6 ms·

We need a new business model for social media, one which actually serves the customer instead of trying to lure them into productizing themselves.

thomasjudge 9y ago
The problem obviously is competing with free...although, maybe we are beginning to realize that there are hidden costs to "free"...
overcast 9y ago
So you're going to pay to use it right? If this imaginary product managed to get 1% of Facebook to hand over their credit card. That would be the most wildly successful pay to use application in existence. Will never happen. Social Media sites rely on mass adoption, among those who refuse to pay for just about anything.
- johnchristopher 9y ago
  Just as some people pay for fastmail I am pretty sure there'd be some people paying an entrance fee to a social network. Wasn't the social network of last week, vero, supposed to be like that ?
  - overcast 9y ago
    Email is a poor comparison, because you're connecting to millions of other people using gmail/yahoo/whatever, for free. The correct comparison would be if eMail was a universally paid for service. It would NOT be what it is today.
    - johnchristopher 9y ago
      I am not comparing the aims or the essence of the service. I am expression the opinion that social networks can be a paid-for service just like email, music or video can.
      - overcast 9y ago
        Right, but the problem here is that social networks need to grow exponentially. Without massive growth, they are useless, because you're not connected to anyone else. Email works, because everyone has email, mostly because it's free. Which leads to fast adoption.
  - macintux 9y ago
    Network effects are brutally hard to overcome. https://www.digitaltrends.com/social-media/app-net-shut-down/ https://www.digitaltrends.com/social-media/app-net-shut-down...
    - cookiecaper 9y ago
      It's not network effects. It's hostile copyright and network access law. There's no reason that you shouldn't be able to interact with the content streams from both Twitter and App.Net at the same time, for example, except that our legal system allows the dominant company to sue the scrappy upstart into oblivion if they begin to do so. This is not theoretical; small companies are destroyed frequently by BigCo breaking out the lawyers for supposed violations of the CFAA and the Copyright Act. This sorry legal situation has completely obliterated meaningful competition in the online space, and we are letting them get away with it when we just hand-wave that it's because of "network effects". There's no reason that YoungSiteA shouldn't be able to act as a user agent on my behalf to access and reskin OldSiteB. If it could, the negative impact of switching providers would be small.
- username223 9y ago
  > So you're going to pay to use it right? Yep -- I'm willing to pay $5/mo to host stuff. That's roughly 10% of an average cell phone bill, or less than 1% of rent (even outside the cool places).
- sgt101 9y ago
  If "no pay" is an option most people will take it, if it isn't an option because the mechanisms that make it possible are banned then people will pay - or there will be no service. This isn't physics; the laws of user behaviour are mutable, and legislation is completely possible. The outcome of the erosion of privacy is the end of our ability to adapt as a society; there will be no new ways of doing things or dealing with change. This will be bad, we have some very very nasty societal problems coming and we need lots of new ways of dealing.
  - overcast 9y ago
    I understand the privacy issues are horrible, and places like HN are super vocal about it. But the overall majority either don't know, or don't care, or mostly both. People dump their entire lives on to the internet, hoping for some type of validation from their peers. Banks destroyed many lives ten years ago, and yet we bailed them out, and are still using them. People in the end just don't care. Especially after time has passed.
    - Fej 9y ago
      Banks are necessary for modern economies. Social networks, not so much.
    - DataWorker 9y ago
      Which is why protections must be put in place. If a business model is detrimental to the health of a nation, then maybe the laws need to change to prohibit such a business model from preying on the citizenry.
- lumberjack 9y ago
  People will hate this suggestion on ideological grounds but a mandatory tax to fund an NGO is the way to go. Something like a $1/person/year tax is already plenty of money if you are just trying to maintain bare bones social networking platforms, without all the added surveillance and advertising machinery.
  - ovao 9y ago
    NGO?
    - thaumasiotes 9y ago
      "Non-governmental organization", kind of an odd term to apply to an organization defined by the government and funded through taxes.
- Symbiote 9y ago
  Grindr has a paid-for upgrade, called Grindr XTRA. I wonder if paying users, who don't see ads, also don't have their data shared? https://help.grindr.com/hc/en-us/articles/115008879108-What-is-Grindr-XTRA- https://help.grindr.com/hc/en-us/articles/115008879108-What-...
palidanx 9y ago
I've been thinking about this quite a bit, but do you think anyone would actually pay for social media where they actually can own the data? I think the use case might be difficult given the convenience and 'free' aspect of Facebook, Twitter, etc.
harbie 9y ago
If you're not paying for anything, you're not the customer.
zoe1337 9y ago
I really want to see diaspora* taking over and the beginning of the decentralization era.
- BadassFractal 9y ago
  How does that compare to say Mastodon?
  - zoe1337 9y ago
    Mastodon to diaspora is like twitter to facebook.
- duskwuff 9y ago
  I wouldn't hold my breath. The project has been out for ~8 years and has failed to gain any traction.
  - chillingeffect 9y ago
    my circle of friends has started feeling it out in response to the recent facebook fracas. I recommend other people start feeling it out, too.
- blueline 9y ago
  >the decentralization era do you have any reason to believe that this will be "a thing" beyond highly obscure internet subcultures like HN and reddit?
gonzoflip 9y ago
I personally believe that social media may be one of the best use cases for blockchain technology. I think that each node "paying" for their account with some sort of resource usage could be sustainable, but I am not a blockchain expert. It would be interesting to see if something like that could work without turning into a ICO money-grab.
this_user 9y ago
Someone has to pay for your service. This can either be your users or a 3rd party. We know the overall acceptance of paying for online services is fairly low. Even high quality news outlets have problems monetising their content. In this case you're also competing with "free" services like FB. Unless you can offer something that is enough of an incentive for people to pay, this is not a battle you can win. What's more, social networks live and die by the network effect. People will be even less likely to pay for your service if there is no one already on it they know. In the end, you are choking off your growth through the higher barrier of entry before you can even get to the phase of a positive feedback loop in user numbers. This only leaves the 3rd party option. But someone like that will always want something in return, and the only thing that you have to offer is access to your users and their data.
- Spooky23 9y ago
  I don't think that's true. If you were constrained in how you use user data, you could make money in other, more difficult ways. Monetize photo services, music, sell access to the audience for applications or monetize the marketplace. Pillaging users is easy. But if regulators prevented it, Facebook is still a viable business -- maybe even a better one.
knieveltech 9y ago
Is there any evidence to suggest that it's even possible to combine "social media" with "business model" and not end up with exactly these sorts of issues? Users do not appear to have any appetite for pay-to-play social media offerings, which leaves advertising as the primary revenue stream.
jbattle 9y ago
I'm actually not that optimistic, but it seems like after nearly two decades of declines due to the internet, serious news outlets are getting more people to pay for online newspapers https://techcrunch.com/2017/03/04/why-newspaper-subscriptions-are-on-the-rise/ https://techcrunch.com/2017/03/04/why-newspaper-subscription... Maybe it will take another 10 years, but this gives me some hope that as consumers become more sophisticated (and jaded towards new trends), there's a chance society at large will be willing to pay real money to sidestep the worst side effects of ad-driven products.
fortythirteen 9y ago
I would argue that the selling of data is the second most destructive byproduct of social media, the first being dehumanization becoming part and parcel with online communication - and its bleeding into offline. I believe the reason that extreme ideologies on both sides of the spectrum have gained a foothold in recent years is because their ideas lend themselves to the hyperbolic, binary patterns of online discussion. We should put "social media" to pasture and try to come up with something better.

