8 ms·

Maybe I'm just not creative enough, but what is a better alternative? Let's say you have a subscriber model, but than what kind of world will it be where only

Maybe I'm just not creative enough, but what is a better alternative? Let's say you have a subscriber model, but than what kind of world will it be where only the wealthy have access to these communication technologies and access to social information. Or you have a hybrid ad model with the ability to opt out by paying some fee. Than what kind of world will that be when privacy is a luxury item limited to how much you can afford. The best solution I can think of is keeping the current model, but adding regulation and government oversight to limit some of the most damaging effects i.e. creating platforms that abuse human psychology to keep people clicking and make them addicted to these platforms. I'm genuinely interested in other models people suggest.

lyzan 8y ago
Free version for those with verified low income? (I've been toying with models like this for awhile, and not to say its an easy or simple solution to implement, especially when considering bad actors, but it seems the best chance at getting something "fair") Alternatively could steal from games and add "cosmetics". Charge extra for things like themes that personalize but don't necessarily improve the experience. Items with enough value that people will "want" it but not "need" it.
- ythn 8y ago
  What's the definition of "low income"? It would vary wildly from country to country.
  - bald 8y ago
    Not saying I support the original idea, but there's objective, widely agreed-upon definitions for poverty, so it should be possible to transfer these to define low income.
    - drb91 8y ago
      > objective, widely agreed-upon definitions for poverty No, there aren’t; this is a political line that doesn’t make any sense at all. This is why “livable wage” is a phrase: just getting above the poverty line does not imply you can live on your income. The poverty line is pegged too low to be meaningful, at least here in US.
      - megablast 8y ago
        Like everything that exists in the real world, it doesn't have to be perfect.
        drb91 8y ago
        ...right, but if you don't care about how accurate it is, the value of distinguishing people is questionable.
    - mr_toad 8y ago
      The widely agreed upon definition of poverty varies hugely from country to country.
- emilfihlman 8y ago
  You are just okay with giving out your financial information? Top. Kek.
- citrablue 8y ago
  Proof of work from non-paying customers? Something that benefits the company (retweet to pay), or better yet, something that makes the world better? (eg pick up trash, socialize with an invalid, etc.)
  - brandonsometig 8y ago
    Whilst creepy, I love the idea of a proof of work system like this, something that anyone can participate in. I just don't see how it could be achieved in a way that couldn't be gamed.
alokrai 8y ago
WhatsApp had a subscriber model (99 cents per year). It was still very successful in India, a relatively poor country. I remember visiting villages in India, where people who are quite poor by western standards, still preferred using WhatsApp to other services. I think that reasonably priced subscription model, perhaps taking in account the per capita income of the country, could help preserve privacy while also ensuring mass access to technologies.
- majidazimi 8y ago
  The problem is greedy attitude of people. As long as one can earn more by selling user information, there is no incentive for reasonably priced subscription model.
- mcintyre1994 8y ago
  Do you know that those Indian people had actually paid for WhatsApp? I never had to pay, and most people I know (UK) don't seem to have done either. I don't know what the criteria was but it'd be pretty weird if they were charging people more aggressively in India than the UK. Maybe the whole not charging thing was a bug, it's always seemed weird.
- skinnymuch 8y ago
  I don’t think many if any Indian people actually paid for Whatsapp. Most people overall didn’t pay for it.
ChuckMcM 8y ago
In the past the function of the "phone company" was a paid for service which provided for your communication needs. You didn't have to listen to ads before you could talk to your friends but you did occasionally get unwanted calls. This medium reached people rich and poor, all around the world. The challenge here is greed. One of the interesting topics in economics is the ability to subvert the supply-demand curve by extracting economic value without the participants awareness. In classical economics the equilibrium point is met when the buyer thinks they are paying too much and the seller thinks they are getting to little for a good or service. In the idealized experiment the buyer doesn't have any other choice, nor does the seller have any other customer to turn to. But in our internet connected world there is an "invisible" (to the buyer) stream of value which is personal information about the buyer. To date there hasn't been a good way for the buyer to see or negotiate that value. GPDR helps that but it doesn't go far enough in some ways. What GPDR doesn't supply (yet?) is the practical way of enforcing the theft of personally identifiable information for financial gain. So in your example of a hybrid ad model, if you 'opt out' and now pay a fee, how do you know that they aren't still just selling your data? And if they are selling your data to get extra value out of you being a customer, what recourse do you have when you discover it? What risk are they taking by pursuing that path and maximizing their revenue? EDIT: From the article -- At the time of the sale, WhatsApp was profitable with fee revenue, although it is unclear by how much. (99 cents per year)
- jshen 8y ago
  I don’t know how old you are, but phone calls were really expensive in the decades before 2000. It’s not something low income people could afford to do very often.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - pnutjam 8y ago
