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My feeling is the problem with the link between humans and computers is that the people funding things like Facebook and other high-profit digital services are

My feeling is the problem with the link between humans and computers is that the people funding things like Facebook and other high-profit digital services are applying an economic model which may have worked in an age before computers, but is completely absurd when it meets computers. Let's think of Facebook for a second as a "public meeting space", like a dog park. How many dog parks do you know valued at hundreds of billions of dollars? You could run a social media platform instead as a service for users funded by donations, in the vein of Wikipedia. This way you don't need to convince most people to pay. You only need a small passionate few who keep the service going for everyone else. I think the business model would generally incentivize much more user-friendly operational decisions than an ad-sponsored approach does. And since this is a digital service, the operational cost can be scaled proportionally to the donations received.

te_chris 9y ago
The Guardian have switched to this model and it seems to at least be showing the promise of working. I live in London and subscribe to the paper at the weekends, primarily because the physical thing is a good product and a nice thing to read at weekends - particularly the review and longform arts stuff - but also as a way to support an organisation I think is doing valuable work.
- thinkingemote 9y ago
  Hmm, I might be missing something here. To me it appears as there's nothing really novel about getting the weekend newspapers delivered to your house on a subscription basis. One arranges delivery and subscription with the local newsagent and a paperboy delivers it. (The terms we still use even encode that model: newsagent paperboy) Perhaps it's a return to tried and tested model rather than a switch to a new one?
- tombrossman 9y ago
  > The Guardian have switched to this model and it seems to at least be showing the promise of working. Not exactly. While it is possible to become a Guardian 'supporter', and contribute financially in exchange for ad-free browsing after you identify yourself by logging in, you are not free from tracking by third-party ad companies as you browse their site. The parent comment you are responding to said "I think the business model would generally incentivize much more user-friendly operational decisions than an ad-sponsored approach does." and while this gives you a superficially cleaner browsing experience, ad companies continue to track you as you browse the Guardian's website, harvesting data which can be used to manipulate you elsewhere on the web. The Guardian could choose to disable all third-party trackers for logged-in paying supporters, but they do not. For privacy conscious readers, the only way to achieve what you want is to install an ad-blocker and a browser extension such as Privacy Badger. Contributing to the paper provides little or no privacy benefit, though it's always a good idea to support quality journalism, so if you do it, do it for that reason alone.
  - hackeyed 9y ago
    For those that are digital subscribers and wish to suggest exactly this turning off of 3rd party tracking for logged-in users, this looks like the most relevant email address: membershipsupport@theguardian.com Be sure to include your subscriber/membership number in that email, which you can find in your profile https://profile.theguardian.com/ https://profile.theguardian.com/
gvurrdon 9y ago
Some sort of enhancement for paying would probably help as well. IIRC Livejournal used to offer custom homepage themes, extra user avatars etc. for anyone who paid for the service. Yet, the basic functionality was available for anyone.
aptwebapps 9y ago
Replace 'a dog park' with 'most dog parks' and valuation starts to make a little more sense.
- indigochill 9y ago
  I think in that analogy you're looking at something like Diaspora*: distributed and independently-managed public meeting places. Which is monetarily valued much lower because it's designed to be a social tool for users, not to be a money machine. But the value it can theoretically provide to users in connecting them with other people is similar.
bryanrasmussen 9y ago
How much do you think a company would have been valued that let you create a meeting space for people with very little work, communicate it almost instantaneously to everyone you wanted invited, and to have the meeting space focused on any subject you liked - not just dog parks. I believe Facebook is overvalued, but comparison to the value of a dog park is not exactly fair either.
- 908087 9y ago
  Given the general state of the "content" people put on Facebook, I'd say the dog park comparison is a good one.. but not quite in the way the parent post meant it.
- isostatic 9y ago
  > I believe Facebook is overvalued, but comparison to the value of a dog park is not exactly fair either. One is a great place do be if it wasn't for all piles of steaming crap left around by irresponsible users. The other is somewhere to exercise your dog
- indigochill 9y ago
  You make a fair point. Facebook does provide a lot more functionality for users than the comparison gives them credit for. What I was trying to convey was that a social network doesn't necessarily need to move the mountains of money that Facebook does. Diaspora* is an example of a free open source social network platform. Of course it still cost people a lot of time and money to build and host it, but nowhere near Facebook levels. I also think the business model of running specifically a social network as a profitable business is likely to lead to "perverse incentives". Making a profit isn't necessarily opposed to helping people connect (e.g. OKCupid's business model of being free to all but selling advantages to power users), but it takes both the willingness to align your business model with your users' interests and the fortitude to stick to that approach even though other approaches could be more profitable.

