5 ms·

I wish I could just pay a monthly fee to access Facebook but to be protected from advertising and from being the product. I also wish I could client-side encry

I wish I could just pay a monthly fee to access Facebook but to be protected from advertising and from being the product. I also wish I could client-side encrypt all of my content, share the keys with my friends who I want to have the ability to view my content, and somehow have this all be friction-less and transparent from my and contacts' perspective.

pmlnr 9y ago
Secure Scuttlebutt. The problem is to get people on it.
- tmikaeld 9y ago
  They can start with asking the users about it.
- shocks 9y ago
  What a terrible name. :/
  - astura 9y ago
    "Scuttlebutt" is nautical term for a water fountain (which was originally a cask, not a fountain). Since sailors would congregate around the scuttlebutt and gossip, "scuttlebutt" also came to mean gossip as well. I guess I'd call it the nautical version of "water cooler talk." It's rather obscure term to use outside a nautical context, so I agree it's a bad name if targeting the general public. It would be a fine name if its target audience was only sailors.
    - shocks 9y ago
      That makes a lot of sense, when explained. I was thinking more from a branding perspective. :P "Hey non-technical friend, instead of Facebook you should use Secure Scuttlebutt; it's so much better!"
      - astura 9y ago
        Oh, I agree it's a terrible name for a product whose audience is the general public! I was just explaining the name.
    - anigbrowl 9y ago
      Gossip has negative connotations to start with. If people are gossiping about it's not something people most people consider a compliment.
- freehunter 9y ago
  The problem is the name. Names matter.
vermontdevil 9y ago
It will not generate enough revenue compared to ad revenue.
rectang 9y ago
Even when you're the customer, you'll still be a product. They'll sell you just like credit card companies have for decades. Companies are relentlessly profit-optimizing entities, and they cannot forego the extra revenue stream. Employees with ethics are like tissue holding back a tidal wave. The only way to avoid having them exploit the data is to deny them the data in the first place.
- _sdegutis 9y ago
  There are some larger businesses that do right by their customers and employees, because the leadership has a strong sense ethics and of responsibility for the ethics of their whole company.
  - lagolinguini 9y ago
    Can you give examples of such businesses, I'm genuinely curious.
    - c1utch1 9y ago
      IMO Apple doesn't data mine like other large tech companies. Especially since they shut down iAds.
      - rectang 9y ago
        That might be true now. What happens should Apple go bankrupt? Will those who buy the assets uphold the culture?
- wmeredith 9y ago
  > Companies are relentlessly profit-optimizing entities This isn't some mysterious or predetermined force. Companies are just made of people. > and they cannot forego the extra revenue stream. Yes. They CAN. And if the incentives were in the right place they would. For instance, Coke would probably sell more fizzy sugar water if it still used cocaine as an ingredient, but it doesn't, because it's illegal.
fakescience 9y ago
never going to happen, unless users organize some kind of collective action. Imagine how quickly Facebook would start to make changes if a bulk of users deactivated accounts in protest, similar to a strike [1]. Easy to do in theory, hard to do in practice. [1] https://medium.com/@oddbert2000/call-for-a-facebook-users-strike-on-may-1st-49733f3c7631 https://medium.com/@oddbert2000/call-for-a-facebook-users-st...
delecti 9y ago
The users who would be most willing to pay for such a change on Facebook are probably also the most lucrative demographic for advertisers.
Splines 9y ago
Mastodon can help you with the first part - you own the server and all the data on it. AFAIK there's no encryption of data at rest so you'd need to add that, but if you own the server it's less of a concern.
Slansitartop 9y ago
> I wish I could just pay a monthly fee to access Facebook but to be protected from advertising and from being the product. Honestly, they'd take your money and still treat you as a product and sell you. Their entire corporate culture is built around users being the product, and small cash payments won't change that. Nothing short of firing the entirety of Facebook's leadership and a good fraction of its other employees will change how it views its users.
- rock_hard 9y ago
  > Their entire corporate culture is built around users being the product, and small cash payments won't change that. You make that sound like a fact...can you please provide sources! I am asking this because it doesn't align with my personal assessment of people who I know that work at Facebook or Google...like not at all!
  - Slansitartop 9y ago
    https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/03/opinion/facebook-fix-replace.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/03/opinion/facebook-fix-repl...: > Every business has its founding DNA. Real corporate change is rare, especially when the same leaders remain in charge. In Facebook’s case, we are not speaking of a few missteps here and there, the misbehavior of a few aberrant employees. The problems are central and structural, the predicted consequences of its business model. From the day it first sought revenue, Facebook prioritized growth over any other possible goal, maximizing the harvest of data and human attention. Its promises to investors have demanded an ever-improving ability to spy on and manipulate large populations of people. Facebook, at its core, is a surveillance machine, and to expect that to change is misplaced optimism. This observation also would also likely apply to a hypothetical Facebook that offered user subscriptions: https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/a-serf-on-googles-farm https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/a-serf-on-googles-farm: > One thing I’ve observed with Google over the years is that it is institutionally so used to its ‘customers’ actually being its products that when it gets into businesses where it actually has customers it really has little sense of how to deal with them. Google's "customer service" is automated and unstaffed. When they're used to doing it that way, why reduce margins to staff a call center for the paying customers? Treat the paying customers and ad-watching users alike. Likewise, when you've built a mechanism to monetize user data, and you're used to running your business off it, why shut it all off for the few that pay you? It's "leaving money on the table." Keep it on, but maybe tone it down a little, and make even more money. To resist these temptations requires a strong culture that Facebook obviously does not have.

