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Geez, a bit of competition would be nice -- makes for better products. So only Zuckerberg is allowed to mediate all our social communication? Lucky him. I seri

Geez, a bit of competition would be nice -- makes for better products. So only Zuckerberg is allowed to mediate all our social communication? Lucky him. I seriously care much about having my private communication snooped on. I'm someone. I hate ads, I'd prefer to pay a social network so that I do not have to see ads. > They should probably target a particular audience > Why should there be only one 'social network'? A better question is, why do you think that multiple social networks must serve niches? Why can't they all compete for the same pie just like in practically all areas of commerce? Are you saying that I should only get my full-fat milk from company A, my semi-skinned from company B, and my butter-milk from company C? Because that's what it sounds like. You wouldn't tolerate that in other areas of your life, why are you unconcerned about it when it comes to something so personal -- your social communication and its history?

mcintyre1994 12y ago
I'm not really up to date on what they're doing at the minute but can I ask why app.net doesn't meet your requirements? The fundamental difference here seems to be app.net always charge but ello gives more flexibility around if and what to buy - or is there something I'm missing? Also I agree that competition is a good thing here but a social network that's trying to connect me to everyone like Facebook is going to face serious network effects obviously, and it'll be seriously hard to become useful for that purpose.
- mkr-hn 12y ago
  > The fundamental difference here seems to be app.net always charge You answered your own question. Some of us can't afford to throw down several dollars a month on a social network. The free tier is unacceptably restrictive. Or was the last time I thought about it.
Renaud 12y ago
I agree, competition would be nice, and I also do care about privacy and not being the product. However, being a pragmatist, I also see that FB has won a particular war: it managed to get everyone and their mom on it, and privacy issues are not enough to persuade 'the masses' to move to another platform. Proof being that almost no-one has left FB and that other social networks like App.Net, with all their marketing might, have failed to capture any relevant share. For a competitor to succeed, it would have to offer something vastly more tangible to the masses to persuade them to swith. Google tried and failed, Microsoft tried and failed, countless others tried an failed. FB had it relatively easy compared to anyone entering the market now: there was no real social network when FB started. Of course, there was MySpace, and a few smaller competitors, but almost no-one was on social apart from a few early adopters. Now, outside of China and probably Iran, practically everyone with a phone or a computer is on FB. Offering just another FB-clone with a nicer design is not going to make people switch. Unless there is a killer feature, practically no-one apart from a few of us in technology are going to quit FB. People have their lives invested in FB: it's where they announced their weddings, their first child, where they shared tons of pictures with friends and family. It would take a lot for them to move en masse somewhere else. All I'm saying is that instead of attacking FB frontally, these new social networks should target smaller, more focused, markets, if only because there is a need for better experiences for people who are passionate about something. That analogy with milk is a bit weak if I may say. A slightly better one would be to compare social networks to newspapers and magazines. FB is like your local newspaper, full of a bit of everything. Now if I want to get science news, I'd rather pick-up Scientific American or Nature. There shouldn't be just one social network, that's my whole point. I don't want another FB, I want others networks where I can share and exchange with other people who share a similar driving interest.
charliefg 12y ago
Because they would become monstrous behemoths that did everything at a lower quality. For instance - Mixcloud and Soundcloud each serve a real purpose, separate from one another. It may seem like they do the same thing (connecting people over music) but really they have refined their respective systems around what they are built for - focus on single tracks and the other on music sets. Now if google started doing that, it would not be anywhere near as refined because their platform would have to serve other purposes; if facebook started hosting repositories it would be diluted with everything else they do.

mcintyre1994 12y ago

I'm not really up to date on what they're doing at the minute but can I ask why app.net doesn't meet your requirements? The fundamental difference here seems to be app.net always charge but ello gives more flexibility around if and what to buy - or is there something I'm missing? Also I agree that competition is a good thing here but a social network that's trying to connect me to everyone like Facebook is going to face serious network effects obviously, and it'll be seriously hard to become useful for that purpose.

mkr-hn 12y ago
> The fundamental difference here seems to be app.net always charge You answered your own question. Some of us can't afford to throw down several dollars a month on a social network. The free tier is unacceptably restrictive. Or was the last time I thought about it.

Renaud 12y ago

I agree, competition would be nice, and I also do care about privacy and not being the product. However, being a pragmatist, I also see that FB has won a particular war: it managed to get everyone and their mom on it, and privacy issues are not enough to persuade 'the masses' to move to another platform. Proof being that almost no-one has left FB and that other social networks like App.Net, with all their marketing might, have failed to capture any relevant share. For a competitor to succeed, it would have to offer something vastly more tangible to the masses to persuade them to swith. Google tried and failed, Microsoft tried and failed, countless others tried an failed. FB had it relatively easy compared to anyone entering the market now: there was no real social network when FB started. Of course, there was MySpace, and a few smaller competitors, but almost no-one was on social apart from a few early adopters. Now, outside of China and probably Iran, practically everyone with a phone or a computer is on FB. Offering just another FB-clone with a nicer design is not going to make people switch. Unless there is a killer feature, practically no-one apart from a few of us in technology are going to quit FB. People have their lives invested in FB: it's where they announced their weddings, their first child, where they shared tons of pictures with friends and family. It would take a lot for them to move en masse somewhere else. All I'm saying is that instead of attacking FB frontally, these new social networks should target smaller, more focused, markets, if only because there is a need for better experiences for people who are passionate about something. That analogy with milk is a bit weak if I may say. A slightly better one would be to compare social networks to newspapers and magazines. FB is like your local newspaper, full of a bit of everything. Now if I want to get science news, I'd rather pick-up Scientific American or Nature. There shouldn't be just one social network, that's my whole point. I don't want another FB, I want others networks where I can share and exchange with other people who share a similar driving interest.

charliefg 12y ago

Because they would become monstrous behemoths that did everything at a lower quality. For instance - Mixcloud and Soundcloud each serve a real purpose, separate from one another. It may seem like they do the same thing (connecting people over music) but really they have refined their respective systems around what they are built for - focus on single tracks and the other on music sets. Now if google started doing that, it would not be anywhere near as refined because their platform would have to serve other purposes; if facebook started hosting repositories it would be diluted with everything else they do.