G+ death might spur much needed innovation, but right now it really sucks.

G+ death might spur much needed innovation, but right now it really sucks.

Moderators: I hope this does not rub anyone the wrong way, I will gladly disable comments if you so desire.

Originally shared by Edgar Brown

As G+ goes away, it has made me look at what the social media landscape will look like in the not so distant future.

It is rather clear to me that FB will soon be the past, it might remain as ubiquitous as e-mail but just as e-mail it will be something we suffer through not a place we just visit for fun. Google likely saw the writing on the wall and, instead of migrating its aging platform into the future, decided to avoid all of the growing pains that the mere idea of social media is undergoing at the moment.

As platforms become larger their influence in society grows with them, the need for censorship, editorializing, and just plain policing grows with them. The deleterious effect FB had on the last US presidential election (and many other events and movements around the world), are the new normal. Governments around the world have noticed, regulation will soon follow.

The first group to vocally react to the pain of this need to conform to societal norms in social media was the Far Right. Under the guise of "Freedom of Speech" a whole market was created and social media platforms started catering to them. Gab was the most notable but more Libertarian sites such as WeMe jumped at the market opportunity. Gab soon realized that conforming to social norms was also needed just to be able to be part of the normal internet, and saw its servers being removed from polite society multiple times. But this is a market, and when there is a market there will be someone to cater to it, even if you have to register your domain in Anguilla.

What seems to be the most common G+ migrant destination, WeMe, is no exception. But as opposed to Gab its Far Right credentials are not as blatant, even though many of its groups are. But WeMe implemented a walled-garden concept, as opposed to other social sites its social groups are closed. You can't just see random public posts where the blatant anti-social behaviors go full-frontal. But remain for long enough in the site, and you will see them. As opposed to Gab, WeMe seems interested in being part of polite society (they did make some changes after Apple kicked their App out of the App store for a few weeks). So that works in our favor. But there have been instances in which Far Right groups seem to have excessive influence in the running of the site, leading to the suspension of some anti-far-right accounts. A FB with a somewhat different balance of power.

But I see that the future is already in motion. Social media will evolve more and more into a public utility, and our online identities (with all of its social nets) will become more and more our property and less and less part of a closed platform. The Fediverse with diaspora (the other popular G+ migrant destination pluspora is a diaspora pod) is perhaps the first to go in that direction. But Tim Berners-Lee has joined the fray and has started to create the missing protocols to make this work, and avoid the walled-gardens.

If this works (OpenID, WebID, and FOAF are some previous standards that point in this direction but have seen limited implementations), then we will stop thinking about what platform are we using or moving to. And, just as with e-mail, will just follow our friends wherever they choose to reside.
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