5 ms·

The social network I honestly want is something akin to the tradition of Christmas cards: a rare update (at most once a quarter) about how life is going with th

The social network I honestly want is something akin to the tradition of Christmas cards: a rare update (at most once a quarter) about how life is going with the option of attaching a few photos. No comments section, but instead a "I'd like to get in touch and chat sometime" button which helps schedule a video chat. No retweets, shares, engagement metrics.

polimind 6y ago
Man, sign me up. I would love to have a Facebook again if you removed the news feed, likes, alarm red notifications, and long comment threads about politics or whatever. Just a casual "hey let's catch up" and "here's how my last month / quarter went," oh yeah, I'm in.
Polylactic_acid 6y ago
The ideal social network in my opinion is instant messaging. Its the only major platform which hasn't been infested with algorithms, marketing, "influencers" and all the other crap. Its just you and close contacts. The downside is you won't see random updates from people you don't interact with regularly but honestly its not the biggest loss.
rglullis 6y ago
I like the idea, but how is that different from a personal website/blog with private access?
- afarrell 6y ago
  The ability to have people on it who don't have the time or background to read tutorials on Digital Ocean?
  - rglullis 6y ago
    https://lmgtfy.com/?q=free+blog+hosting&s=l https://lmgtfy.com/?q=free+blog+hosting&s=l Ok, to make my answer a little bit less flippant. I didn't say that people need to host their own sites, just that a "social network without all the engagement" is no different a personal site or a blog.
- breakfastduck 6y ago
  Because the average joe won't know how to set up a private personal website / blog & many of us have friends outside to tech.
  - rglullis 6y ago
    If only you had read the sibling comment and my answer there...
    - breakfastduck 6y ago
      Do you mean the indieweb comment? I can't see any more. Indieweb is a good idea but again, difficult set up for the average person.
      - rglullis 6y ago
        No, I mean https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24269124 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24269124 Automattic made its fortune by developing and hosting Wordpress for people who are not tech savvy and wanted to have its place to write.
        breakfastduck 6y ago
        Apologies, I literally can't see that comment - it shows as [Dead]. I agree, there's a market for something that plugs the gap. But if it's not as easy as social media, it won't get the adoption these days.
        rglullis 6y ago
        Dead, really? Maybe it was the lmgtfy link that tripped the modbot. > if it's not as easy as social media, it won't get the adoption these days. I think that is backwards. Starting a blog is as easy as starting a Facebook account. The problem is that a blog does not give you the "engagement" of a social network and therefore can not compete for your attention against the very fine-tuned engagement machines of Facebook et al. At the end of the day, content production in social networks follow a Pareto distribution. A small percentage produces the majority of the content and the rest is just there to share or produce noise. If you remove the tools that produce noise, you remove any reason for the majority to join. If you remove the strings that pull the noisy majority, you don't have a "social network". This is why my feeling is that "a social network with no engagement" is an oxymoron.
MagnumOpus 6y ago
So Facebook before "shares", with a "poke" button? F.B. Purity can help restore some sanity to Facebook by killing all the shares, but since people stopped doing their own updates and photo albums to do vapid blog reshares instead, it will probably be a hollow experience.

polimind 6y ago

Man, sign me up. I would love to have a Facebook again if you removed the news feed, likes, alarm red notifications, and long comment threads about politics or whatever. Just a casual "hey let's catch up" and "here's how my last month / quarter went," oh yeah, I'm in.

Polylactic_acid 6y ago

The ideal social network in my opinion is instant messaging. Its the only major platform which hasn't been infested with algorithms, marketing, "influencers" and all the other crap. Its just you and close contacts. The downside is you won't see random updates from people you don't interact with regularly but honestly its not the biggest loss.

rglullis 6y ago

I like the idea, but how is that different from a personal website/blog with private access?

afarrell 6y ago
The ability to have people on it who don't have the time or background to read tutorials on Digital Ocean?
- rglullis 6y ago
  https://lmgtfy.com/?q=free+blog+hosting&s=l https://lmgtfy.com/?q=free+blog+hosting&s=l Ok, to make my answer a little bit less flippant. I didn't say that people need to host their own sites, just that a "social network without all the engagement" is no different a personal site or a blog.
breakfastduck 6y ago
Because the average joe won't know how to set up a private personal website / blog & many of us have friends outside to tech.
- rglullis 6y ago
  If only you had read the sibling comment and my answer there...
  - breakfastduck 6y ago
    Do you mean the indieweb comment? I can't see any more. Indieweb is a good idea but again, difficult set up for the average person.
    - rglullis 6y ago
      No, I mean https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24269124 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24269124 Automattic made its fortune by developing and hosting Wordpress for people who are not tech savvy and wanted to have its place to write.
      - breakfastduck 6y ago
        Apologies, I literally can't see that comment - it shows as [Dead]. I agree, there's a market for something that plugs the gap. But if it's not as easy as social media, it won't get the adoption these days.
        rglullis 6y ago
        Dead, really? Maybe it was the lmgtfy link that tripped the modbot. > if it's not as easy as social media, it won't get the adoption these days. I think that is backwards. Starting a blog is as easy as starting a Facebook account. The problem is that a blog does not give you the "engagement" of a social network and therefore can not compete for your attention against the very fine-tuned engagement machines of Facebook et al. At the end of the day, content production in social networks follow a Pareto distribution. A small percentage produces the majority of the content and the rest is just there to share or produce noise. If you remove the tools that produce noise, you remove any reason for the majority to join. If you remove the strings that pull the noisy majority, you don't have a "social network". This is why my feeling is that "a social network with no engagement" is an oxymoron.

MagnumOpus 6y ago

So Facebook before "shares", with a "poke" button? F.B. Purity can help restore some sanity to Facebook by killing all the shares, but since people stopped doing their own updates and photo albums to do vapid blog reshares instead, it will probably be a hollow experience.