4 ms·

What new platform? Why won’t the new platform be just as bad? Switching brand of cigarettes doesn’t protect your lungs.

by zepto 5y ago

vadfa 5y ago
It will be just as bad, I'm just mocking this stupid survey.
- zepto 5y ago
  Fair comment!
dylan604 5y ago
Don't worry, we've switched to clean coal because it's better for the environment
jszymborski 5y ago
I think that's a fair point, but I wonder if I can probe HNs brain on what a "healthy" online social network would look like. Here are some thoughts I have: 1) The platform does not have a user-engagement incentive. 2) Personal network sizes are restricted. You can't be "friends" with everyone. Adding friends perhaps comes at some cost or is just strictly capped. 3) Sharing outside your friends network from the platform is not possible. This platform is for sharing with your friends, not the world. 4) Trust in the platform and how it shares your data. The easiest way to trust the server is if everything is E2EE, but we all know that's not trivial. Perhaps the limits in scaling E2EE can work synergistically with (2) and (3) (1) seems to be the hardest thing here in my mind. Anybody have thoughts on what could make a social network "healthy"?
- pzo 5y ago
  some good points. I would add also: 5) limit how many posts / pictures / content you can share per day to avoid information overload. This should make people double thing what they are writing and hopefully more higher quality content. 6) automatically limit time spend for everyone on social media for e.g. 30-60 min per person per day. 7) Different business model than ads.
  - bena 5y ago
    5 & 6 just means multiple accounts per person. 7 means some sort of paywall. You either collect from the users themselves, or collect from people who want access to those users.
    - pzo 5y ago
      I just only added features that IMO would make a healthier social network. It's different problem how to implement in a way to avoid people try to game it. Maybe it's not even possible and only utopia.
      - bena 5y ago
        The only problem is how to implement it in a way to avoid people gaming it. You didn't "add features", you made a wish list. What's your "solution" for online advertising? Ads that are noticeable but unobtrusive? Now all we got to do is get the nerds down in R&D to make it happen. It's a miracle no one has thought of this before.
- lovecg 5y ago
  From an evolutionary perspective, the thing that grows and is used is the thing that wins. If you take away the growth incentive you can’t compete by definition unless you change the rules of the game (worldwide government regulation?).
- hungryhobo 5y ago
  heh funny enough, wechat satisfies 1-3. So maybe someone just need to clone that.
- bena 5y ago
  > The platform does not have a user-engagement incentive. Then you lose to a platform that does. There does need to be a level of incentive for user-engagement. Either that or users will invent one. > Personal network sizes are restricted. You can't be "friends" with everyone. Adding friends perhaps comes at some cost or is just strictly capped. Facebook is capped at 5000 connections where a connection is defined as a friend or page like. You can argue whether or not this should be a smaller number, but technically Facebook does have this. > Sharing outside your friends network from the platform is not possible. This platform is for sharing with your friends, not the world. What about Friend-of-a-friends? How do two people find out they're both on the platform? Some information has to be publicly available. I think if you stop making "public" an option, users will just find some way to make things more public. Like sharing images via avatar image. Or taking screenshots and passing those among their friends (and their friends share with their friends, etc). > Trust in the platform and how it shares your data. The easiest way to trust the server is if everything is E2EE, but we all know that's not trivial. Perhaps the limits in scaling E2EE can work synergistically with (2) and (3) Eh. End to end encryption only matters for information you want to be kept private. And the information isn't being shared between you and me, it's being shared between Facebook and me, then Facebook and you. The problem is that Facebook is the one selling the data. It's the fact that they're the hub. It's a hard problem all over because in a lot of places, you're fighting human nature. Maybe a P2P/torrent style system, where all the information is encrypted and your data exists as a hash. To contribute to that hash, you need the private key, to read that hash, you need the public key. Connections are made by swapping public keys with people. You'd need a way to get your own private key from some source if you want to use multiple platforms. But if the private key was stored in some central hub, but encrypted, you could request the encrypted private key and then use your password/phrase to decrypt it on your device. Just spitballing.
- soylentcola 5y ago
  > Anybody have thoughts on what could make a social network "healthy"? Personally? I was thinking about this the other day and how I wish it was more like email - use whatever provider you want or host your own - either way you can post and share with other users. That's at least one criteria after seeing how so much of the network effects are created by the need to use one platform in order to communicate on that platform. Then I started thinking about how this would work. Subscribing to the feeds of people you care about, being able to browse and search updates, etc. and in the end I realized I was basically describing RSS with easy publishing tools. Host your stuff on whatever platform/host/provider you prefer and see fit, but have some common format "calling card" or address that you can use to share your subscription address. Competition would come in the form of hosting options, reader features, etc. but the conflict would likely result from some providers "innovating" features that only work on their platforms, devices, etc. Sort of like how I can message with anyone with full functionality...unless they're on an iPhone and default to iMessage. Then I'm downgraded to SMS/MMS. That said, I would still prefer a nonFacebook that still allowed me to follow/converse with people on Facebook, even if it stuck me with the shitty interface when dealing with non-standardized platform "features".
- cybernautique 5y ago
  Local implementations. It's so bizarre to me that locality is never mentioned in these discussions. Our overly-globalized infrastructure is a weird, bad, and ad-hoc system to meet essentially local needs. I say to people, "I wish I knew when a new restaurant opened in the area," and the nigh-universal reply is: check Facebook. Sorry, come again? I should look to a global data provider to find information about local resources? It's foolish for our data structures and it's foolish for our lives. My dream: a federated union of localnets that act like banks and data banks in one. A local facility I can resort to for my financial and computational needs. My email, phone services, VPN, and bank all rolled up nicely into one area. And, of course, it should also keep me anonymous except to the provider. The IT would be a nightmare.
rightbyte 5y ago
> Switching brand of cigarettes doesn’t protect your lungs. Atleast get one with filters?
- zepto 5y ago
  Filters make cigarettes mildly worse. https://www.quora.com/Is-smoking-unfiltered-cigarettes-significantly-worse-for-your-health-than-smoking-filtered-cigarettes?share=1 https://www.quora.com/Is-smoking-unfiltered-cigarettes-signi...
  - rightbyte 5y ago
    I hate when my intuition on seemingly simple things is wrong ...

