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I'm actually building an alternative to Facebook for people fed up with Facebook and just want to stay in touch with people and not much more. I would go as far

I'm actually building an alternative to Facebook for people fed up with Facebook and just want to stay in touch with people and not much more. I would go as far as calling it a glorified address book with some extra features for having up-to-date contact details for everyone that has granted you the privilege of having them and a very cut down version of the feed. Which brings me to the question of monetisation. I don't want ads or data collection of any kind so my first thought is to have a basic free account and a cheap premium account that lets you upload and share photo albums and that sort of thing. Thoughts on this strategy or possible privacy respecting alternatives?

anderspitman 7y ago
FWIW, I'll almost certainly never use another social network that's not open source, or at the very least built on simple open protocols. Best of luck.
- have_faith 7y ago
  I respect the stance, and it's not an avenue that I've ruled out, but it's not a priority for me for the moment. Especially with the primary concerns that I'm addressing at first is the destructive incentive structure constructed by ad and data supported social networks.
ori_b 7y ago
Monetization is a perverse incentive. I'm willing to run my own services, maybe pay someone to host for me, but I don't want a company with an incentive to maximize eyeball time.
- have_faith 7y ago
  Having every single user run and manage their own software or pay another service to run it for them doesn't seem practical or efficient to me but I would be interested in ideas to the contrary.
maxk42 7y ago
If all the images are paid-for you have the advantage of basically not having to worry about bandwidth. (Assuming you're not bloating the site with MBs of JS libraries.) Unfortunately -- Facebook has trained people to expect this feature for free. Not sure there's a simple solution here. But maybe you could release the site unmonetized then work on a paid white-label version for private networks / corporate intranets / etc.?
Jaruzel 7y ago
My personal view on this (take or leave it) is that unless you are being backed by some very rich investors, you don't have a hope of gaining any sort of traction here. I do like the 'address book' concept, though, and have toyed with similar ideas previously - a place for everyone to have a single page 'profile' with links out to their real social accounts etc. But in this age of privacy and tracking awareness, I don't think the average internet user will want to put all their contact info in one place. The real problem with Facebook is that for most people it's frictionless... it's really easy for people who use it to chat and share with other users. For them, there's no real compelling reason to switch platforms. Asking them to at this point is like trying to sell a mobile phone on a new network that can't dial other networks.
AlphaWeaver 7y ago
Hey, we're exploring the problem of monetization too! That's one of the things we're discussing right now in VC3 (https://vc3.club)- https://vc3.club)- if you're interested, we'd love to have you join the conversation!
- have_faith 7y ago
  Signed up!
jlj 7y ago
What about making the financials radically transparent, and billing users for their actual cost + some reasonable markup.
tubbs 7y ago
I don't know how sustainable it would be, but I've always been fond of DuckDuckGo's ad model: https://help.duckduckgo.com/company/advertising-and-affiliates/?redir=1 https://help.duckduckgo.com/company/advertising-and-affiliat... Additionally, an adless "pro" feature could be purchased for some small fee that would be comparable to what ads rake in for the average user. This is something I've thought about for a while but I've never had the resources to throw it together. I wish you the best of luck!
msftie 7y ago
Is an(other) alternative to Facebook the solution? Can we evolve beyond this? It seems to me like we all have what you’re building in our pocket already.
- have_faith 7y ago
  I think so. Facebook provides a lot of value to a lot of people but their monetisation model and general practices don't sit well with a lot of people so an "ethical" for lack of a better word alternative I think could be very desirable.
choward 7y ago
So you want me to switch from one platform I have no control over to another? The whole reason Facebook is evil is they can be since they have full control of the software and your data. What would your goal be? To grow like Facebook, go public, and maximize profit? I have no reason that your product/company wouldn't just turn into another Facebook.
- have_faith 7y ago
  > What would your goal be? Essentially to provide a service similar to Facebook's core offering with a focus on maximising how useful the service is to you instead of how valuable your data is to me. This is why I'd prefer for users to pay a small flat fee and I can just focus on making features people want. > I have no reason that your product/compny wouldn't just turn into another Facebook. This is true for now. I have been exploring ideas of setting up the site as a non-profit of some kind or a foundation etc. At the moment this area needs exploring in more detail. > The whole reason Facebook is evil is they can be since they have full control of the software and your data Sort of yes. Lot's of companies have (comparable) positions of power while being subjectively less or not evil at all. But the question of becoming evil over time still stands. I'm not of the opinion that software that users run themselves will have any of the adoption required to dislodge something like Facebook and so is mostly a distraction I think. I do think these kind of federated networks will do well mind you, just not for what people use Facebook for. I'm happy to be proven wrong on this front though.
stevenicr 7y ago
the only way I figure it's gonna work is to charge $20 / month for an 'instance' maybe two of them... this way a group of friends can have a private one and a family can have another private one.. at 20 per month for the group they can all chip in, or one person can pay for the whole group. should be easy with upgrade option if storage gets huge, with the option to auto-download / export old data and keep it lean. I've been thinking of doing this for years, but have not found the right people to box up a wp+bp combo with a couple extra plugins and settings that can deploy automatically like softalicious.. or one of those one-click DO deploy type things one day.. the pieces are all there already, just gotta put em together.
newscracker 7y ago
I’d prefer people working on making existing alternatives better in terms of features than have yet another “Facebook killer” that doesn’t survive. Check out the Fediverse, help the alternatives for Instagram and Twitter thrive. If you want to create something independently, I’d suggest a perfect replica and replacement for Facebook Groups. We need what’s not yet supported by the current crop of FOSS alternatives and keeps people tied to Facebook.
- mxuribe 7y ago
  100% on the fediverse!
busymom0 7y ago
How do you plan on solving the chicken egg problem? New users won't join unless their friends are already on it. I think any new social media will fail unless it offers something really different and new (I don't think most people care about using a new social media just for privacy reasons). What makes yours different other than just privacy? The glorified address book does seem interesting but I would need to know more to understand how it will work.