te_chris 9y ago

The Guardian have switched to this model and it seems to at least be showing the promise of working. I live in London and subscribe to the paper at the weekends, primarily because the physical thing is a good product and a nice thing to read at weekends - particularly the review and longform arts stuff - but also as a way to support an organisation I think is doing valuable work.

thinkingemote 9y ago
Hmm, I might be missing something here. To me it appears as there's nothing really novel about getting the weekend newspapers delivered to your house on a subscription basis. One arranges delivery and subscription with the local newsagent and a paperboy delivers it. (The terms we still use even encode that model: newsagent paperboy) Perhaps it's a return to tried and tested model rather than a switch to a new one?
tombrossman 9y ago
> The Guardian have switched to this model and it seems to at least be showing the promise of working. Not exactly. While it is possible to become a Guardian 'supporter', and contribute financially in exchange for ad-free browsing after you identify yourself by logging in, you are not free from tracking by third-party ad companies as you browse their site. The parent comment you are responding to said "I think the business model would generally incentivize much more user-friendly operational decisions than an ad-sponsored approach does." and while this gives you a superficially cleaner browsing experience, ad companies continue to track you as you browse the Guardian's website, harvesting data which can be used to manipulate you elsewhere on the web. The Guardian could choose to disable all third-party trackers for logged-in paying supporters, but they do not. For privacy conscious readers, the only way to achieve what you want is to install an ad-blocker and a browser extension such as Privacy Badger. Contributing to the paper provides little or no privacy benefit, though it's always a good idea to support quality journalism, so if you do it, do it for that reason alone.
- hackeyed 9y ago
  For those that are digital subscribers and wish to suggest exactly this turning off of 3rd party tracking for logged-in users, this looks like the most relevant email address: membershipsupport@theguardian.com Be sure to include your subscriber/membership number in that email, which you can find in your profile https://profile.theguardian.com/ https://profile.theguardian.com/

gvurrdon 9y ago

Some sort of enhancement for paying would probably help as well. IIRC Livejournal used to offer custom homepage themes, extra user avatars etc. for anyone who paid for the service. Yet, the basic functionality was available for anyone.

aptwebapps 9y ago

Replace 'a dog park' with 'most dog parks' and valuation starts to make a little more sense.

indigochill 9y ago
I think in that analogy you're looking at something like Diaspora*: distributed and independently-managed public meeting places. Which is monetarily valued much lower because it's designed to be a social tool for users, not to be a money machine. But the value it can theoretically provide to users in connecting them with other people is similar.

bryanrasmussen 9y ago

How much do you think a company would have been valued that let you create a meeting space for people with very little work, communicate it almost instantaneously to everyone you wanted invited, and to have the meeting space focused on any subject you liked - not just dog parks. I believe Facebook is overvalued, but comparison to the value of a dog park is not exactly fair either.

908087 9y ago
Given the general state of the "content" people put on Facebook, I'd say the dog park comparison is a good one.. but not quite in the way the parent post meant it.
isostatic 9y ago
> I believe Facebook is overvalued, but comparison to the value of a dog park is not exactly fair either. One is a great place do be if it wasn't for all piles of steaming crap left around by irresponsible users. The other is somewhere to exercise your dog
indigochill 9y ago
You make a fair point. Facebook does provide a lot more functionality for users than the comparison gives them credit for. What I was trying to convey was that a social network doesn't necessarily need to move the mountains of money that Facebook does. Diaspora* is an example of a free open source social network platform. Of course it still cost people a lot of time and money to build and host it, but nowhere near Facebook levels. I also think the business model of running specifically a social network as a profitable business is likely to lead to "perverse incentives". Making a profit isn't necessarily opposed to helping people connect (e.g. OKCupid's business model of being free to all but selling advantages to power users), but it takes both the willingness to align your business model with your users' interests and the fortitude to stick to that approach even though other approaches could be more profitable.