Signups opened this week for Loops, a short-form looping video app from the creator of Instagram alternative Pixelfed, reports TechCrunch.

  • EnderMB@lemmy.world
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    25 days ago

    ITT: People in their mid-twenties or later, who feel superior to those that like one form of media over their preferred media.

    Elitism aside, I don’t really see what federation solves here. What benefits does federation offer the user? How does the recommendation algorithm give users what they want? How will a decentralised platform perform the kind of centralised events a platform like TikTok is known for?

    • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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      25 days ago

      who feel superior to those that like one form of media over their preferred media

      I don’t watch the TikToks. I get my information from a source I know I can trust.

      What benefits does federation offer the user? How does the recommendation algorithm give users what they want? How will a decentralised platform perform the kind of centralised events a platform like TikTok is known for?

      I might argue that the ability to curate your own content, rather than being plugged into the Main Feed that just front-loads whatever the highest bidder wants shoved into your eyeballs, is a relative improvement to the current Facebook/Google ad-supported algorithm model.

      But in the end, it just gives more weight to advertisers and influencers. You have to lure people into subscribing (like old school newspapers/radio/TV had to do) rather than buying visual real estate directly in their eye-line. You’re still going to have InfoWars and Drudge Report and Joe Rogan tier content. Its just something you’re going to be baited into opting into rather than struggling to opt out of.

      But it will keep you using the Fediverse as a model longer, because you feel like you’ve got a degree of control (I don’t have to listen to Rogan if I don’t want to). Whereas services like YouTube and Facebook are forcing their users to choose between getting injected with the cheapest, hackeyest swill or to switching providers.

    • linearchaos@lemmy.world
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      25 days ago

      I don’t think they’ll be able to do any type of direct competition for TikTok with a lack of advertising and payments You’re not going to draw quality creators. Decentralized algorithm sounds like a nightmare to manage.

      However one place they will have some advantage is censorship. Anything that’s not explicitly illegal Will be a hell of a lot harder to stamp out. Moderation will probably be very light.

    • jagged_circle@feddit.nl
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      25 days ago

      Authwalls, data sovereignty, self controlled open source algorithms for finding content without manipulation by corporations, etc

      • EnderMB@lemmy.world
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        25 days ago

        All true, but what explicit problem do they solve for the average user?

        • jagged_circle@feddit.nl
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          25 days ago

          Authwalls are an issue for everyone because everyone doesn’t have an account unless they create one.

    • minstrel@lemmy.eco.br
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      25 days ago

      Federation can solve the danger zone content for you, how about a federation network with just kids content, other with more adult ones, etc to the just nsfw isolated from each others?

      • EnderMB@lemmy.world
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        25 days ago

        That’s…actually a really good use case for something like this. I’d argue that a recommendation algorithm that tailors to the best content a given federated service can provide for their use-case is probably a better source than what you’d get from a single source of truth that could give you everything and nothing.

    • katy ✨@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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      25 days ago

      the benefit i can see is that instead of having to share out to other social media, you can just see it in any fediverse account you have thanks to activity pub which eliminates one of the barriers to being viral.

      that said i don’t think it will get mainstream appeal.

    • Waryle@jlai.lu
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      25 days ago

      ITT: People in their mid-twenties or later, who feel superior to those that like one form of media over their preferred media.

      You’re just waving away an important fact, which is that shorts and their equivalents are notoriously known for killing attention spans and disrupting the management of dopamine in the brain, causing depression in particular.

      We are no longer simply in the traditional custom of the elderly who despise the activities of the younger generations, we are talking about health.

      • EnderMB@lemmy.world
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        25 days ago

        While true, how is that any different to the arguments that were used for TV? Additionally, Lemmy is a social network in the same way that Reddit is. Is this not also dangerous?

        As has been the recommendation for practically everything for the four decades I’ve been on this earth, moderation is key. Instead of hating new media, either regulate it (if the evidence is truly that great) or treat it with healthy moderation.

        Let’s be blunt here. Most of the people in this thread aren’t worried about health. They don’t like short-form video/foreign-owned companies/things they didn’t grow up with, and their elitism is getting the better of them instead of them letting people like what they want to like.