    Your talking about long distance, local calls were inexpensive and available to all for low prices.
greggman 8y ago
phones worked for decades with fees. probably can't bring that model back but just pointing out the world still worked when communicating cost money. we had subsidies for the poor (no idea how effective they were) note I'm not suggesting we go back to that model. only pointing out we had a non ad based system before
eitland 8y ago
> Maybe I'm just not creative enough, but what is a better alternative? > Let's say you have a subscriber model, There was a company with a subscriber model. It worked pretty well and we loved it. Facebook bought it and destroyed the very idea behind it. > but than what kind of world will it be where only the wealthy have access to these communication technologies and access to social information. The same kind of world were all kinds of tech is expensive at first and then becomes cheaper and cheaper as it approaches and enter mainstream usage? Nobody would argue today that we should have refused luxury cars to add airbags because "what kind of world would it be where only the rich has access to safer cars". In the same way we shouldn't argue against people paying for better products. That said, I think WhatsApp were planning to add other paid options like API access etc before they got eaten by Facebook.
bawana 8y ago
How about crowdsourcing a social network? Look at synology NAS boxes-they have a ton of apps. They have even developed a stupid-proof way of connecting NAS boxes securely over the net without opening router ports. If i choose to install the synology 'chat' app, i could designate a fraction of the NAS space as a se[arate volume to be used soley by the app and sandboxed from my LAN. And just as synology boxen can sync with each other silently, securely and in the background- this 'chat' app can interact with the millions of other synology boxen. Of course to be a member of this ad-free, toll free network - you need a synology box in this model. But after all, it's just a linux box - however the tech for connecting them securely requires a handshake mediated by a server at SYNOLOGY. And they provide all this FREE. It is similar to the iMessage network that apple runs. And again you need an iPhone to be on that network.
- Kalium 8y ago
  A decentralized social network, built on peer-to-peer connections, allowing people to connect with one another without being intermediated and monetized by some central party? Sounds idyllic! Is it possible that perhaps this has been considered before, and perhaps even implemented?
  - nougatbyte 8y ago
    Isnt this what diaspora and mastodon are doing?
    - Kalium 8y ago
      Maybe! It's also what email is.
      - bawana 8y ago
        not really. email and list serves are somewhat 'dead'. they are distributed in chunky dumps only every so many hours. bbses are closer to what engage people. conversations are updated in a more granular fashion with a greater respect for timeliness. the point i was making is the current existence of a turn-key box that could be the building block of a publicly administered peer to peer network. the power of peer pressure is not to be underestimated. even my son who is a software engineer, knowledgeable about android, hacks his pixel , etc is moving to an iPhone because he has many friends - not software savvy - who are all on iPhones and iMessage each other , FaceTime themselves, etc. The magic can happen with A box that you can turn on and simply click an 'install' button that gets a peer to peer chat app that runs in a sandbox, shares some of your NAS space, is always on - A hooli box to make a new internet
gaius 8y ago
Let's say you have a subscriber model, but than what kind of world will it be where only the wealthy have access to these communication technologies and access to social information. This is a strawman. I give you Usenet and IRC as counter examples.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
mr_toad 8y ago
> only the wealthy Roughly $40 billion in revenue, divided by 2 billion users. Only the very poorest wouldn’t be able to afford it.
qwerty456127 8y ago
I believe the Facebook business model can be safely stripped down to the humane kind while still keeping viable. The revenue it can generate by displaying organic ads without excessive user surveillance (analyzing a user's likes and the kinds of ads they tend to click is ok, spying on every website they visit is not), without messing with politics and without selling data about the users to 3rd parties can still be enough to cover all the relevant expenses and generate profits (probably a way more humble than now yet positive) for the investors. Facebook can also employ the experience of it's Russian clone vk.com and let users share music (sharing the music that you like and that expresses the mood you'd like to share is a great way to communicate and many people love it!) while requiring those users who'd like to play long playlists in background pay a subscription fee. A number of other premium features that can add value to a subscription comes on to my mind as well: invisible mode (I'd pay for it immediately - I really hate when others can see if I'm online or if I've read their message, I have been actively hating this for years, this is infuriating yet I don't mind if solving this problem would cost a dollar or two per month), posts promotion, additional typesetting features, profile promotion (top-suggest everybody to add me as a friend), verified status for whoever wants it (not just celebrities), voluntary additional surveillance/curation (for parents willing to protect their underage kids) etc. Introducing a cryptocurrency dedicated to replace old-fashioned likes (e.g. every time somebody likes your post/comment you get a coin) yet traded at a cryptocurrency exchange and accepted as a way of paying for the premium features can be another opportunity. Organic possibilities are limitless.

