Yikes.
Meh, not really tho, it’s more like forums, instances/forums will never be as big as centralized websites for social media.
Cake is bread but no one is making a ham and cheese with it.
Lemmy and Reddit the individual user is just that, an individual. But on these other ones, you are encouraged to be a brand. Hell, it’s almost expected. And they are just platforms of false affirmation because it’s only positive reactions.
So whole yes, this does fall under social media in a broad sense, I would argue it’s in a very different category.
Yes, and I’d also argue that we don’t “need” it. It’s certainly a good tool you can build to suit your needs/wants like news, funny stuff, etc, but we can also go without. The big difference between social media really is whether you are the product or not.
I get what you’re saying but it’s not really an impactful argument. We don’t really “need” most things (except food and water, etc.) but that doesn’t mean they have no value or don’t bring us enjoyment. Sure, we don’t “need” social media, and you could probably make a case that the good outweighs the bad, but that doesn’t mean that it has no value or shouldn’t exist. I have a lot of concerns about privacy and there’s a lot about social media in general that I think is problematic, but I also get a lot of use out of it and there are definitely benefits to using it.
