There are some good points in this piece but some of the conclusions seem like downstream impacts of reduced density and not inherent functions in the apps themselves. As an example: FB's recommendation system was probably great when a ton of people were visiting, checking into, and rating restaurants nearby. Less people, specifically young people as they mentioned, are contributing to that system which makes it worse.
This also seems like a natural outcome of FB's (well-meaning?) intention of making a business's main website their FB page; this makes small, less technical business owners happy, but end users not-so-happy when the hours, phone number, etc aren't updated. To say nothing of the many aforementioned people that deleted Facebook and can't properly review a menu or the restaurant's posts because they don't have the app and aren't signed in.
If you see a recent TikTok titled "top 3 places I'd recommend to someone visiting my city," you know those places are open + what the vibe is like + the type of people that go there.
What's funny is that Instagram and TikTok are similarly inauthentic, but TT (seems to be) more choose-y about which creators they'll show you. Further, sponsored ad regulations haven't caught up with TT in the same way as YouTube, Instagram, and Twitter, secretly sponsored content is common but easy to spot. There are just as many influencers peddling ads on TikTok as Instagram. The positive user reaction is probably related to:
- format (you can only lie so much in a video)
- comments (if someone has their comments off you know something dramatic happened, also navigating comments on IG is a disaster)
- micro-influencer support
1. the format
2. it has a better, younger, denser, more curated pool of content creators
I agree that these are probably true points, but I'm not immediately convinced they're upstream of the feeling of "authenticity." It does seem interesting to me that that's something the "Surgers" called out
edit: formatting
google was a godsend for finding information...20 years ago. PageRank has been gamed to death, and now most content on Google is 50% ad roll, 25% SEO drivel, and 25% actually useful information.
I use Google to search reddit or stackoverflow to find what I need most of the time. When not doing that, I'm breaking out query operators to really dive in.
the kids are ALL ABOUT video, and all about authenticity. they're consuming and producing it all of the time. google wasn't built for that world.