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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 su

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-...

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-...