4 ms·
I've had a hunch lately that someone would try to create a paid social network, but I never thought the idea would work for the reasons that social media became
by bransonf 7y ago
I've had a hunch lately that someone would try to create a paid social network, but I never thought the idea would work for the reasons that social media became so popular to begin with.
Facebook is popular because it is free, it is easy, it is convenient. Old people, kids, a large proportion of the population has no understanding of how they get all this for free. And most of them don't care. They interact with ads just like it's any other content in their feed. They are happy they get something with so many features without having to pay for it.
Social networks that advertise privacy or no ads have limited appeal because the only group that really cares about this is (maybe) teenagers, and younger adults who are in touch with privacy politics.
- mkskm 7y agoAccording to the announcement on Twitter it is free, just donation-based: - https://twitter.com/jimmy_wales/status/1192160194693718017 https://twitter.com/jimmy_wales/status/1192160194693718017 - https://twitter.com/jimmy_wales/status/1192635476726947840 https://twitter.com/jimmy_wales/status/1192635476726947840
- bransonf 7y agoSorry, my understanding is that there is a waiting list unless you're willing to pay. Even still, I don't ever think a donation-based social network will be able to outcompete a free (but totally selling your data) social network.
- Nuzzerino 7y agoCompeting by what measure? If quantity is your measure, of course you can never beat free, and I'm sure Jimmy Wales knows this too, having founded the free Encyclopedia. People won't pay for a platform unless they're using it, so you can be sure that of the users that are paying, they're likely to be engaged. I don't know about you, but social networks tend to suck when the users aren't even logging in. I don't need a billion users or even a million on a given platform to necessarily find reasonably good interactions on it.
- scarejunba 7y agoMetafilter was started in 1999.