Fleets: the height of capitalist innovation
Why have many apps that can do different things when you can have many apps that do the same thing
Last month, Twitter released Fleets — Twitter’s version of the stories feature that is prevalent across social media platforms — to little fanfare, many jokes and quick adoption. The feature is another sign of social media corporations trying to be everything to everyone in pursuit of max profits.
This is probably one of the most unnecessary videos as just about everyone is familiar with how story features work by now.
In the blog post accompanying the rollout, Twitter made the case that Fleets are made for users who feel uncomfortable with how public and permanent Tweets are and feel pressured to get retweets and likes. Fleets are supposed to be a low-pressure way people can share their momentary, or fleeting (kill me), thoughts. The post goes on to mention how during tests in other countries, people with Fleets shared more on Twitter and people new to Twitter found Fleets easier to use to share their thoughts.
If you buy any of that bullshit 👍. Fleets are nothing more than a recycled attempt to increase engagement and profits. They do nothing to improve people’s experience or to provide new features that push online socialization forward. When the exact same features are already available across so many other apps, what is Twitter really adding?
It’s amazing that Twitter was able to draft that post without once using the word “story” but it’s more amazing that somehow they try to pass this off as innovation. “We've been working on a lower pressure way for people to talk about what’s happening,” they write as if this isn’t a direct copy and paste of every story feature we’ve seen on other apps.
Just for fun, here’s a quick rundown of when story features were incorporated into platforms:
Snapchat Stories: October 2013
Instagram Stories: August 2016
Facebook Stories: March 2017
WhatsApp Status: February 2017
YouTube Stories: November 2017
LinkedIn Stories: September 2020 (US and Canada) *I hear this is a thing. I have not actually seen it*
Twitter ✨Fleets✨: November 2020
“Innovations” like Fleet make it seem like these billion dollar companies that have so much control over how we interact with each other and the internet have truly run out of ideas and have instead focused on squeezing every bit of profit that they can from their users. They didn't even change the shape of the story icons! They’re still circles because Twitter probably wants people to know that this is exactly like the stories features they’re used to on other platforms and feel familiar with it.
True innovation is rounded squares
Arguably, the only original disruption added to the social media landscape in the last few years has been TikTok. Every other piece of innovation that has come out on platforms has just been a direct copy of something from other platforms. Stories themselves originated on Snapchat and were replicated by Instagram with such efficiency that it made Snapchat irrelevant to everyone but young people who were imprinted on Snapchat.
Fleets is just the latest proof that, <disclaimer> though capitalism can sometimes promote innovation </disclaimer>, it more often promotes tired updates with no aims except to make the rich richer.
And you know Twitter doesn’t give a shit about user experience and providing a decent product because they left so many holes open that will create bad experiences for people, especially the most vulnerable. Reporting shows here might be issues with Fleets that let users interact with people who have blocked them and to share banned links and disinformation. There are also concerns that it could open the door to invisible harassment
And it seems like Twitter also knew that shitty things would happen with this new feature because, as VICE reported, Twitter will not delete people’s Fleets after 24 hours but instead save them for at least 30 days because of worries that it could be used to spread disinformation.
After years of seeing these social media corporations do close to nothing to deal with disinformation campaigns and harassment, it’s a little ridiculous to see that the next big thing to come from Twitter is something that’s been around for years now. If they can’t handle the spread of misinformation on their main site how are they going to do it with this new feature?
At its essence, capitalism doesn’t reward innovation that helps people but instead rewards innovation that maximizes profits. But when the choices corporations make can have impacts as big as swinging elections, I can’t help but view their new feature as a big middle finger to everyone who has been urging social media companies to take their role as news distributors more seriously.
But I guess that’s what late-stage capitalism is about. I’ll probably still fleet.