One side-effect of the explosion of ChatGPT and other generative AI products is how much the search experience has deteriorated. When it launched, Google set itself apart by its clean and simple user interface – at a time when the web was oversaturated with pop-up ads. The latter now describes a typical Google search experience, with the first screen filled with sponsored links, followed by exhortations to purchase your search prompt at various stores, and ending with more advertised links. The clutter and lack of context appears to extend to other large networks. As Elon Musk shakes up Twitter, the site appears to be a shadow of its formerly relevant self, with irrelevant tweets popping up everywhere. The less said about Facebook the better, with Mark Zuckerberg trying to cram every possible social product and experience into his groaning app. As Meta tries to make Instagram look more like TikTok, loyal users including the Kardashians are campaigning for ‘Instagram to be like Instagram’. Young people tell me that even TikTok is losing its luster, and that even mighty Amazon is grappling with ads as it tries to counter the slump in its commerce business with ad revenue.
One feet Article by economist Tim Harford (bit.ly/3JaGRH9) tries to explain this phenomenon through an economic lens. Harford quotes author and activist Cory Doctorow, who summed up this tendency for all networks to eventually degrade and fall apart through one memorable term: ‘ashtification’. “Here’s how platforms die,” Doctorow wrote. In the context of social networks, they design the network for their end users first: clean interface, fast results, great connections. As user growth picks up, they feel investor pressure to ‘monetize’ these users. start up, and the business customers shift. Eric Schmidts and Sheryl Sandbergs then take over the reins of the business from the founders and ruthlessly go after pleasing business customers – either advertisers or sellers on the platform. Finally, as they become dominant networks, they also become equal-opportunity abusers of businesses and users.
There are two key factors to a successful network: network effects and switching costs. In the past, people use a network because that’s where they have friends. Most of us have tried to switch off WhatsApp to go to Telegram or Signal but came back because our friends are still on WhatsApp. Similarly, all sellers blindly go to Amazon because most of the buyers are there and vice versa. Switching costs add up to the hassle of rebuilding your social graph and preferences. Moving from Twitter to Mastodon or Koo means you’ll have to rebuild your circle of friends. Moving away from Amazon means leaving your e-books locked in that platform. You may have also experienced the costs of switching operating systems – from Android to iOS, or Mac to Windows – and the sheer drudgery and annoyance.
Doctorow talks about how these switching costs are “weaponized,” with social networks intentionally creating frustrating hoops you have to jump through to get away. He explains this through a fascinating story called ‘Unauthorized Bread’ which features a proprietary toaster that only accepts bread from certified bakers!
These weapons lead directly to the ‘acetification’ we are seeing in the network today. Successful networks take huge losses while subsidizing their growing user base and even suppliers. When they have a critical mass, they monetize it at the cost of their user experience. Economists have proposed interoperability as an antidote to this toxic behavior. We should ideally be able to send messages from Facebook to Twitter, have a way to transport our social graph with us when we move from one social network to another, or take e-mail with us when we move out. Must be able to carry books. Amazon.
For a while, the Web3 philosophy represented a light at the end of that tunnel, offering decentralized games that let you take your virtual weapon (and rank credentials) with you when you moved to another game. Let’s go While it may sound strange, Harford argues that it works in the real world: Coffee shops, restaurants or local taxis don’t serve you badly because they know you’re out with your money and your appetite. Can go somewhere else. The same must happen in social networks – before they descend into a rotten monopolistic quagmire.
Jaspreet Bindra is a technology expert, author of ‘The Tech Whisperer’, and is currently pursuing his Masters in AI and Ethics from the University of Cambridge.
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