        • ugjka@lemmy.world
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          25 days ago

          I made a rule that i only do social media on desktop pc. Phone is only for emails and rss feeds. Seems to work

        • Waryle@jlai.lu
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          25 days ago

          While true, how is that any different to the arguments that were used for TV?

          Television is bad because it is a passive activity, but it is less harmful than the continuous ingestion of micro-videos. But I don’t see what it has to do here.

          Additionally, Lemmy is a social network in the same way that Reddit is. Is this not also dangerous?

          What’s the connection? I didn’t mention Reddit.

          As has been the recommendation for practically everything for the four decades I’ve been on this earth, moderation is key. Instead of hating new media, either regulate it (if the evidence is truly that great) or treat it with healthy moderation.

          This would be to ignore the particularly addictive nature of this kind of content. It would be like comparing apples to Snickers: both are sweet, yes, but one is much more problematic.

          Let’s be blunt here. Most of the people in this thread aren’t worried about health

          That could be a point, but I’m pretty sure that if you ask anybody, the main reason given would be that it makes you stupid. But I can agree that this opinion would not necessarily be based on anything other than the eternal contempt for novelty as video games or manga were, for example, before they became popular.

    • NutWrench@lemmy.world
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      25 days ago

      A distributed service is much less vulnerable to being bought up by a single narcissistic billionaire who can ruin the online experience of millions of people at once.

      A distributed service like Lemmy is spread out over 600 Instances in countries all over the world. If someone buys the most popular Lemmy Instance and wrecks it, those users can simply move to the same communities on the second or third or fourth most popular Instance and the original Instance will wither and die. This also works for communities with power tripping moderators. You can quickly find out through a search which community is the “real” one by the number of subscribers it has.

      • EnderMB@lemmy.world
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        25 days ago

        But again, what tangible benefit does that have for the average user? They don’t give a fuck about billionaire ownership, moderation, or where an “instance” or server is located.

        • NutWrench@lemmy.world
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          25 days ago

          Well, you should care about it because that’s how online communities get ruined. Case in point: Twitter has become a propaganda tool for an apartheid-loving fascist since he bought it.

          • EnderMB@lemmy.world
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            25 days ago

            Why should a user care about the health of an online community? To them it should “just work”.

            (I’m being purposely facetious here, because the average person really doesn’t care about this shit. When Twitter no longer serves its purpose to them they just leave and go to the next place)

            • LifeInMultipleChoice@lemmy.world
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              25 days ago

              Why should a person who goes to the park care about the park?

              If people are dumping trash everywhere and all the plants and animals are dying, I assume you wouldn’t like to spend much time there anymore.

              Sure another park might be opened, but constantly changing parks isn’t what you want to do long term. If someone buys up the basketball court and turns it into a cesspool of hate, you can unsubscribe from that court and remove it from your park. Adding another one that is nicer, without completely going to a new park.

        • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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          25 days ago

          But again, what tangible benefit does that have for the average user?

          You have more control over your front-page content. If you don’t want to get a particular feed, you unsubscribe from it.

  • Tattorack@lemmy.world
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    25 days ago

    Yes, and it will still be brainrot.

    My attention span is just fine. I don’t need to see it ruined by short format nonsense with about as much intellectual value as the nutritional value of a McDonald’s cheeseburger.

    I never installed TikTok or Snapchat on my phone, not because I had privacy concerns, but because I hate everything about the format.

      • Tattorack@lemmy.world
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        25 days ago

        Cultural osmosis.

        Just because I never installed TikTok or Snapchat, doesn’t mean I’ve never seen or heard anything from it. Snapchat used to be big, TikTok is even bigger right now, it’s completely impossible to actually avoid seeing anything from it. And then there’s YouTube with their shorts.

        • cows_are_underrated@feddit.org
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          25 days ago

          To be fair, Snapchat is still better than tiktok, because you can actually communicate with friends. Their spotlight is as much brainrot as it gets

          • catloaf@lemm.ee
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            25 days ago

            And very few people (at least people my age) are still on Snapchat. They all moved to Instagram stories years ago. I finally deleted my Snapchat account a couple months back, because the only reason I was still using it was to trade pictures with a friend of our cats.

