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I love the idea of an alternate social network, and I'm fine with the idea of charging users. But in an era where free alternatives are bountiful (even if most
by chipotle_coyote 7y ago
I love the idea of an alternate social network, and I'm fine with the idea of charging users. But in an era where free alternatives are bountiful (even if most of them are "free as in puppy"), where a full paid blog hosting service like Micro.blog -- which includes a social network timeline built on IndieWeb principles -- is only $5 a month, where "subscription fatigue" is entering the lexicon... this is just a bonkers amount of money to ask.
If I were serious about building some kind of social network at this point and thought it would need a revenue stream to be sustainable, I'd try to:
- find not just a niche but functionality that differentiates it from existing services in some way (if your service can be described as "Facebook for X," you've already lost, because the Facebook for all values of X already exists and is called "Facebook")
- build on open protocols, IndieWeb style (including ActivityPub, although the first point suggests the service better not be "Mastodon for X," either)
- if it makes sense, have a free tier that gives people some clue what they're signing up for, although not so much that it discourages them from actually, you know, signing up
- charge a low enough rate that signing up doesn't feel like a huge commitment: say, $2 a month or $16 a year
I'm surprised nobody has tried the low-cost route yet. Yes, I get it, those rates aren't going to be bringing you VC money and bazillion-dollar unicorn growth, but a relatively small number of paying users could create a sustainable, even profitable, small business for a few employees.
- dcolkitt 7y agoI'm not necessarily if translates into online social media, but at least in meatspace there's no shortage of social clubs where the high price tag is a feature not a bug. They're called country clubs.
- chipotle_coyote 7y agoAbsolutely, and it'd be possible to create the social network equivalent of a country club. The questions I'd ask are (a) is that the kind of network that Jimmy Wales wants to create here, and (b) what's the value proposition? Obviously part of the value is saying "I am a member of this exclusive club," but that relies on the exclusive club actually impressing whoever you consider "the right people." :)
- imglorp 7y ago> free as in puppy Which one is actually free? You're paying by sharing your life with them to sell for other purposes. Your purchases, search history, private conversations, even bedroom talk are all ongoing amortized payments for that puppy.
- chipotle_coyote 7y agoThat's what "free as in puppy" stems from: the puppy is technically free, but there are a lot of other costs involved. It was originally coined, AFAIK, to suggest than even "free as in speech" free software can have a lot of other costs associated with it, but I think it applies to free services that get their revenue by showing you ads, aggregating and monetizing your data, or both.
- Vysero 7y ago"this is just a bonkers amount of money to ask." I couldn't agree more. I am not sure what Jimmy Wales is thinking here... there is no way this site gains any serious traction. I wouldn't pay $5/month for facebook... hell I wouldn't pay $3/month... you know what, if Facebook wasn't free, I wouldn't use it.
- rednerrus 7y agoThis might be a way of weeding people out. It's an insane amount of money.
- dinkleberg 7y agoYour personal data isn't worth $3/month to you? There is this idea that everything should be free for everyone, but building and maintaining a platform like Facebook takes immense amounts of resources. If someone builds a social media platform and wants to work on it full time, they need some source of revenue. It's going to be either coming from the users or it's going to be coming from advertisers. You take your pick.
- djsumdog 7y agoI would agree. $3/month would be more reasonable, and with Wales behind it, probably even somewhat sustainable for the first year. Afterwards they could lock everyone in at that price and up it to say $9 or $10 .. whatever they need to in order to cover costs.