6 ms·

I would pay $49.99/mo for an unlimited plan that brings me only my friends' status updates (not their hyper-political likes and comments), just their life updat

by pj_mukh 5mo ago

I would pay $49.99/mo for an unlimited plan that brings me only my friends' status updates (not their hyper-political likes and comments), just their life updates. Daily stories are great too. But JUST that, no influencers, no ads. I realize Meta's data shows that our user revealed preferences tells them that we like all the dopamine hijacking garbage but that's like saying "Well users like drugs, so we gave them more". Let me pay you to give me just the vitamins, and none of the sugar.

kleton 5mo ago
> only my friends' status updates I think that is the Feed's tab, though I have not used the blue app in a long time
tim-projects 5mo ago
Pay each of your friends $50 one per month, to switch to signal. Problem solved
- freedomben 5mo ago
  $50 per month for unlimited, not $50 per friend, so your solution only works if you only have 1 friend, so it would work for me (self-deprecating joke) but may not for GP.
  - lostlogin 5mo ago
    > Pay each of your friends $50 one per month It an outlay of $50 a moth. Probably better to pay 50/number of friends though.
    - rkomorn 5mo ago
      $50 a moth? How about just a lightbulb and an open window?
      - lostlogin 5mo ago
        It took me several re reads to get it.
- fsflover 5mo ago
  Or, better, Mastodon or Matrix, which don't rely on a single, easy-to-target server.
  - dreamcompiler 5mo ago
    This works for friends and family members who are computer geeks. Signal for everybody else.
    - fsflover 5mo ago
      I don't see what's missing in Matrix. Yes, the verification may be somewhat cumbersome, but I helped to deal with it, and it just works now.
      - john01dav 5mo ago
        Everything about matrix is cumbersome and glitchy. I have last tried to use it a few years ago and it seemed that Riot/Element had the only decent clients, and those were all Electron on desktop and also seemingly for profit. Signal has the electron problem, as well as many others (like the backup UI being abhorrent), but at least the core functionality works without fuss.
        fsflover 5mo ago
        > and also seemingly for profit They are not for profit, developed by the matrix.org foundation.
      - hgoel 5mo ago
        A friend and I have been running a private Matrix server for almost a decade now, it's very lacking in comparison to what the average chat user (especially discord) is used to. No custom emojis, no self-chat, embeds are inconsistent (e.g. encrypted rooms), multi-image uploads aren't a thing in many clients, adding text when sending an attachment isn't a thing, just to name things we've run into over the years. Most of these have been brought up to the devs many years ago, only to spend forever in spec hell and never actually make it into a release. We're just tolerating these, because we explicitly moved off discord to have control over our data, but being tech savvy we can handle this. It's nowhere near good enough that I could use it with less savvy people.
- lukeschlather 5mo ago
  Signal is designed with the assumption that data is sensitive and you should err on the side of destroying it. Facebook is designed more as a shared scrapbook, with the assumption that data is precious and you want to share it with your community, and you should err on the side of oversharing so you don't lose any precious moments. Signal is in no way a replacement for Facebook.
  - DANmode 5mo ago
    It is if Facebook was never a good fit for you in the first place.
  - tim-projects 5mo ago
    > Signal is designed with the assumption that data is sensitive and you should err on the side of destroying it. That's... Just not true > Facebook is designed more as a shared scrapbook Have you used Facebook in the last 5 years? Its nothing like this at all.
    - lukeschlather 5mo ago
      > Have you used Facebook in the last 5 years? Its nothing like this at all. I use it all the time. Yesterday I was talking to a friend, and we were reminiscing about visiting another friend's house, and we looked up some old birthday party invitations to help us remember when we had been there.
      - pj_mukh 5mo ago
        This is exactly what I want Facebook for. The network has all this value baked in, but they'll have to look past its obsession with ads and slop.
        lukeschlather 5mo ago
        Honestly it's all there, if you use the "feeds" view in the menu it cuts out all the random influencer garbage. The search, especially the event search, is not great, but honestly I hope they don't touch it because I'm more worried about them enshittifying it further than I am about getting some creature comforts.
jsrozner 5mo ago
This is absurd. You're just asking for reasonable control over data that ostensibly belongs to you. Moreover, this minimum functionality was resolved years ago with RSS. That you'd be willing to pay so much reflects how well every tech company is doing at using tech against its own users.
- pj_mukh 5mo ago
  Ehhh, what I'm paying for is FB/Insta's ability to bring everyone onto one platform and encourage them to post regularly. RSS, AOL Messenger etc, never were able to do that with any decent success. That they went past that to just kill their own golden goose is what is now reversible via a payment plan. That might be their only saving grace on this now managed decline.
  - TFNA 5mo ago