pmlnr 9y ago

Secure Scuttlebutt. The problem is to get people on it.

tmikaeld 9y ago
They can start with asking the users about it.
shocks 9y ago
What a terrible name. :/
- astura 9y ago
  "Scuttlebutt" is nautical term for a water fountain (which was originally a cask, not a fountain). Since sailors would congregate around the scuttlebutt and gossip, "scuttlebutt" also came to mean gossip as well. I guess I'd call it the nautical version of "water cooler talk." It's rather obscure term to use outside a nautical context, so I agree it's a bad name if targeting the general public. It would be a fine name if its target audience was only sailors.
  - shocks 9y ago
    That makes a lot of sense, when explained. I was thinking more from a branding perspective. :P "Hey non-technical friend, instead of Facebook you should use Secure Scuttlebutt; it's so much better!"
    - astura 9y ago
      Oh, I agree it's a terrible name for a product whose audience is the general public! I was just explaining the name.
  - anigbrowl 9y ago
    Gossip has negative connotations to start with. If people are gossiping about it's not something people most people consider a compliment.
freehunter 9y ago
The problem is the name. Names matter.

vermontdevil 9y ago

It will not generate enough revenue compared to ad revenue.

rectang 9y ago

Even when you're the customer, you'll still be a product. They'll sell you just like credit card companies have for decades. Companies are relentlessly profit-optimizing entities, and they cannot forego the extra revenue stream. Employees with ethics are like tissue holding back a tidal wave. The only way to avoid having them exploit the data is to deny them the data in the first place.

_sdegutis 9y ago
There are some larger businesses that do right by their customers and employees, because the leadership has a strong sense ethics and of responsibility for the ethics of their whole company.
- lagolinguini 9y ago
  Can you give examples of such businesses, I'm genuinely curious.
  - c1utch1 9y ago
    IMO Apple doesn't data mine like other large tech companies. Especially since they shut down iAds.
    - rectang 9y ago
      That might be true now. What happens should Apple go bankrupt? Will those who buy the assets uphold the culture?
wmeredith 9y ago
> Companies are relentlessly profit-optimizing entities This isn't some mysterious or predetermined force. Companies are just made of people. > and they cannot forego the extra revenue stream. Yes. They CAN. And if the incentives were in the right place they would. For instance, Coke would probably sell more fizzy sugar water if it still used cocaine as an ingredient, but it doesn't, because it's illegal.

fakescience 9y ago

never going to happen, unless users organize some kind of collective action. Imagine how quickly Facebook would start to make changes if a bulk of users deactivated accounts in protest, similar to a strike [1]. Easy to do in theory, hard to do in practice. [1] https://medium.com/@oddbert2000/call-for-a-facebook-users-strike-on-may-1st-49733f3c7631 https://medium.com/@oddbert2000/call-for-a-facebook-users-st...

delecti 9y ago

The users who would be most willing to pay for such a change on Facebook are probably also the most lucrative demographic for advertisers.

Splines 9y ago

Mastodon can help you with the first part - you own the server and all the data on it. AFAIK there's no encryption of data at rest so you'd need to add that, but if you own the server it's less of a concern.

Slansitartop 9y ago

> I wish I could just pay a monthly fee to access Facebook but to be protected from advertising and from being the product. Honestly, they'd take your money and still treat you as a product and sell you. Their entire corporate culture is built around users being the product, and small cash payments won't change that. Nothing short of firing the entirety of Facebook's leadership and a good fraction of its other employees will change how it views its users.

rock_hard 9y ago
> Their entire corporate culture is built around users being the product, and small cash payments won't change that. You make that sound like a fact...can you please provide sources! I am asking this because it doesn't align with my personal assessment of people who I know that work at Facebook or Google...like not at all!
- Slansitartop 9y ago
  https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/03/opinion/facebook-fix-replace.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/03/opinion/facebook-fix-repl...: > Every business has its founding DNA. Real corporate change is rare, especially when the same leaders remain in charge. In Facebook’s case, we are not speaking of a few missteps here and there, the misbehavior of a few aberrant employees. The problems are central and structural, the predicted consequences of its business model. From the day it first sought revenue, Facebook prioritized growth over any other possible goal, maximizing the harvest of data and human attention. Its promises to investors have demanded an ever-improving ability to spy on and manipulate large populations of people. Facebook, at its core, is a surveillance machine, and to expect that to change is misplaced optimism. This observation also would also likely apply to a hypothetical Facebook that offered user subscriptions: https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/a-serf-on-googles-farm https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/a-serf-on-googles-farm: > One thing I’ve observed with Google over the years is that it is institutionally so used to its ‘customers’ actually being its products that when it gets into businesses where it actually has customers it really has little sense of how to deal with them. Google's "customer service" is automated and unstaffed. When they're used to doing it that way, why reduce margins to staff a call center for the paying customers? Treat the paying customers and ad-watching users alike. Likewise, when you've built a mechanism to monetize user data, and you're used to running your business off it, why shut it all off for the few that pay you? It's "leaving money on the table." Keep it on, but maybe tone it down a little, and make even more money. To resist these temptations requires a strong culture that Facebook obviously does not have.