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Ask HN: What do you think about a subscription based social media?
The reason people are being so polarized and post misinformation, is that it benefits social medias by generating engagement, which is required for an advertisement based business model.
What would happen then in a fully subscription based social media ? I believe the answer is less incentive to promote meaningless content, less incentive to lock up people in what they already like, and just better content overall.
And this wouldn't have to be very expensive either... If we look at Twitter's average revenue per user (~$25/year), the monthly subscription would likely be less than $5.
So tell me, what do you think about it ? Is this something you would like to try out ?
Thanks,
Paul
- delopsu 2y ago> social medias by generating engagement This is what people also like it for (to write and to read). Do you want media that is not engaging? I wonder how it could be started. Who and why would post there?
- paulbourcereau 2y agoI am not talking about making it not engaging, I am talking about making a business model that doesn't rely on maximizing engagement. It would likely be even harder to start as it certainly wouldn't go viral. But eventually people would get there to write and consume insightful content from strangers or just connecting with family and friends as social medias were initially intended to.
- delopsu 2y agoOh, TIL about https://mastodon.social/ https://mastodon.social/ (https://joinmastodon.org/ https://joinmastodon.org/) Looks like what you describe, doesn't it? > Social networking that's not for sale. > Your home feed should be filled with what matters to you most, not what a corporation thinks you should see. Radically different social media, back in the hands of the people.
- RGamma 2y agoEngagement != liking. You're gonna realize that soon.
- sp332 2y agoCohost is trying this. So far they are bleeding cash, but the community is having a great time while it lasts.
- rsynnott 2y ago… Wait, you think people post misinformation on social media to benefit the _social media’s_ revenue model? What’s the possible benefit to the liar in that?
- RGamma 2y agoThe future is self-hosted (as it was) and federated (as it partially was) and redistributable (as it mostly wasn't). Fuck full centralization.