2 ms·
There are two fundamental problems: 1. The value of a social media site is directly proportional to the number of people you want to engage with who are on th
by lisper 4y ago
There are two fundamental problems:
1. The value of a social media site is directly proportional to the number of people you want to engage with who are on the same site, and hence directly proportional (probabilistically) to the total number of users. A free site is always going to attract more users than a paid one, so a paid site will always be at a competitive disadvantage. Because social media tends to be a winner-take-all economy, no paid site will ever survive.
2. Different people want and need different things from a social media site, and so no one policy is ever going to make everybody happy. For example, the needs of people who want free speech will always be in conflict from the needs of people who want to filter out falsehoods.
Other than that, it's a cake walk.
- jgust 4y agoI remember being taught the concept of "critical mass" a long time ago in uni which is at the core of every social media problem.
- kentm 4y agoIt isn’t clear to me that social media is a winner take all economy given the multitude of social media sites out there.
- lisper 4y agoFair point. There are multiple social-media ecosystems and you can have different winners in each. Facebook owns friends-and-family, LinkedIn owns professional relationships, NextDoor owns geographically local relationships, etc. But I can't think of any social media ecosystem with real competition.