Has social media completely subverted the photography realm?

[Dan Robinson]

There used to be some value in having a social media following to direct some traffic to your web site, a (monetized) Youtube video or in the case of a photo, a link to a print ordering page, but now posts with external links are heavily penalized and seen by almost no one. It's a bait-and-switch, for all of that effort building a following you now only get the likes and shares on-platform. There's no give-and-take. It's all a one-sided deal in their favor now.

As long as everyone (including the best-of-the-best) keeps posting their prized work to these places, they have no incentive to implement monetization for all content. You have zero negotiating position right now if you want a cut of their earnings on your stuff. They just shrug their shoulders and say "you're already giving it to us for free and we get it all for free from everyone else, why would we change anything?". The Twitter/X monetization implemented only recently is basically an act of charity in comparison. To even qualify for it, you have to get an insane amount of viral traffic which means giving away a huge chunk of value to even have the *chance* of getting in.

 

[Andy Wehrle]

There used to be some value in having a social media following to direct some traffic to your web site, a (monetized) Youtube video or in the case of a photo, a link to a print ordering page, but now posts with external links are heavily penalized and seen by almost no one. It's a bait-and-switch, for all of that effort building a following you now only get the likes and shares on-platform. There's no give-and-take. It's all a one-sided deal in their favor now.

As long as everyone (including the best-of-the-best) keeps posting their prized work to these places, they have no incentive to implement monetization for all content. You have zero negotiating position right now if you want a cut of their earnings on your stuff. They just shrug their shoulders and say "you're already giving it to us for free and we get it all for free from everyone else, why would we change anything?". The Twitter/X monetization implemented only recently is basically an act of charity in comparison. To even qualify for it, you have to get an insane amount of viral traffic which means giving away a huge chunk of value to even have the *chance* of getting in.

A column on Wired about a year and half ago coined a term for this that I think aptly describes the state of things.

The ‘Enshittification’ of TikTok

Or how, exactly, platforms die.

www.wired.com

The title refers specifically to TikTok, but it's equally applicable to what's happened with Failbook, TwitX, YouTube, and even non-social media sites such as Ebay and Amazon - basically all the platforms that became so big they basically became the Internet.