    But FB/Insta haven't been able to get everyone onto one platform. Generations are balkanized across FB, Instagram, and WhatsApp (all of which Meta bought precisely because it can’t manage with its original social network), and TikTok.
bflesch 5mo ago
Nah once they know you can be fleeced for $50 per month, they also know there is much more money to extract from you. Their advertisers would be mad if they remove this juicy cohort of moneybags from their audience.
uyzstvqs 5mo ago
What you need is the Stories feature in Signal, then donate that $49.99/month (or however much you want) to their foundation.
canyp 5mo ago
Why? You are still giving up privacy. There is 0 reason to be using Meta products, let alone pay for them.
captn3m0 5mo ago
Meta offers it in EU: https://about.fb.com/news/2024/11/facebook-and-instagram-to-offer-subscription-for-no-ads-in-europe/ https://about.fb.com/news/2024/11/facebook-and-instagram-to-... I’ve been considering it but I am not sure if it drops just ads or suggested posts as well.
tmaly 5mo ago
I am surprised someone hasn't made a really nice equivalent to Obsidian for Mastadon and just released it for free on the app stores. I am sure one could host a very cheap mastadon instance on a low cost VPS
apsurd 5mo ago
I don't believe for a second you'd pay $50 per month! Yeah you'd do it to prove a point. 6 months later, no way in hell.
- pibaker 5mo ago
  Virtue signaling is free. Paying up for my virtues? Never.
- schubidubiduba 5mo ago
  I think I would pay it. The peace of mind knowing that my every move isn't tracked and being used to sell me stuff or engagement bait me is invaluable tbh
  - apsurd 5mo ago
    I paid for youtube premium for a few months under the reasoning that I hate those auto playing make money ads so much. Certainly paying for peace is worthwhile. Youtube legitimately has some quality content. But I ended my subscription because fundamentally, streamlining the path to more Youtube usage is self-enabling devil’s work. Point being: Im not convinced paying money to these companies is ultimately going to result in a healthier, more safe more private experience, no matter what they claim.
  - pmontra 5mo ago
    At best they will honor the contract of not tracking your moves through that app. They will use part of your money to buy the information about your moves from other sources, or track you with another app.
  - fsflover 5mo ago
    > The peace of mind knowing that my every move isn't tracked and being used to sell me stuff or engagement bait Why would you trust Meta to keep its promises? Even Apple is not to be trusted with that, see, e.g., https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34299433 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34299433
- pj_mukh 5mo ago
fooker 5mo ago
You'd do it once and figure out that none of your friends have regular status updates any more.
Cider9986 5mo ago
I pay $50/mo for internet, this is some nice ragebait. You can change the feeds with extensions or modded apps for free and ads are blocked by default in any good browser.
lucaspiller 5mo ago
> we like all the dopamine hijacking garbage I basically don't use Facebook any more because of this. Opening the app shows me the most sensationalist, fearmongering and outrage bait content they can find. It's worse than news channels (I haven't watched TV for 20 years). I have auto play turned off, and every few months the setting gets turned back on. The first few posts I see scrolling through: - US adds mandatory tips ahead of world cup. - Woman dies after being hit by Audi in city center. - There was a huge queue for women's toilets at a tech conference. - 50% off mattresses. - Some influencer I don't follow bought 20 rolls of 3M tape from Lidl. Do I still have friends, do they still post stuff? I only see them in the reels/stories section at the top. The only reason why I still have Facebook is because of groups. It's the main 'groups' tool people use in my country, so there are various local groups I am part of.
input_sh 5mo ago
There is not a single subscription in the world I would pay more than $20/month for personal purposes, unlimited (and I do mean unlimited) LLM tokens very much included.
Traubenfuchs 5mo ago
You can turn off political content in IG settings and additionally add hashtags/keywords to specifically filter out content that displeases you.
onel 5mo ago
That was the premise of halloapp. I think it was $5 a month and encrypted like WhatsApp, and you had a feed only from your contacts. It was founded by a guy who worked for WhatsApp for a long time. Apparently it went under in 2024. I think messaging is just a commoditized service. People will not pay for it
documentorium 5mo ago
Did you check this out? https://isactiv.com/ https://isactiv.com/ - Private social network - exactly what you describe
- mgrunwald_ 5mo ago
  I've seen too many of those privacy-respecting alternative social networks. Problem is that you'll post things only for yourself, which may be cool if you don't care about actually having friends there.
ghrl 5mo ago
I believe you can get close to that with various Instagram mods for Android. They have advanced features like only show posts from followers and stuff like that. I switched to one of them after realizing the 5 second ad breaks I got were only there because I disabled personalized advertising.
lionkor 5mo ago
You can ditch all that and talk to your friends (text them or call them or visit them) for almost free, actually. You can keep up with people without a middleman.

