When I see a Reddit post that has high engagement, 8/10 times it’s a topic that’s creating division in the comment section.
The more engagement, the more ad revenue for the site.
Societal discourse is changed by the need for ad revenue.
Advertising dollars shape society a lot more than I realised.
Yet, it doesn’t need to. These daily threads are easily the most active on aussie.zone, often among even the most active threads on all of Lemmy. And clearly they are not a place of division.
Engagement doesn’t need to be about conflict and division. Nor does it have to be monetised.
If it bleeds, it leads - the mantra of commercial television and quite a lot of the interwebs. And we’ve all been thoroughly brainwashed into accepting this as normal. One of the many reasons I don’t have a television and won’t be getting one.
I’ve been thinking about something a lot lately:
When I see a Reddit post that has high engagement, 8/10 times it’s a topic that’s creating division in the comment section.
The more engagement, the more ad revenue for the site. Societal discourse is changed by the need for ad revenue. Advertising dollars shape society a lot more than I realised.
/Half asleep rant
Yet, it doesn’t need to. These daily threads are easily the most active on aussie.zone, often among even the most active threads on all of Lemmy. And clearly they are not a place of division.
Engagement doesn’t need to be about conflict and division. Nor does it have to be monetised.
That’s a very good point, and it’s why I love this place. An oasis from the eternal screaming match of the social internet space.
If it bleeds, it leads - the mantra of commercial television and quite a lot of the interwebs. And we’ve all been thoroughly brainwashed into accepting this as normal. One of the many reasons I don’t have a television and won’t be getting one.