The feed is dying. The reverse-chronological social media feed — the way you’ve read Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, and blogs (which is to say, the internet) at various points over the last decade, updates organized according to the time they were posted, refreshed at the top of the screen — no longer really makes sense. The unfiltered informational cascade that defined the internet of the 2010s is going the way of the front-page-style web portal: It’s an outdated way of processing online information. The way we consume social media is being transformed and tinkered with as Silicon Valley tries to wring as much engagement, attention, and money out of it as possible. The feed is dying, and we feel shocked by its death — but we shouldn’t.
Chances are, if you get all of your news on Facebook, you only saw this article linked if you like, comment, follow, friend (not just one but all 4 of these) someone or something that talks about new media, journalism or trends in information sharing. If you are not into those sort of things and don’t engage with them, you didn’t see it.
That’s the future. Some of us opt into streams that we truly care about. We might be lurkers and never engage with them beyond a click but that’s not good enough anymore. You have to engage with a brand (or person’s) content if you want to continue seeing it. You could have a thousand friends and only see content from 100 of them. Facebook and soon others look at this as a way to simplify your life. Most people don’t have all day to see every Instagram photo from 500 people they follow. It’s only a fine line between being what’s best for the user and what’s best for the advertiser. Soon, the topics that have the highest CPM will be the topics you’re shown and therefore will turn into what ads you see next to that content.
It’s really sad what’s happening in the media land. Just because I don’t interact with my sister on Facebook, doesn’t mean I don’t want to see what she’s doing. Today, RSS has no algorithm. I love RSS.