6.c1 Social Media Search is Terrible

Have you ever tried searching for something on social media? It sucks. It’s the worst. It is not something that the people who care about social media platforms think is valuable.

The social internet isn’t meant to be searched. It’s meant to be 6.a content, and content is defined by a profit motive. To be able to reliably find things in a social media platform is to, tacitly, exercise some ownership of the content you're looking for. And it doesn't belong to you, no matter how many times you post on your Facebook that you “don’t give them permission” to use it.

I think that the lack of useful search functionality creates the feeling of a digital steam (see 20220412110418-Of-Digital-Streams,-Campfires-and-Gardens) which creates some knock on effects that we’re seeing borne out now.

1. People feel unreal and impersonal because you’ll never see them again.
2. The sense of consequence that people feel about having their things accessible “forever” on the internet becomes subverted; When everyone is super, no one is
3. People feel trapped because they feel like they can’t easily access or move their stuff
4. 6.c1a We are conditioned for novelty and that is able to be exploited.

Crossings

X:: 6.d Digital platforms' rigidity is a feature, not a bug