What new platform? Why won’t the new platform be just as bad? Switching brand of cigarettes doesn’t protect your lungs.

by zepto 5y ago

What new platform? Why won’t the new platform be just as bad? Switching brand of cigarettes doesn’t protect your lungs.

vadfa 5y ago

It will be just as bad, I'm just mocking this stupid survey.

zepto 5y ago
Fair comment!

dylan604 5y ago

Don't worry, we've switched to clean coal because it's better for the environment

jszymborski 5y ago

I think that's a fair point, but I wonder if I can probe HNs brain on what a "healthy" online social network would look like. Here are some thoughts I have: 1) The platform does not have a user-engagement incentive. 2) Personal network sizes are restricted. You can't be "friends" with everyone. Adding friends perhaps comes at some cost or is just strictly capped. 3) Sharing outside your friends network from the platform is not possible. This platform is for sharing with your friends, not the world. 4) Trust in the platform and how it shares your data. The easiest way to trust the server is if everything is E2EE, but we all know that's not trivial. Perhaps the limits in scaling E2EE can work synergistically with (2) and (3) (1) seems to be the hardest thing here in my mind. Anybody have thoughts on what could make a social network "healthy"?

pzo 5y ago
some good points. I would add also: 5) limit how many posts / pictures / content you can share per day to avoid information overload. This should make people double thing what they are writing and hopefully more higher quality content. 6) automatically limit time spend for everyone on social media for e.g. 30-60 min per person per day. 7) Different business model than ads.
- bena 5y ago
  5 & 6 just means multiple accounts per person. 7 means some sort of paywall. You either collect from the users themselves, or collect from people who want access to those users.
  - pzo 5y ago
    I just only added features that IMO would make a healthier social network. It's different problem how to implement in a way to avoid people try to game it. Maybe it's not even possible and only utopia.
    - bena 5y ago
      The only problem is how to implement it in a way to avoid people gaming it. You didn't "add features", you made a wish list. What's your "solution" for online advertising? Ads that are noticeable but unobtrusive? Now all we got to do is get the nerds down in R&D to make it happen. It's a miracle no one has thought of this before.
lovecg 5y ago
From an evolutionary perspective, the thing that grows and is used is the thing that wins. If you take away the growth incentive you can’t compete by definition unless you change the rules of the game (worldwide government regulation?).
hungryhobo 5y ago
heh funny enough, wechat satisfies 1-3. So maybe someone just need to clone that.
bena 5y ago
> The platform does not have a user-engagement incentive. Then you lose to a platform that does. There does need to be a level of incentive for user-engagement. Either that or users will invent one. > Personal network sizes are restricted. You can't be "friends" with everyone. Adding friends perhaps comes at some cost or is just strictly capped. Facebook is capped at 5000 connections where a connection is defined as a friend or page like. You can argue whether or not this should be a smaller number, but technically Facebook does have this. > Sharing outside your friends network from the platform is not possible. This platform is for sharing with your friends, not the world. What about Friend-of-a-friends? How do two people find out they're both on the platform? Some information has to be publicly available. I think if you stop making "public" an option, users will just find some way to make things more public. Like sharing images via avatar image. Or taking screenshots and passing those among their friends (and their friends share with their