        • Tattorack@lemmy.world
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          25 days ago

          Yeah, exactly. Not everything needs to be experienced. Not experiencing something doesn’t mean being ignorant of its consequences.

    • irotsoma@lemmy.world
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      25 days ago

      It’s not the format that is the problem. It’s that old rich people from the broadcast industry decided that since they couldn’t compete with the communications and community industry they’d instead turn the communications platforms into broadcast platforms and tear down all of the community aspects. It happened to all of social media including more long form media as well. So if this project can avoid selling out or being manipulated by spammers into becoming yet another broadcast platform, it might have a shot.

      • Tattorack@lemmy.world
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        25 days ago

        It’s absolutely the format. The old rich people just have the incentive to drag everyone into it, to make it something to get “hooked” on. But the format itself is already cancerous.

      • toastal@lemmy.ml
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        25 days ago

        Same reason it is weird to want a FOSS copy of the UX of Slack/Telegram/Discord in Matrix instead of realizing you don’t need or want the chat history to persist for eternity. Good thing you can choose a different protocol/service in these cases.

        • Charzard4261@programming.dev
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          25 days ago

          Of all the reasons to hate these messaging apps, it’s because messages last forever? I’d get it if you were concerned that private companies don’t really delete your messages, but you know the average person using these apps actually does want their messages to last?

          • toastal@lemmy.ml
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            25 days ago

            Privacy is one part. The cost of joining & maintaining a server on the network is the other. Many servers have shut their doors due to expensive hosting. If you are lenient on how many messages need to actually be stored on the server for archives, self-hosting is now much more accessible which leads to a healthier, more decentralized network since more nodes can afford to join.

            You can still creating your own archives in your clients or on your specific server via s2s communications, but Matrix has this as a network requirement for eventual consistency. You can’t have the “search all messages in the last 5 years” feature without eventual consistency—but this is the point I am trying to make: copying the Slack/Telegram/Discord model makes this a requirement to have in a decentralized sense which costs way too much. Step back & reassess if copying this model is the right call. We were fine last decade without this.

        • Dragon Rider (drag)@lemmy.nz
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          25 days ago

          Drag wants the chat history to persist for eternity. Just two weeks ago, drag pulled up a 3 year old quote from one of drag’s friends to make a point in a discussion.

          • toastal@lemmy.ml
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            25 days ago

            Drag can archive it locally just fine or on Drag’s own server if using a different protocol. Is it worth storing hundreds of thousands of messages & attachments that price out self-hosting & low-spec hosters & medium-sized communities on a budget? These storage costs add up quickly & without lots of nodes, the network is no longer federated but held by a few mega hosts like Matrix.org & a sprinkling of single-user hosts. I have seen many servers shut down due to costs. This tradeoff just isn’t worth it for a triving, decentralized platform (Mastodon suffers similar duplication issues).

    • Martineski@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      25 days ago

      I’ve been avoiding it for years and finally gave in in the moment of weakness. I uninstalled it very soon after because I hated the experience so much and never gave it another thought nor chance. xd

      • Hugh_Jeggs@lemm.ee
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        25 days ago

        I did that exact same thing with Twitter about seven years ago and I still don’t understand why someone would use it

        • Tattorack@lemmy.world
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          25 days ago

          Twitter is trash, on the basis that it tries to create “engagement” as much as possible. Any engagement. So it’ll force a bunch of hot topics and rage fuel down your throat.

          However, as an artist, I kind of need a platform like Twitter. Thankfully there are alternatives. I stopped using twitter quite a while ago now.

    • Amanduh@lemm.ee
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      25 days ago

      I was there 3000 years ago when snapchat was brand new… those were some good times. Sending snaps to all your friends and staying in touch etc, before all the filters and stories and news etc it was great

  • Olgratin_Magmatoe@lemmy.world
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    25 days ago

    Ignoring the myriad of other issues listed in this thread, the bit about training AI is pretty misleading. It’s not hard to scrape webpages for whatever kind of data you like, even if loops doesn’t outright hand things over for third parties for that purpose.

