

See also

• Similar ideas
  • Geeks, MOPs, and sociopaths in subculture evolution
  • The internet wants to be fragmented
  • Sriram: Group chats rule the world “Every good group chat has an inverse relationship with size. It is impossible to add new members forever without decreasing quality. Over time, the group decays in quality and I often find groups with >100 members unsustainable. Far below Dunbar’s number, it breaks some human model of intimacy.”
    • https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40660867
• Big Tech censorship likely brought forward decentralized tech
• Social networks: It’s worse than you think - “as the number of messages in the network rises, the quality of those which propagate falls” (interpreting this research)
• What happened to Monica Cellio is worth reading (here’s a timeline) to understand some of the fallings at Stack Exchange as the network grew beyond its original niche.
• Why Is the Web So Monotonous? Google. - degradation of the web from the perspective of boosting of “authorative” source (as a way of soft-censoring others).

• As a mission-driven startup, you win by converting a core group of true believers, not by trying to persuade the whole world. Trying to be universally liked would not only bankrupt you but would require becoming unrecognizably milquetoast and watering down your mission to the point of meaninglessness. If you’re pleasing everybody, something is wrong.

  There is a trade-off between how many people you can appeal to and how deep an impression you can make on them. A message like “Be yourself” will be appealing in a bland, forgettable way to pretty much everyone. On the other hand, “Get in loser, we’re building armed drones” will totally alienate all but a small number of people — but those will be your people, and to them you’ll be irresistible.

  Choosing your audience means choosing who you’re not talking to. Never contort your mission to appease nay-sayers, fence-sitters, and Johnny-come-latelies. They are not your people. – https://www.piratewires.com/p/anduril-comms-strategy-early-days https://twitter.com/sriramk/status/1750558683166093638

• Tyler Cowen: “I try to stay a bit weird and obscure enough that mostly quite smart people are writing me. If I had too many not smart emails I would feel that I was doing something else wrong with what I’m writing.”