The dead audience dilemma

Conversations were meant to be effortless and unique because they represent the diversity of thoughts and opinions.

Introduction

Establishing a noticeable digital presence has only become harder, though I doubt have been using the Internet long enough to be having this discussion. There's nothing more draining than seeing copycats get more interaction than your authentic work, opinions or contributions. It's almost as if there's no more room left for open communication without algorithms and paywalls limiting how many people can actually see what you share.

The dead audience does not applause

I have had my share of 0 likes/retweets on my Twiiter posts and for a while I didn't care be cause I had hope that people would eventually notice me. How naive of me, of course, because no matter how much I tried and kept sharing it still seemed like I was screaming into a void.

Think about it, why is it that I have more than 500 followers yet my posts get less than 50 views, who is being shown my content if all the people who follow me somehow can't see what I share ?

Are they simply routing all my posts to /dev/null because I don't have a subscription ? (if you don't get it, forget it)

Or don't know the right tricks to convince the almighy recommendation algorithm that my content is not cringe worthy and deserves to be consumed ? Perhaps my opinions befoul the 'serene' timelines of highly esteemed users ?

Meaningful conversations have become rare

A lot of people have quit sharing their opinions on most social networks because of the trolling culture which encourages controversial information to trend just to keep the traffic high. The original idea of sharing opinions and ideas over the Internet has been misshaped in such a way that we have become more concerned with metrics rather than quality of opinion. Should we upvote/like information that is slurred, hateful, biased or repetitive ? Freedom of speech and use is one thing, but forcing a copycat culture is just bad taste altogether. Conversations are meant to be unique and unforced, each individual deserves the right to express their opinion without having to bend to hyped trends.

Why can't folks in my niche of interest see me ?

Let's be honest, most recommendation strategies out there suck. I don't mean to undermine the engineering efforts behind them, but we go against the original intent when we fail to respect user preferences. Most of the time you may see posts or content from people who are trending but not in your niche(s) of interest. Game developers should be able to interact with users in the same field of interest and see things related to that topic iin their recommendations. Not shove politics and viral posts down the throat of every user. Just because it's trending doesn't mean I'm interested. Does my opinion still matter at all or have I become a slave to what the algorithm wishes me to see ?

Bots, fake metrics and other nasty things

Bots are great, and also terrible when used unethically. A platform quickly becomes a spam site if bot interactions are not strictly managed. Social networks were originally meant for humans, the need for automation made bots a popular option. However, people value real interactions, it doesn't have to be a mob because a conversation can happen between two people. Bots ruin the experience by giving fake metrics and often leave redundant information across the platform.