Despite the wishes of Musk and Zuckerberg, they are not disappearing into the metaverse or into "Web3," the decentralized, tokenized and crypto-centric internet that investors, crypto bros, and capitalists have tried to will into existence with endless hype and cynical pyramid schemes designed to make themselves richer.Instead, we're getting YouTube, TikTok, Twitch, and an endless number of streaming platforms that replace the more rhizomatic structure of polydirectional conversation with something essentially unidirectional: a broadcast model, which sees "mutuals" replaced by a creator and their audience.What we do have, and sometimes enjoy, are a series of communication networks interested in providing a paltry simulacrum of sociality in service of behavior modification and profit maximization.It’s important to keep this in mind because forgetting that we don’t actually have real social networks—that is, networks centered on bonds and groups that go beyond content or consumption—allows us to lose sight of what the fight to realize them requires.Places where we can learn about the world and connect to it, keep track of our friends or make new ones, form new identities or plug into existing ones, organize, discover, flourish, yadda yadda."