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>I would happily pay 20 dollars a year for a social media site that > does not track or advertise if anyone is up for building it. The problem is that your wil

by jasode 8y ago

>I would happily pay 20 dollars a year for a social media site that > does not track or advertise if anyone is up for building it. The problem is that your willingness to pay puts you in a tiny minority. A smartphone survey found that 70% of users won't even pay $1 a year to avoid ads.[1] That's just 8 cents a month. Since surveys always overestimate actual money spent, one should round up that 70% to ~90%. A general purpose social website requires most everybody to be on it. (Six degrees of separation and all that.) Therefore, any payment of even 8 cents is a huge barrier to adoption. [1] https://www.tune.com/blog/mobile-ads-70-of-smartphone-owners-wont-pay-even-1-to-avoid-ads/ https://www.tune.com/blog/mobile-ads-70-of-smartphone-owners...

mundo 8y ago
> A general purpose social website requires most everybody to be on it. Who said it has to be general purpose? Part of the attraction of a paid social media site for me would be the fact that most people aren't on it. Isn't that why we're currently discussing the matter on HN rather than FB? That said though, I'd be much more excited about paying $20/yr for the VPS where I host my node in a (hypothetical) FOSS distributed social media app than about paying $20/yr for a login to a closed source and proprietary one.
- jasode 8y ago
  >Who said it has to be general purpose? The author did and that's the context. The blog post was talking about sharing photos etc with "friends and family" so I took it be general purpose so it is adopted by a general audience. Yes, there are things like Mastadon instances run by volunteers that are funded by donations for topics like anime but niche social networks doesn't seem to be what the author is talking about. >Isn't that why we're currently discussing the matter on HN rather than FB? I think the plea was submitted to a technical site like HN instead of FB because it's trying to drum up interest from programmers who can _build_ the $20/year a general purpose replacement for Facebook/Twitter.
TACIXAT 8y ago
Yea, I feel that. My girlfriend is absolutely allergic to spending money on anything. On the other hand, you could probably get my dad on a site to keep up with his family and he wouldn't think twice about the cost. How this changes between different income levels is also a really important question. One solution to needing people on the site would be open sharing with private links. Kind of like an unlisted video on YouTube, I could still send out my vacation photos to family without them being on the site.

by jasode 8y ago

mundo 8y ago

> A general purpose social website requires most everybody to be on it. Who said it has to be general purpose? Part of the attraction of a paid social media site for me would be the fact that most people aren't on it. Isn't that why we're currently discussing the matter on HN rather than FB? That said though, I'd be much more excited about paying $20/yr for the VPS where I host my node in a (hypothetical) FOSS distributed social media app than about paying $20/yr for a login to a closed source and proprietary one.

jasode 8y ago
>Who said it has to be general purpose? The author did and that's the context. The blog post was talking about sharing photos etc with "friends and family" so I took it be general purpose so it is adopted by a general audience. Yes, there are things like Mastadon instances run by volunteers that are funded by donations for topics like anime but niche social networks doesn't seem to be what the author is talking about. >Isn't that why we're currently discussing the matter on HN rather than FB? I think the plea was submitted to a technical site like HN instead of FB because it's trying to drum up interest from programmers who can _build_ the $20/year a general purpose replacement for Facebook/Twitter.

TACIXAT 8y ago

Yea, I feel that. My girlfriend is absolutely allergic to spending money on anything. On the other hand, you could probably get my dad on a site to keep up with his family and he wouldn't think twice about the cost. How this changes between different income levels is also a really important question. One solution to needing people on the site would be open sharing with private links. Kind of like an unlisted video on YouTube, I could still send out my vacation photos to family without them being on the site.