    And the kind of people who are downloading the entire internet to train AIs are the type to be willing to just scrape without permission.

    • DrSteveBrule@mander.xyz
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      25 days ago

      They are claiming not to train AI using your videos/info theirselves. I don’t think it’s misleading just because other people can scrape that info.

    • YeetPics@mander.xyz
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      25 days ago

      loops doesn’t outright hand things over for third parties for that purpose.

      Hey, check it out; it’s the thing loops said buried in the middle of your paragraph highlighting what other parties can or will do.

    • Wiz@midwest.social
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      25 days ago

      So, you’re being negative about an alpha release of someone’s hard work without checking it out first?

        • Wiz@midwest.social
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          24 days ago

          PeerTube is also a Fediverse service, and does the longer form videos, like YouTube. It mostly works fine; it just lacks content.

  • utopiah@lemmy.world
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    25 days ago

    (insert here the “The TikTok at home” meme format) So actually I did my own with PeerTube (self hosted server side) and Latrix (mobile client to live stream) and you can see the result at https://video.benetou.fr/w/p/hfPcHz1kCgnM6zKhfPrS4b (playlist of 6 short videos with progress over time).

    I’d argue it… works. Is it necessary or useful? Well I didn’t keep up with the format but it potentially can be. My point being… we already have quite a few tools in place.

  • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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    25 days ago

    Awesome! This sounds like a much better way for me to share the occasional video of either or both of my dogs being super cute on c/dogs (and on other non-Lemmy forums) than relying on an anonymous YouTube account.

    (I may have partially used this post as an excuse to share a video of one of my dogs being super cute.)

  • Schmerzbold@feddit.org
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    25 days ago

    Hmmm…

    Submissions: By directly sending us any question, comment, suggestion, idea, feedback, or other information about the Services (“Submissions”), you agree to assign to us all intellectual property rights in such Submission. You agree that we shall own this Submission and be entitled to its unrestricted use and dissemination for any lawful purpose, commercial or otherwise, without acknowledgment or compensation to you.

    Contributions: The Services may invite you to chat, contribute to, or participate in blogs, message boards, online forums, and other functionality during which you may create, submit, post, display, transmit, publish, distribute, or broadcast content and materials to us or through the Services, including but not limited to text, writings, video, audio, photographs, music, graphics, comments, reviews, rating suggestions, personal information, or other material (“Contributions”). Any Submission that is publicly posted shall also be treated as a Contribution.

    You understand that Contributions may be viewable by other users of the Services and possibly through third-party websites.

    When you post Contributions, you grant us a license (including use of your name, trademarks, and logos): By posting any Contributions, you grant us an unrestricted, unlimited, irrevocable, perpetual, non-exclusive, transferable, royalty-free, fully-paid, worldwide right, and license to: use, copy, reproduce, distribute, sell, resell, publish, broadcast, retitle, store, publicly perform, publicly display, reformat, translate, excerpt (in whole or in part), and exploit your Contributions (including, without limitation, your image, name, and voice) for any purpose, commercial, advertising, or otherwise, to prepare derivative works of, or incorporate into other works, your Contributions, and to sublicense the licenses granted in this section. Our use and distribution may occur in any media formats and through any media channels.

    This license includes our use of your name, company name, and franchise name, as applicable, and any of the trademarks, service marks, trade names, logos, and personal and commercial images you provide.

    from https://loops.video/legal/terms-of-service

  • sudoer777@lemmy.ml
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    25 days ago

    TikTok is popular because it’s addicting, not because it’s useful, so I don’t understand why anyone would use this.

    • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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      25 days ago

      TikTok is popular because it’s addicting, not because it’s useful

      TikTok is profitable because it is addictive. But the idea that short-form video is less useful than print or radio is flawed.

      I don’t understand why anyone would use this.

      For the same reason someone would turn on the TV, download a podcast, or pick up a magazine.

    • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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      25 days ago

      If it doesn’t work out, it doesn’t work out. It seems like an idea worth trying. What is there to lose?