This comes after $8.03 billion from a one-time tax benefit tied to the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which promised to “create jobs”
Stop using Big Tech’s products. Support smaller businesses
As always, you can check out the community’s pinned post to get started: https://lemmy.world/post/40065381
I have no idea what it’s going to take to get people to stop using Meta products, every time I mention something which I feel is pretty egregious that they’ve done the person I’m talking to kind of just blows it off, like using Facebook is just a fact of life we have to deal with. No, it’s not
Meta products are filled with bots.
My theory is mark knows this because he said the quiet part out loud and wanted AI profiles that they create to drive up engagement.
They know a large mass of their user base is bots but they don’t want to get rid of them because it inflates their numbers and that makes it look more attractive to investors and people paying to have ads.
addiction. hence the reply you got on
but what’s the alternative?
people can’t live without this trash for some dumb reason… it’s addiction, and they aren’t directly affected, well… they are but they dont ‘feel’ the effects.
This is a great point. I’ve been stressed over the year or so I’ve gotten into “degoogle” and stuff because finding an alternative isn’t easy or available. But slowly I started thinking, why do I need an alternative? Just give me back by BB Bold with a browser, clock, calculator, calendar, notes, phone, and some email/texting. We don’t need all this social media.
I suppose, as a life long drug user and ex alcoholic I suppose it’s a bit difficult for me to imagine being addicted to an app like that, but if it’s providing a dopamine hit every time or something like that, it’s all the same in the brain
What’s the alternative?
Even for WhatsApp, which is less unique than Facetagram, it all seems to be big tech. And no, I’m not hosting WhatsApp equivalent for my extended family. I’ve got no time!
One huge problem is how Facebook marketplace dominates that space. Craigslist is useless now because nobody uses it.
This is a big one for me, idk if its Canadian only but I try to still use Kijiji but its dying and everyone uses FB marketplace and I hate it. Its so bad and unregulated and just deals dont feel good there.
We need a new alternative marketplace app.
I would rather pay retail for new cart parts than log into Facebook to try to buy used ones.
I’ve also been using Karrot in Canada. It’s Kijiji but their app feels much more modern. But this has pretty much meant I post thing on both.
Its funny I saw ads for Karrot on FB … So I assumed it was worse. I’ll give it a try
You can still find some great stuff there because everyone is using marketplace. The one great thing about marketplace is that facebook is evil so they know who you are. It’s false advertising though, facebook doesn’t give a shit if you get murdered or not.
Signal is a pretty good alternative. It took me a year or so to convince all the people i want to talk with, to make the move. But totally worth it.
have you guys encountered problems with notifications not working?
It happened when i was using it on Lineage, but no problem on android. Did you check the permissions?
I’ll recommend that if it happens again. Unfortunately one of my contacts is a boomer that’s very far, but it happened to my wife recently.
Yes, that’s the one that comes to mind, but like you say it’s a bit of a challenge getting people over.
Plus it needs a phone #, I think? My kids don’t have a phone number. And it’s still American…
You do need a phone number, and it is indeed american, even though it’s a non profit and they never did anything sketchy as far as i know.
If you want something private, without phone number, EU based and easy to install and use, then Olvid is for you. Remains the problem to bring people over, but you can keep using whatsapp in the same time until everybody you care about migrates.
Whatsapp is really hard to migrate off of … not because of its features. There’s hardly anything special there (at least in my usage). It’s mostly about who it allows you to connect with.
I’ve cut off Facebook and my Oculus Quest 1 sits in the dust (I bought it before it was acquired by Facebook) … I don’t use Instagram or Threads.
My usual advice is to start on all the products that aren’t social media first - browser, search and email specifically.
Regarding WA, there is birdy.chat that lets you slowly migrate off of WA by using a compatible client. That said, they recently pivoted toward a more business-focused approach, which is disappointing.
Email, sms, signal, telephone, in person, just existing quietly without a feed for a while…
I wish I could say, I’ve been masquerading as an introvert due to my depression and dysphoria for a lot of years so I haven’t used a lot of their stuff. I never used any of those things to begin with so it’s easy for me not to use them I guess
https://lemmy.world/post/40065381
The alternative answer is in the post
I have most of my friends chats and a shitton of channels in Telegram, all the features are there and it’s at least not Meta.
