In short: works for people already breaking out of the mainstream bubble. Not for regular users.
In long:
That’s not really how modern mainstream social network operate. There’s always a feed of recommendations based on the “interests” of the user. That’s how normal people navigate through the social network. That’s how the social media bubbles are created. If you control the feeds, you control what people are seeing. If you control what people are seeing you control what they believe.
That control mechanism does not work for everyone. For some it works partially or by transitive effects like parents or friends that influence the person.
The network effect is also an interesting topic. That prevents people from fluidly switching social media networks. Or messengers. It is uncomfortable if you have to use more than one platform to connect with your friends. So you switch to the platform that everyone around you uses. Look at discord right now. Almost everyone hates the current age verification plans an policy. Will discord loose some users? Sure. Will the platform die? Not in the next 3-4 years.
There is a reason that the world is like it is. The interesting part is that there is no physical barrier, no lack of resources or anything that prevents people from asking their social network, which would change their fate. It’s just momentum and inertia.
And the social media is controlled by who?
Not to the extend that people can’t tell their direct followers to join a channel on Lemmy which could do the main lifting.
In short: works for people already breaking out of the mainstream bubble. Not for regular users.
In long: That’s not really how modern mainstream social network operate. There’s always a feed of recommendations based on the “interests” of the user. That’s how normal people navigate through the social network. That’s how the social media bubbles are created. If you control the feeds, you control what people are seeing. If you control what people are seeing you control what they believe.
That control mechanism does not work for everyone. For some it works partially or by transitive effects like parents or friends that influence the person.
The network effect is also an interesting topic. That prevents people from fluidly switching social media networks. Or messengers. It is uncomfortable if you have to use more than one platform to connect with your friends. So you switch to the platform that everyone around you uses. Look at discord right now. Almost everyone hates the current age verification plans an policy. Will discord loose some users? Sure. Will the platform die? Not in the next 3-4 years.
There is a reason that the world is like it is. The interesting part is that there is no physical barrier, no lack of resources or anything that prevents people from asking their social network, which would change their fate. It’s just momentum and inertia.