by pj_mukh 5mo ago

kleton 5mo ago

> only my friends' status updates I think that is the Feed's tab, though I have not used the blue app in a long time

tim-projects 5mo ago

Pay each of your friends $50 one per month, to switch to signal. Problem solved

freedomben 5mo ago
$50 per month for unlimited, not $50 per friend, so your solution only works if you only have 1 friend, so it would work for me (self-deprecating joke) but may not for GP.
- lostlogin 5mo ago
  > Pay each of your friends $50 one per month It an outlay of $50 a moth. Probably better to pay 50/number of friends though.
  - rkomorn 5mo ago
    $50 a moth? How about just a lightbulb and an open window?
    - lostlogin 5mo ago
      It took me several re reads to get it.
fsflover 5mo ago
Or, better, Mastodon or Matrix, which don't rely on a single, easy-to-target server.
- dreamcompiler 5mo ago
  This works for friends and family members who are computer geeks. Signal for everybody else.
  - fsflover 5mo ago
    I don't see what's missing in Matrix. Yes, the verification may be somewhat cumbersome, but I helped to deal with it, and it just works now.
    - john01dav 5mo ago
      Everything about matrix is cumbersome and glitchy. I have last tried to use it a few years ago and it seemed that Riot/Element had the only decent clients, and those were all Electron on desktop and also seemingly for profit. Signal has the electron problem, as well as many others (like the backup UI being abhorrent), but at least the core functionality works without fuss.
      - fsflover 5mo ago
        > and also seemingly for profit They are not for profit, developed by the matrix.org foundation.
    - hgoel 5mo ago
      A friend and I have been running a private Matrix server for almost a decade now, it's very lacking in comparison to what the average chat user (especially discord) is used to. No custom emojis, no self-chat, embeds are inconsistent (e.g. encrypted rooms), multi-image uploads aren't a thing in many clients, adding text when sending an attachment isn't a thing, just to name things we've run into over the years. Most of these have been brought up to the devs many years ago, only to spend forever in spec hell and never actually make it into a release. We're just tolerating these, because we explicitly moved off discord to have control over our data, but being tech savvy we can handle this. It's nowhere near good enough that I could use it with less savvy people.
lukeschlather 5mo ago
Signal is designed with the assumption that data is sensitive and you should err on the side of destroying it. Facebook is designed more as a shared scrapbook, with the assumption that data is precious and you want to share it with your community, and you should err on the side of oversharing so you don't lose any precious moments. Signal is in no way a replacement for Facebook.
- DANmode 5mo ago
  It is if Facebook was never a good fit for you in the first place.
- tim-projects 5mo ago
  > Signal is designed with the assumption that data is sensitive and you should err on the side of destroying it. That's... Just not true > Facebook is designed more as a shared scrapbook Have you used Facebook in the last 5 years? Its nothing like this at all.
  - lukeschlather 5mo ago
    > Have you used Facebook in the last 5 years? Its nothing like this at all. I use it all the time. Yesterday I was talking to a friend, and we were reminiscing about visiting another friend's house, and we looked up some old birthday party invitations to help us remember when we had been there.
    - pj_mukh 5mo ago
      This is exactly what I want Facebook for. The network has all this value baked in, but they'll have to look past its obsession with ads and slop.
      - lukeschlather 5mo ago
        Honestly it's all there, if you use the "feeds" view in the menu it cuts out all the random influencer garbage. The search, especially the event search, is not great, but honestly I hope they don't touch it because I'm more worried about them enshittifying it further than I am about getting some creature comforts.

jsrozner 5mo ago

This is absurd. You're just asking for reasonable control over data that ostensibly belongs to you. Moreover, this minimum functionality was resolved years ago with RSS. That you'd be willing to pay so much reflects how well every tech company is doing at using tech against its own users.

pj_mukh 5mo ago
Ehhh, what I'm paying for is FB/Insta's ability to bring everyone onto one platform and encourage them to post regularly. RSS, AOL Messenger etc, never were able to do that with any decent success. That they went past that to just kill their own golden goose is what is now reversible via a payment plan. That might be their only saving grace on this now managed decline.
- TFNA 5mo ago
  But FB/Insta haven't been able to get everyone onto one platform. Generations are balkanized across FB, Instagram, and WhatsApp (all of which Meta bought precisely because it can’t manage with its original social network), and TikTok.

