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The problem of "who pays for this?" still remains. If it's free to the user, it has to be ad-supported (or I guess donation-driven; the Wikipedia/Guardian mode

The problem of "who pays for this?" still remains. If it's free to the user, it has to be ad-supported (or I guess donation-driven; the Wikipedia/Guardian model, but I don't see that working so well for social media). If it's ad-supported that means the advertiser becomes the customer and the point of the thing gets subverted to maximise ad revenue. If it's not free to the user, then we have to educate everyone that they need to pay for their social media. Not an easy task.

dont__panic 4y ago
That's easy, honestly. Give people an option: - host your own instance, no limits on usage because you're paying your own way, hosting your own images and content, running your own server - use someone else's instance, they can show you whatever ads they like (though preferably in a sidebar, not integrated into your main feed) and subject you to space limitations. In a truly federated environment where users can easily switch between instances, those instances can compete based on ad and space efficiency. Some folks, like myself, might shell out for their own instance and host friends and family with no ads and ample space just to be nice. Facebook as of 2009 was damn near "feature complete" social media. Messaging, photos, videos, comments, chronological feed. It's not that complicated. You could run the whole thing as an open source + donation based project, like Wikipedia or Mozilla. You don't need tens of thousands of engineers and venture capital that forces you to employ dark patterns and inject more and more ads and growth. Hell, I think that governments could even donate to a project like this since it's essentially a public service and (compared to Facebook/Twitter/Instagram/TikTok) an investment in public mental health.
- marcus_holmes 4y ago
  yeah, those are the options. And I agree, FB in 2009 was great. But that's my point: companies have to keep moving, and optimising, and growing (because shareholders). If the revenue is supplied by advertisers, then they're the customers, and any optimisation is aimed to increase lock-in/revenues/etc based on their experience. The actual users get a worse experience as time goes on because their needs are secondary to the advertisers. Eventually the whole thing ends up where we are with FB: the user experience is shitty and people start leaving. If this is really going to work properly, then we have to persuade people to pay for their social media service.

dont__panic 4y ago

That's easy, honestly. Give people an option: - host your own instance, no limits on usage because you're paying your own way, hosting your own images and content, running your own server - use someone else's instance, they can show you whatever ads they like (though preferably in a sidebar, not integrated into your main feed) and subject you to space limitations. In a truly federated environment where users can easily switch between instances, those instances can compete based on ad and space efficiency. Some folks, like myself, might shell out for their own instance and host friends and family with no ads and ample space just to be nice. Facebook as of 2009 was damn near "feature complete" social media. Messaging, photos, videos, comments, chronological feed. It's not that complicated. You could run the whole thing as an open source + donation based project, like Wikipedia or Mozilla. You don't need tens of thousands of engineers and venture capital that forces you to employ dark patterns and inject more and more ads and growth. Hell, I think that governments could even donate to a project like this since it's essentially a public service and (compared to Facebook/Twitter/Instagram/TikTok) an investment in public mental health.

marcus_holmes 4y ago
yeah, those are the options. And I agree, FB in 2009 was great. But that's my point: companies have to keep moving, and optimising, and growing (because shareholders). If the revenue is supplied by advertisers, then they're the customers, and any optimisation is aimed to increase lock-in/revenues/etc based on their experience. The actual users get a worse experience as time goes on because their needs are secondary to the advertisers. Eventually the whole thing ends up where we are with FB: the user experience is shitty and people start leaving. If this is really going to work properly, then we have to persuade people to pay for their social media service.