6 ms·

The way to fix Facebook is to build a better platform and allow Facebook to go the way of myspace.

by cirgue 9y ago

CodeMage 9y ago
Facebook is not the problem we need to fix, it's a symptom of an underlying problem.
- 18pfsmt 9y ago
  You simply need to elaborate on the, "underlying problem" or you are blowing smoke.
jandrese 9y ago
There is a treadmill effect where someone builds a site without all of the terrible misfeatures of the old and starts gathering huge numbers of people. Then they need to pay for staff/servers/bandwidth/shareholders/etc... and have to start monetizing and pretty soon they have all of the stuff that people hated on the old site.
- NoGravitas 9y ago
  That's really only a problem for centralized services, though. Federated services (like Mastodon[0]) don't really have this problem, because they scale horizontally over lots of small instances that can be supported by donations or co-op membership fees. And distributed services like Secure Scuttlebutt[1] don't have this problem at all, because every user pays for their own use. Beyond the self-inflicted problem of trying to scale one system to support the whole world, having to make a profit rather than just be self-supporting drives the need to monetize and use dark patterns. [0]: https://joinmastodon.org/ https://joinmastodon.org/ [1]: https://www.scuttlebutt.nz/ https://www.scuttlebutt.nz/
Thriptic 9y ago
It's not a platform issue, it's a monetization issue. Somehow social networks have to make money, and that either involves charging users which pisses people off, or relying on the fact that people don't properly value their time and / or information and selling them ads. Selling ads incentivizes aggressive data mining, and then you're right back to the situation we have now.
- microwavecamera 9y ago
  I think the best solution would be to create an open, non-profit, publicly funded platform similar to Wikipedia. Besides I believe it's possible to have advertising on commercial sites and still be ethical.
  - em3rgent0rdr 9y ago
    ActivityPub [1] is a W3 recommendation for protocol for social networks communicating a federated p2p manner. It is used by open source social networks like Mastedon and PeerTube to interact with eachother. https://www.w3.org/TR/activitypub https://www.w3.org/TR/activitypub
    - 18pfsmt 9y ago
      Practically speaking, all of us that care about these sorts of things already know about Mastodon, if not ActivityPub and GnuSocial, etc. We have lots of potential FB competitors to root for right now.
      - microwavecamera 9y ago
        There's a few other good ones too: https://www.opensource-socialnetwork.org https://www.opensource-socialnetwork.org https://www.humhub.org/en https://www.humhub.org/en https://www.oxwall.com https://www.oxwall.com https://elgg.org https://elgg.org - site seems to be having issues right now https://friendi.ca https://friendi.ca
- cirgue 9y ago
  > It's not a platform issue, it's a monetization issue. This is kind of what I was getting at. I agree, the business model of the platform is the defining variable in how it will develop and how it treats users. Unfortunately there is no general willingness to pay for a social network. Facebook's ARPU in the US is something like $100/year. I would be willing to pay that for a social media platform that did zero business with advertisers. I don't think most people would though.

The way to fix Facebook is to build a better platform and allow Facebook to go the way of myspace.

by cirgue 9y ago

The way to fix Facebook is to build a better platform and allow Facebook to go the way of myspace.

CodeMage 9y ago

Facebook is not the problem we need to fix, it's a symptom of an underlying problem.

18pfsmt 9y ago
You simply need to elaborate on the, "underlying problem" or you are blowing smoke.

jandrese 9y ago

There is a treadmill effect where someone builds a site without all of the terrible misfeatures of the old and starts gathering huge numbers of people. Then they need to pay for staff/servers/bandwidth/shareholders/etc... and have to start monetizing and pretty soon they have all of the stuff that people hated on the old site.

NoGravitas 9y ago
That's really only a problem for centralized services, though. Federated services (like Mastodon[0]) don't really have this problem, because they scale horizontally over lots of small instances that can be supported by donations or co-op membership fees. And distributed services like Secure Scuttlebutt[1] don't have this problem at all, because every user pays for their own use. Beyond the self-inflicted problem of trying to scale one system to support the whole world, having to make a profit rather than just be self-supporting drives the need to monetize and use dark patterns. [0]: https://joinmastodon.org/ https://joinmastodon.org/ [1]: https://www.scuttlebutt.nz/ https://www.scuttlebutt.nz/

Thriptic 9y ago

It's not a platform issue, it's a monetization issue. Somehow social networks have to make money, and that either involves charging users which pisses people off, or relying on the fact that people don't properly value their time and / or information and selling them ads. Selling ads incentivizes aggressive data mining, and then you're right back to the situation we have now.

microwavecamera 9y ago
I think the best solution would be to create an open, non-profit, publicly funded platform similar to Wikipedia. Besides I believe it's possible to have advertising on commercial sites and still be ethical.
- em3rgent0rdr 9y ago
  ActivityPub [1] is a W3 recommendation for protocol for social networks communicating a federated p2p manner. It is used by open source social networks like Mastedon and PeerTube to interact with eachother. https://www.w3.org/TR/activitypub https://www.w3.org/TR/activitypub
  - 18pfsmt 9y ago
    Practically speaking, all of us that care about these sorts of things already know about Mastodon, if not ActivityPub and GnuSocial, etc. We have lots of potential FB competitors to root for right now.
    - microwavecamera 9y ago
      There's a few other good ones too: https://www.opensource-socialnetwork.org https://www.opensource-socialnetwork.org https://www.humhub.org/en https://www.humhub.org/en https://www.oxwall.com https://www.oxwall.com https://elgg.org https://elgg.org - site seems to be having issues right now https://friendi.ca https://friendi.ca
cirgue 9y ago
> It's not a platform issue, it's a monetization issue. This is kind of what I was getting at. I agree, the business model of the platform is the defining variable in how it will develop and how it treats users. Unfortunately there is no general willingness to pay for a social network. Facebook's ARPU in the US is something like $100/year. I would be willing to pay that for a social media platform that did zero business with advertisers. I don't think most people would though.