bflesch 5mo ago

Nah once they know you can be fleeced for $50 per month, they also know there is much more money to extract from you. Their advertisers would be mad if they remove this juicy cohort of moneybags from their audience.

uyzstvqs 5mo ago

What you need is the Stories feature in Signal, then donate that $49.99/month (or however much you want) to their foundation.

canyp 5mo ago

Why? You are still giving up privacy. There is 0 reason to be using Meta products, let alone pay for them.

captn3m0 5mo ago

Meta offers it in EU: https://about.fb.com/news/2024/11/facebook-and-instagram-to-offer-subscription-for-no-ads-in-europe/ https://about.fb.com/news/2024/11/facebook-and-instagram-to-... I’ve been considering it but I am not sure if it drops just ads or suggested posts as well.

tmaly 5mo ago

I am surprised someone hasn't made a really nice equivalent to Obsidian for Mastadon and just released it for free on the app stores. I am sure one could host a very cheap mastadon instance on a low cost VPS

apsurd 5mo ago

I don't believe for a second you'd pay $50 per month! Yeah you'd do it to prove a point. 6 months later, no way in hell.

pibaker 5mo ago
Virtue signaling is free. Paying up for my virtues? Never.
schubidubiduba 5mo ago
I think I would pay it. The peace of mind knowing that my every move isn't tracked and being used to sell me stuff or engagement bait me is invaluable tbh
- apsurd 5mo ago
  I paid for youtube premium for a few months under the reasoning that I hate those auto playing make money ads so much. Certainly paying for peace is worthwhile. Youtube legitimately has some quality content. But I ended my subscription because fundamentally, streamlining the path to more Youtube usage is self-enabling devil’s work. Point being: Im not convinced paying money to these companies is ultimately going to result in a healthier, more safe more private experience, no matter what they claim.
- pmontra 5mo ago
  At best they will honor the contract of not tracking your moves through that app. They will use part of your money to buy the information about your moves from other sources, or track you with another app.
- fsflover 5mo ago
  > The peace of mind knowing that my every move isn't tracked and being used to sell me stuff or engagement bait Why would you trust Meta to keep its promises? Even Apple is not to be trusted with that, see, e.g., https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34299433 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34299433
pj_mukh 5mo ago

fooker 5mo ago

You'd do it once and figure out that none of your friends have regular status updates any more.

Cider9986 5mo ago

I pay $50/mo for internet, this is some nice ragebait. You can change the feeds with extensions or modded apps for free and ads are blocked by default in any good browser.

lucaspiller 5mo ago

> we like all the dopamine hijacking garbage I basically don't use Facebook any more because of this. Opening the app shows me the most sensationalist, fearmongering and outrage bait content they can find. It's worse than news channels (I haven't watched TV for 20 years). I have auto play turned off, and every few months the setting gets turned back on. The first few posts I see scrolling through: - US adds mandatory tips ahead of world cup. - Woman dies after being hit by Audi in city center. - There was a huge queue for women's toilets at a tech conference. - 50% off mattresses. - Some influencer I don't follow bought 20 rolls of 3M tape from Lidl. Do I still have friends, do they still post stuff? I only see them in the reels/stories section at the top. The only reason why I still have Facebook is because of groups. It's the main 'groups' tool people use in my country, so there are various local groups I am part of.

input_sh 5mo ago

There is not a single subscription in the world I would pay more than $20/month for personal purposes, unlimited (and I do mean unlimited) LLM tokens very much included.

Traubenfuchs 5mo ago

You can turn off political content in IG settings and additionally add hashtags/keywords to specifically filter out content that displeases you.

onel 5mo ago

That was the premise of halloapp. I think it was $5 a month and encrypted like WhatsApp, and you had a feed only from your contacts. It was founded by a guy who worked for WhatsApp for a long time. Apparently it went under in 2024. I think messaging is just a commoditized service. People will not pay for it

documentorium 5mo ago

Did you check this out? https://isactiv.com/ https://isactiv.com/ - Private social network - exactly what you describe

mgrunwald_ 5mo ago
I've seen too many of those privacy-respecting alternative social networks. Problem is that you'll post things only for yourself, which may be cool if you don't care about actually having friends there.

ghrl 5mo ago

I believe you can get close to that with various Instagram mods for Android. They have advanced features like only show posts from followers and stuff like that. I switched to one of them after realizing the 5 second ad breaks I got were only there because I disabled personalized advertising.

lionkor 5mo ago

You can ditch all that and talk to your friends (text them or call them or visit them) for almost free, actually. You can keep up with people without a middleman.