(It usually happens when tg is mentioned, but please don’t start the “it doesn’t have encryption by default, Signal has” - I know, it’s just high security is not in the top of my priorities:) )From what I’ve heard of telegram, I’d rather be on WhatsApp’s shady not-really-E2E system.
What have you heard? I’ve heard a lot about Meta, so thanks no WhatsApp, and it’s hard to get any worse
why does there need to be an alternative…
Meta? Fuck, I’m still bitching at people to get out of microsoft.
Feels like telling them to quit huffing paint.
I had to install W10 on a laptop to use some specific software the other day and the default install now looks like it was designed by a day trader, I can’t imagine what 11 looks like
there is no connection between company profits and job cuts. idk why people seem to think “surely if the company makes lots of money, they can afford to pay a few employees”. that’s not the point. companies inherently have no interest in “paying a few employees”. if the company thinks it can save $1M on employees who generate $800k in profit, it will always let them go.
If every employee earns 250k/y, thata 22k employees a year. Holy cow
They had to stay competitive and all those low hanging fruit were dragging them down!
Zuck is a bastard.
At work, I’m surrounded by degreed people. And their downtime is often spent watching TikTok and other various shorts, some of which are Facebook Reels.
I think there’s 3? of us who read books instead.
Don’t underestimate the addiction factor in play here.
i decided to stop using my phone so much and to start reading instead. it was more difficult than i thought it would be because my focus ability was completely shot, lol. my mind would start to wander after a few seconds.
now that i’m on the other side, reading a good book makes me feel the way it did when i was a kid. anytime I had a spare minute i was reading a book. i hope that more people wake up to their phone/dopamine addiction and make the decision to change.
And yet here we are on Lemmy. It’s the same addiction just without the corporate control.
40 years ago it was BBS’s and fidoNet.
Yea, but I rationalize it in that there are real people on the other side. Not an ad-adjacent short created to serve an artificial engagement algorithm ( by AI or otherwise ) that isn’t actively engaging anyone. There’s trickery there, to make it seem so, but it’s not. It’s passive and layered.
I assume you have a life, a job. Maybe you’re drinking your coffee right now and looking out at your trees too. And we’re discussing random life shit, as people do.
People. Not an algorithm. Not AI. Or so I tell myself.
this place is turning in to reddit.
i check lemmy maybe two or three times a day in 3 or 4 minute increments just to browse the headlines. the time i spend reading or off my phone in general is several hours per day.
Social media garbage and engagement chum still leaks in here, too. People simply cannot help themselves.
But it’s made me check Lemmy less. I didn’t come here to see Blue Checkmarks on the front page.
The difference here is that it doesn’t reward engagement. The reward is the engagement.
But still, it’s funneling in content where the premise is gaming the system for engagement. It brings all that toxicity here, even if it doesn’t directly affect the original source on Twitter or wherever.
A great example is this, #5 on Lemmy.world’s front page for me:
https://lemmy.world/post/48552575
And it’s from a freaking Tech Bro. A straight up engagement farmer, if not bot written itself. Is the irony not obvious?
Why are you blaming the people being used rather than the shitbags using the people ?
Or are you speaking of the addictive qualities of money and power uncoupled by compassion and empathy ?
I’m speaking of the intentionally addictive nature of social media and the short.
Addictions can consume anyone, even the educated. Though unless it’s food, going cold turkey is always a possibility.
We all still have choices. In terms of dopamine, those dopamine hits are available elsewhere. Shorts aren’t the only source.
Feels like watching ads to me. But I’m old, so I know what an ad break (usually 3-4 ads in a row, unskippable) on tv felt like. It’s almost the same head feel watching TikTok’s as those ad breaks from back in the day.
I’m not sure why you’re angry at me about shorts. I didn’t create the advertisement adjacent format, nor do I encourage its consumption. Pointing it out is like saying: Look! Sky! Blue!
Dirt
