We’ve reached the logical conclusion of the broadcast era. For a decade, we were told that “connecting the world” meant following thousands of strangers and scrolling through endless feeds of one-to-many broadcasts. But look around: the intellectual platforms have fallen into the same trap.
Substack, currently a sanctuary for long-form thought, is rapidly becoming one big, long, endless feed of people we don’t know. After scrolling for 5 minutes, you wonder ‘huh this feels oddly familiar’. That’s because it’s not innovative, it’s the same old algorithm in a new suit. We give it two years before it becomes the same performative cesspool we all fled. And Reddit? While useful, it remains a sea of anonymity where you never truly know who is on the other side of the screen and again, there’s that endless feed.
The Data around Disenchantment
The cesspool isn’t just a feeling; it’s a documented trend. The data shows that the world has already moved on from the one-to-many, endless feed model:
- The Trust Deficit: Nearly 50% of internet traffic is now bot-generated. Users are increasingly aware that “one-to-many” feeds are manipulated by AI, leading to a massive decline in authentic engagement.
- The Gen Z Distaste: 48% of U.S. teens report that social media has a “mostly negative effect” on their peers, a 16% increase since 2022. The incoming workforce is actively looking for the exit.
- The Privacy Shift: Over 80% of digital sharing has moved to “Dark Social” (DMs, Slack, and private groups). The market has already decided: we want micro-communities, not megaphones.
- The Performance Fatigue: Our research which included over 100 user interviews reported feeling “pressure to perform” on professional sites. This “LinkedIn Mask” is the leading cause of platform fatigue.
oyster's approach to social media
At oyster, we believe social media isn’t the problem, the delivery system is. When we designed oyster, we didn’t look at LinkedIn for inspiration. We looked at Apple Music.
Think about your favorite music app: it’s not an endless feed of every song ever recorded. It’s an exploratory experience curated specifically to your taste, your mood, and your history. It’s designed to help you discover your next favorite artist, not to drown you in noise.
We applied that same philosophy to your career. oyster is a high-design, intuitive space where discovery is a science, not a scroll.
How oyster is Connecting Built Different
We’ve intentionally stripped away the features that turn platforms into noise-machines.
- No Endless Feed: We’ve killed the “doomscroll.” We don’t want you on the app for three hours of passive consumption; we want you on the app for distinct periods of high-value interaction.
- Curated Micro-Communities (Pods): Instead of one giant town square where everyone is shouting, oyster is a collection of Pods. You only see what is relevant to you, from people in your specific orbit and can navigate by channel (Resources, Support, Daily Musings)
- From Anonymity to Authenticity: Unlike Reddit, oyster is built on verified reciprocity. Every user acts as both an explorerand a guide, sharing their unique career trajectory and candid insights with each other to help discover and deepen their career.
The Bottom Line: Curation Over Chaos
The era of the “one-to-many” broadcast is over. People are tired of being part of a “user base”; they want to be part of a village. By prioritizing the “Apple Music” style of discovery over the “Substack” style of broadcasting, oyster helps you find the people and organizations that actually matter.
Stop scrolling the cesspool. Start unlocking quality connections to help grow your career and life on oyster.
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