thomasjudge 9y ago

The problem obviously is competing with free...although, maybe we are beginning to realize that there are hidden costs to "free"...

overcast 9y ago

So you're going to pay to use it right? If this imaginary product managed to get 1% of Facebook to hand over their credit card. That would be the most wildly successful pay to use application in existence. Will never happen. Social Media sites rely on mass adoption, among those who refuse to pay for just about anything.

johnchristopher 9y ago
Just as some people pay for fastmail I am pretty sure there'd be some people paying an entrance fee to a social network. Wasn't the social network of last week, vero, supposed to be like that ?
- overcast 9y ago
  Email is a poor comparison, because you're connecting to millions of other people using gmail/yahoo/whatever, for free. The correct comparison would be if eMail was a universally paid for service. It would NOT be what it is today.
  - johnchristopher 9y ago
    I am not comparing the aims or the essence of the service. I am expression the opinion that social networks can be a paid-for service just like email, music or video can.
    - overcast 9y ago
      Right, but the problem here is that social networks need to grow exponentially. Without massive growth, they are useless, because you're not connected to anyone else. Email works, because everyone has email, mostly because it's free. Which leads to fast adoption.
- macintux 9y ago
  Network effects are brutally hard to overcome. https://www.digitaltrends.com/social-media/app-net-shut-down/ https://www.digitaltrends.com/social-media/app-net-shut-down...
  - cookiecaper 9y ago
    It's not network effects. It's hostile copyright and network access law. There's no reason that you shouldn't be able to interact with the content streams from both Twitter and App.Net at the same time, for example, except that our legal system allows the dominant company to sue the scrappy upstart into oblivion if they begin to do so. This is not theoretical; small companies are destroyed frequently by BigCo breaking out the lawyers for supposed violations of the CFAA and the Copyright Act. This sorry legal situation has completely obliterated meaningful competition in the online space, and we are letting them get away with it when we just hand-wave that it's because of "network effects". There's no reason that YoungSiteA shouldn't be able to act as a user agent on my behalf to access and reskin OldSiteB. If it could, the negative impact of switching providers would be small.
username223 9y ago
> So you're going to pay to use it right? Yep -- I'm willing to pay $5/mo to host stuff. That's roughly 10% of an average cell phone bill, or less than 1% of rent (even outside the cool places).
sgt101 9y ago
If "no pay" is an option most people will take it, if it isn't an option because the mechanisms that make it possible are banned then people will pay - or there will be no service. This isn't physics; the laws of user behaviour are mutable, and legislation is completely possible. The outcome of the erosion of privacy is the end of our ability to adapt as a society; there will be no new ways of doing things or dealing with change. This will be bad, we have some very very nasty societal problems coming and we need lots of new ways of dealing.
- overcast 9y ago
  I understand the privacy issues are horrible, and places like HN are super vocal about it. But the overall majority either don't know, or don't care, or mostly both. People dump their entire lives on to the internet, hoping for some type of validation from their peers. Banks destroyed many lives ten years ago, and yet we bailed them out, and are still using them. People in the end just don't care. Especially after time has passed.
  - Fej 9y ago
    Banks are necessary for modern economies. Social networks, not so much.
  - DataWorker 9y ago
    Which is why protections must be put in place. If a business model is detrimental to the health of a nation, then maybe the laws need to change to prohibit such a business model from preying on the citizenry.
lumberjack 9y ago
People will hate this suggestion on ideological grounds but a mandatory tax to fund an NGO is the way to go. Something like a $1/person/year tax is already plenty of money if you are just trying to maintain bare bones social networking platforms, without all the added surveillance and advertising machinery.
- ovao 9y ago
  NGO?
  - thaumasiotes 9y ago
    "Non-governmental organization", kind of an odd term to apply to an organization defined by the government and funded through taxes.
Symbiote 9y ago
Grindr has a paid-for upgrade, called Grindr XTRA. I wonder if paying users, who don't see ads, also don't have their data shared? https://help.grindr.com/hc/en-us/articles/115008879108-What-is-Grindr-XTRA- https://help.grindr.com/hc/en-us/articles/115008879108-What-...