anderspitman 7y ago

FWIW, I'll almost certainly never use another social network that's not open source, or at the very least built on simple open protocols. Best of luck.

have_faith 7y ago
I respect the stance, and it's not an avenue that I've ruled out, but it's not a priority for me for the moment. Especially with the primary concerns that I'm addressing at first is the destructive incentive structure constructed by ad and data supported social networks.

ori_b 7y ago

Monetization is a perverse incentive. I'm willing to run my own services, maybe pay someone to host for me, but I don't want a company with an incentive to maximize eyeball time.

have_faith 7y ago
Having every single user run and manage their own software or pay another service to run it for them doesn't seem practical or efficient to me but I would be interested in ideas to the contrary.

maxk42 7y ago

If all the images are paid-for you have the advantage of basically not having to worry about bandwidth. (Assuming you're not bloating the site with MBs of JS libraries.) Unfortunately -- Facebook has trained people to expect this feature for free. Not sure there's a simple solution here. But maybe you could release the site unmonetized then work on a paid white-label version for private networks / corporate intranets / etc.?

Jaruzel 7y ago

My personal view on this (take or leave it) is that unless you are being backed by some very rich investors, you don't have a hope of gaining any sort of traction here. I do like the 'address book' concept, though, and have toyed with similar ideas previously - a place for everyone to have a single page 'profile' with links out to their real social accounts etc. But in this age of privacy and tracking awareness, I don't think the average internet user will want to put all their contact info in one place. The real problem with Facebook is that for most people it's frictionless... it's really easy for people who use it to chat and share with other users. For them, there's no real compelling reason to switch platforms. Asking them to at this point is like trying to sell a mobile phone on a new network that can't dial other networks.

AlphaWeaver 7y ago

Hey, we're exploring the problem of monetization too! That's one of the things we're discussing right now in VC3 (https://vc3.club)- https://vc3.club)- if you're interested, we'd love to have you join the conversation!

have_faith 7y ago
Signed up!

jlj 7y ago

What about making the financials radically transparent, and billing users for their actual cost + some reasonable markup.

tubbs 7y ago

I don't know how sustainable it would be, but I've always been fond of DuckDuckGo's ad model: https://help.duckduckgo.com/company/advertising-and-affiliates/?redir=1 https://help.duckduckgo.com/company/advertising-and-affiliat... Additionally, an adless "pro" feature could be purchased for some small fee that would be comparable to what ads rake in for the average user. This is something I've thought about for a while but I've never had the resources to throw it together. I wish you the best of luck!

msftie 7y ago

Is an(other) alternative to Facebook the solution? Can we evolve beyond this? It seems to me like we all have what you’re building in our pocket already.

have_faith 7y ago
I think so. Facebook provides a lot of value to a lot of people but their monetisation model and general practices don't sit well with a lot of people so an "ethical" for lack of a better word alternative I think could be very desirable.

choward 7y ago

So you want me to switch from one platform I have no control over to another? The whole reason Facebook is evil is they can be since they have full control of the software and your data. What would your goal be? To grow like Facebook, go public, and maximize profit? I have no reason that your product/company wouldn't just turn into another Facebook.

have_faith 7y ago
> What would your goal be? Essentially to provide a service similar to Facebook's core offering with a focus on maximising how useful the service is to you instead of how valuable your data is to me. This is why I'd prefer for users to pay a small flat fee and I can just focus on making features people want. > I have no reason that your product/compny wouldn't just turn into another Facebook. This is true for now. I have been exploring ideas of setting up the site as a non-profit of some kind or a foundation etc. At the moment this area needs exploring in more detail. > The whole reason Facebook is evil is they can be since they have full control of the software and your data Sort of yes. Lot's of companies have (comparable) positions of power while being subjectively less or not evil at all. But the question of becoming evil over time still stands. I'm not of the opinion that software that users run themselves will have any of the adoption required to dislodge something like Facebook and so is mostly a distraction I think. I do think these kind of federated networks will do well mind you, just not for what people use Facebook for. I'm happy to be proven wrong on this front though.

stevenicr 7y ago

the only way I figure it's gonna work is to charge $20 / month for an 'instance' maybe two of them... this way a group of friends can have a private one and a family can have another private one.. at 20 per month for the group they can all chip in, or one person can pay for the whole group. should be easy with upgrade option if storage gets huge, with the option to auto-download / export old data and keep it lean. I've been thinking of doing this for years, but have not found the right people to box up a wp+bp combo with a couple extra plugins and settings that can deploy automatically like softalicious.. or one of those one-click DO deploy type things one day.. the pieces are all there already, just gotta put em together.

newscracker 7y ago

I’d prefer people working on making existing alternatives better in terms of features than have yet another “Facebook killer” that doesn’t survive. Check out the Fediverse, help the alternatives for Instagram and Twitter thrive. If you want to create something independently, I’d suggest a perfect replica and replacement for Facebook Groups. We need what’s not yet supported by the current crop of FOSS alternatives and keeps people tied to Facebook.

mxuribe 7y ago
100% on the fediverse!

busymom0 7y ago

How do you plan on solving the chicken egg problem? New users won't join unless their friends are already on it. I think any new social media will fail unless it offers something really different and new (I don't think most people care about using a new social media just for privacy reasons). What makes yours different other than just privacy? The glorified address book does seem interesting but I would need to know more to understand how it will work.