friends, etc). > Trust in the platform and how it shares your data. The easiest way to trust the server is if everything is E2EE, but we all know that's not trivial. Perhaps the limits in scaling E2EE can work synergistically with (2) and (3) Eh. End to end encryption only matters for information you want to be kept private. And the information isn't being shared between you and me, it's being shared between Facebook and me, then Facebook and you. The problem is that Facebook is the one selling the data. It's the fact that they're the hub. It's a hard problem all over because in a lot of places, you're fighting human nature. Maybe a P2P/torrent style system, where all the information is encrypted and your data exists as a hash. To contribute to that hash, you need the private key, to read that hash, you need the public key. Connections are made by swapping public keys with people. You'd need a way to get your own private key from some source if you want to use multiple platforms. But if the private key was stored in some central hub, but encrypted, you could request the encrypted private key and then use your password/phrase to decrypt it on your device. Just spitballing.
soylentcola 5y ago
> Anybody have thoughts on what could make a social network "healthy"? Personally? I was thinking about this the other day and how I wish it was more like email - use whatever provider you want or host your own - either way you can post and share with other users. That's at least one criteria after seeing how so much of the network effects are created by the need to use one platform in order to communicate on that platform. Then I started thinking about how this would work. Subscribing to the feeds of people you care about, being able to browse and search updates, etc. and in the end I realized I was basically describing RSS with easy publishing tools. Host your stuff on whatever platform/host/provider you prefer and see fit, but have some common format "calling card" or address that you can use to share your subscription address. Competition would come in the form of hosting options, reader features, etc. but the conflict would likely result from some providers "innovating" features that only work on their platforms, devices, etc. Sort of like how I can message with anyone with full functionality...unless they're on an iPhone and default to iMessage. Then I'm downgraded to SMS/MMS. That said, I would still prefer a nonFacebook that still allowed me to follow/converse with people on Facebook, even if it stuck me with the shitty interface when dealing with non-standardized platform "features".
cybernautique 5y ago
Local implementations. It's so bizarre to me that locality is never mentioned in these discussions. Our overly-globalized infrastructure is a weird, bad, and ad-hoc system to meet essentially local needs. I say to people, "I wish I knew when a new restaurant opened in the area," and the nigh-universal reply is: check Facebook. Sorry, come again? I should look to a global data provider to find information about local resources? It's foolish for our data structures and it's foolish for our lives. My dream: a federated union of localnets that act like banks and data banks in one. A local facility I can resort to for my financial and computational needs. My email, phone services, VPN, and bank all rolled up nicely into one area. And, of course, it should also keep me anonymous except to the provider. The IT would be a nightmare.

rightbyte 5y ago

> Switching brand of cigarettes doesn’t protect your lungs. Atleast get one with filters?

zepto 5y ago
Filters make cigarettes mildly worse. https://www.quora.com/Is-smoking-unfiltered-cigarettes-significantly-worse-for-your-health-than-smoking-filtered-cigarettes?share=1 https://www.quora.com/Is-smoking-unfiltered-cigarettes-signi...
- rightbyte 5y ago
  I hate when my intuition on seemingly simple things is wrong ...