palidanx 9y ago

I've been thinking about this quite a bit, but do you think anyone would actually pay for social media where they actually can own the data? I think the use case might be difficult given the convenience and 'free' aspect of Facebook, Twitter, etc.

harbie 9y ago

If you're not paying for anything, you're not the customer.

zoe1337 9y ago

I really want to see diaspora* taking over and the beginning of the decentralization era.

BadassFractal 9y ago
How does that compare to say Mastodon?
- zoe1337 9y ago
  Mastodon to diaspora is like twitter to facebook.
duskwuff 9y ago
I wouldn't hold my breath. The project has been out for ~8 years and has failed to gain any traction.
- chillingeffect 9y ago
  my circle of friends has started feeling it out in response to the recent facebook fracas. I recommend other people start feeling it out, too.
blueline 9y ago
>the decentralization era do you have any reason to believe that this will be "a thing" beyond highly obscure internet subcultures like HN and reddit?

gonzoflip 9y ago

I personally believe that social media may be one of the best use cases for blockchain technology. I think that each node "paying" for their account with some sort of resource usage could be sustainable, but I am not a blockchain expert. It would be interesting to see if something like that could work without turning into a ICO money-grab.

this_user 9y ago

Someone has to pay for your service. This can either be your users or a 3rd party. We know the overall acceptance of paying for online services is fairly low. Even high quality news outlets have problems monetising their content. In this case you're also competing with "free" services like FB. Unless you can offer something that is enough of an incentive for people to pay, this is not a battle you can win. What's more, social networks live and die by the network effect. People will be even less likely to pay for your service if there is no one already on it they know. In the end, you are choking off your growth through the higher barrier of entry before you can even get to the phase of a positive feedback loop in user numbers. This only leaves the 3rd party option. But someone like that will always want something in return, and the only thing that you have to offer is access to your users and their data.

Spooky23 9y ago
I don't think that's true. If you were constrained in how you use user data, you could make money in other, more difficult ways. Monetize photo services, music, sell access to the audience for applications or monetize the marketplace. Pillaging users is easy. But if regulators prevented it, Facebook is still a viable business -- maybe even a better one.

knieveltech 9y ago

Is there any evidence to suggest that it's even possible to combine "social media" with "business model" and not end up with exactly these sorts of issues? Users do not appear to have any appetite for pay-to-play social media offerings, which leaves advertising as the primary revenue stream.

jbattle 9y ago

I'm actually not that optimistic, but it seems like after nearly two decades of declines due to the internet, serious news outlets are getting more people to pay for online newspapers https://techcrunch.com/2017/03/04/why-newspaper-subscriptions-are-on-the-rise/ https://techcrunch.com/2017/03/04/why-newspaper-subscription... Maybe it will take another 10 years, but this gives me some hope that as consumers become more sophisticated (and jaded towards new trends), there's a chance society at large will be willing to pay real money to sidestep the worst side effects of ad-driven products.

fortythirteen 9y ago

I would argue that the selling of data is the second most destructive byproduct of social media, the first being dehumanization becoming part and parcel with online communication - and its bleeding into offline. I believe the reason that extreme ideologies on both sides of the spectrum have gained a foothold in recent years is because their ideas lend themselves to the hyperbolic, binary patterns of online discussion. We should put "social media" to pasture and try to come up with something better.