lyzan 8y ago

Free version for those with verified low income? (I've been toying with models like this for awhile, and not to say its an easy or simple solution to implement, especially when considering bad actors, but it seems the best chance at getting something "fair") Alternatively could steal from games and add "cosmetics". Charge extra for things like themes that personalize but don't necessarily improve the experience. Items with enough value that people will "want" it but not "need" it.

ythn 8y ago
What's the definition of "low income"? It would vary wildly from country to country.
- bald 8y ago
  Not saying I support the original idea, but there's objective, widely agreed-upon definitions for poverty, so it should be possible to transfer these to define low income.
  - drb91 8y ago
    > objective, widely agreed-upon definitions for poverty No, there aren’t; this is a political line that doesn’t make any sense at all. This is why “livable wage” is a phrase: just getting above the poverty line does not imply you can live on your income. The poverty line is pegged too low to be meaningful, at least here in US.
    - megablast 8y ago
      Like everything that exists in the real world, it doesn't have to be perfect.
      - drb91 8y ago
        ...right, but if you don't care about how accurate it is, the value of distinguishing people is questionable.
  - mr_toad 8y ago
    The widely agreed upon definition of poverty varies hugely from country to country.
emilfihlman 8y ago
You are just okay with giving out your financial information? Top. Kek.
citrablue 8y ago
Proof of work from non-paying customers? Something that benefits the company (retweet to pay), or better yet, something that makes the world better? (eg pick up trash, socialize with an invalid, etc.)
- brandonsometig 8y ago
  Whilst creepy, I love the idea of a proof of work system like this, something that anyone can participate in. I just don't see how it could be achieved in a way that couldn't be gamed.

alokrai 8y ago

WhatsApp had a subscriber model (99 cents per year). It was still very successful in India, a relatively poor country. I remember visiting villages in India, where people who are quite poor by western standards, still preferred using WhatsApp to other services. I think that reasonably priced subscription model, perhaps taking in account the per capita income of the country, could help preserve privacy while also ensuring mass access to technologies.

majidazimi 8y ago
The problem is greedy attitude of people. As long as one can earn more by selling user information, there is no incentive for reasonably priced subscription model.
mcintyre1994 8y ago
Do you know that those Indian people had actually paid for WhatsApp? I never had to pay, and most people I know (UK) don't seem to have done either. I don't know what the criteria was but it'd be pretty weird if they were charging people more aggressively in India than the UK. Maybe the whole not charging thing was a bug, it's always seemed weird.
skinnymuch 8y ago
I don’t think many if any Indian people actually paid for Whatsapp. Most people overall didn’t pay for it.

ChuckMcM 8y ago

In the past the function of the "phone company" was a paid for service which provided for your communication needs. You didn't have to listen to ads before you could talk to your friends but you did occasionally get unwanted calls. This medium reached people rich and poor, all around the world. The challenge here is greed. One of the interesting topics in economics is the ability to subvert the supply-demand curve by extracting economic value without the participants awareness. In classical economics the equilibrium point is met when the buyer thinks they are paying too much and the seller thinks they are getting to little for a good or service. In the idealized experiment the buyer doesn't have any other choice, nor does the seller have any other customer to turn to. But in our internet connected world there is an "invisible" (to the buyer) stream of value which is personal information about the buyer. To date there hasn't been a good way for the buyer to see or negotiate that value. GPDR helps that but it doesn't go far enough in some ways. What GPDR doesn't supply (yet?) is the practical way of enforcing the theft of personally identifiable information for financial gain. So in your example of a hybrid ad model, if you 'opt out' and now pay a fee, how do you know that they aren't still just selling your data? And if they are selling your data to get extra value out of you being a customer, what recourse do you have when you discover it? What risk are they taking by pursuing that path and maximizing their revenue? EDIT: From the article -- At the time of the sale, WhatsApp was profitable with fee revenue, although it is unclear by how much. (99 cents per year)

jshen 8y ago
I don’t know how old you are, but phone calls were really expensive in the decades before 2000. It’s not something low income people could afford to do very often.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- pnutjam 8y ago
  Your talking about long distance, local calls were inexpensive and available to all for low prices.

