I was reflecting on how social networks and related sites that follow those design patterns tend to increase dependence on algorithms and decrease the ability for a user to customize their profile when I came up with what could be considered the effective singularity of social networks. The idea is to take as much control away from the user as possible, to the point where the user can only make an account, but nothing else. Not even setting up profile images or text, or even posts. It would be purely driven by algorithms.
A user would sign up with some unique user ID and password which would only be used to access the specific account generated and otherwise have nothing to do with the public-facing data. The site would then generate an account name and bio, somehow figure out images for the icon and possibly banner, as well as determining a random accent color that the background would automatically contrast with. After that, the algorithmically-driven account would start generating posts, and the usual exchange of follows and blocks and such would occur between all other accounts. Everything would be entirely out of the hands of the user, and all they could do is log in to view what that account “sees”.
I don’t know if something like this has been done on some scale before, as an AI test or some artistic statement, but it’s a weird idea that would be interesting to see in action, and anyone willing to throw it together is welcome to swipe this idea if it’s a new one. A bonus would be managing to hype it up like any other social network while not exactly fully explaining up front what it is until interested parties actually see the site for themselves. Just go wild with marketing terms and synonyms to “innovation” and “technology” and such.