greggman 8y ago

phones worked for decades with fees. probably can't bring that model back but just pointing out the world still worked when communicating cost money. we had subsidies for the poor (no idea how effective they were) note I'm not suggesting we go back to that model. only pointing out we had a non ad based system before

eitland 8y ago

> Maybe I'm just not creative enough, but what is a better alternative? > Let's say you have a subscriber model, There was a company with a subscriber model. It worked pretty well and we loved it. Facebook bought it and destroyed the very idea behind it. > but than what kind of world will it be where only the wealthy have access to these communication technologies and access to social information. The same kind of world were all kinds of tech is expensive at first and then becomes cheaper and cheaper as it approaches and enter mainstream usage? Nobody would argue today that we should have refused luxury cars to add airbags because "what kind of world would it be where only the rich has access to safer cars". In the same way we shouldn't argue against people paying for better products. That said, I think WhatsApp were planning to add other paid options like API access etc before they got eaten by Facebook.

bawana 8y ago

How about crowdsourcing a social network? Look at synology NAS boxes-they have a ton of apps. They have even developed a stupid-proof way of connecting NAS boxes securely over the net without opening router ports. If i choose to install the synology 'chat' app, i could designate a fraction of the NAS space as a se[arate volume to be used soley by the app and sandboxed from my LAN. And just as synology boxen can sync with each other silently, securely and in the background- this 'chat' app can interact with the millions of other synology boxen. Of course to be a member of this ad-free, toll free network - you need a synology box in this model. But after all, it's just a linux box - however the tech for connecting them securely requires a handshake mediated by a server at SYNOLOGY. And they provide all this FREE. It is similar to the iMessage network that apple runs. And again you need an iPhone to be on that network.

Kalium 8y ago
A decentralized social network, built on peer-to-peer connections, allowing people to connect with one another without being intermediated and monetized by some central party? Sounds idyllic! Is it possible that perhaps this has been considered before, and perhaps even implemented?
- nougatbyte 8y ago
  Isnt this what diaspora and mastodon are doing?
  - Kalium 8y ago
    Maybe! It's also what email is.
    - bawana 8y ago
      not really. email and list serves are somewhat 'dead'. they are distributed in chunky dumps only every so many hours. bbses are closer to what engage people. conversations are updated in a more granular fashion with a greater respect for timeliness. the point i was making is the current existence of a turn-key box that could be the building block of a publicly administered peer to peer network. the power of peer pressure is not to be underestimated. even my son who is a software engineer, knowledgeable about android, hacks his pixel , etc is moving to an iPhone because he has many friends - not software savvy - who are all on iPhones and iMessage each other , FaceTime themselves, etc. The magic can happen with A box that you can turn on and simply click an 'install' button that gets a peer to peer chat app that runs in a sandbox, shares some of your NAS space, is always on - A hooli box to make a new internet

gaius 8y ago

Let's say you have a subscriber model, but than what kind of world will it be where only the wealthy have access to these communication technologies and access to social information. This is a strawman. I give you Usenet and IRC as counter examples.

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]

mr_toad 8y ago

> only the wealthy Roughly $40 billion in revenue, divided by 2 billion users. Only the very poorest wouldn’t be able to afford it.

qwerty456127 8y ago

I believe the Facebook business model can be safely stripped down to the humane kind while still keeping viable. The revenue it can generate by displaying organic ads without excessive user surveillance (analyzing a user's likes and the kinds of ads they tend to click is ok, spying on every website they visit is not), without messing with politics and without selling data about the users to 3rd parties can still be enough to cover all the relevant expenses and generate profits (probably a way more humble than now yet positive) for the investors. Facebook can also employ the experience of it's Russian clone vk.com and let users share music (sharing the music that you like and that expresses the mood you'd like to share is a great way to communicate and many people love it!) while requiring those users who'd like to play long playlists in background pay a subscription fee. A number of other premium features that can add value to a subscription comes on to my mind as well: invisible mode (I'd pay for it immediately - I really hate when others can see if I'm online or if I've read their message, I have been actively hating this for years, this is infuriating yet I don't mind if solving this problem would cost a dollar or two per month), posts promotion, additional typesetting features, profile promotion (top-suggest everybody to add me as a friend), verified status for whoever wants it (not just celebrities), voluntary additional surveillance/curation (for parents willing to protect their underage kids) etc. Introducing a cryptocurrency dedicated to replace old-fashioned likes (e.g. every time somebody likes your post/comment you get a coin) yet traded at a cryptocurrency exchange and accepted as a way of paying for the premium features can be another opportunity. Organic possibilities are limitless.