
The new “Rich Kids” social media app has a membership fee of $1,000 a month - tracymorgan8520
https://freshasfuck.net/2016/10/19/the-new-rich-kids-social-media-app-has-a-membership-of-1000-a-month/
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bookworm_420
“Only members of Rich Kids can share photos. To become a member, users have to
subscribe to Rich Kids Membership. To ensure the quality and exclusivity of
our members the membership is set to be $1,000 per month.”

This is pure genius if you ask me. Hits them right in the Ego. It's going to
be a huge success.

~~~
yakult
It's a bootstrapping problem. People would only fork over that kind of cash if
all the cool kids are already on it.

It might work if the founders are already movers and shakers at the center of
that world, and they use their personal influence to sign up a lot of high
value people they know all at once.

Alternatively, maybe you hire a few professional trolls to flaunt their (not
necessarily real) wealth in the most obnoxious ways possible, get Gawker's
spiritual successors to write some clickbait about it, and attract actual rich
kids with the free notoriety.

Alternatively #2, maybe it's a front for a high-end escort service, or drugs,
or some other service of questionable legality. The trick being you have to
sign up online _and_ go through some other backchannel to get the actual
service. So you can sign up and get plausible deniability with the money
changing hands.

~~~
harperlee
They can also gift "1000$/month" subscriptions to a group to bootstrap. That
both seems like a huge gift if they are already charging that amount to other
people, so the receivers are moved to use it, and it is super cheap for them
as real marketing expense - that can perhaps even write off as the full dollar
amount.

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adrianratnapala
I hope it succeeds and then charges downmarket to invade the middlebrow space
where the big profits are (and which Facebook originally catered to with its
own kind of snobbishness.)

I want to see more of the web paid for directly, rather than funded through
snooping. If some platform becomes hip because it is paid for, then it will
give people food for thought.

A $50/month "social network", including whatever addons have been added to the
platform by then would be a way in which the 21st century re-evovles the
service which ISPs were providing back in the good ole' 1990s.

~~~
onion2k
_A $50 /month "social network"..._

...would be beyond the budget of a large part of the population. Not many
people have $600/year to spend on a communications tool. The simple fact is,
while it's quite distasteful, paying for services by giving away access to
your social profile and contact information is a great leveller. Everyone can
afford it if they choose to, so everyone gets to access the benefits of social
media.

A network where you could pay $50/month in order to block the tracking
features would be a great idea though.

~~~
enraged_camel
>>A $50/month "social network" would be beyond the budget of a large part of
the population. Not many people have $600/year to spend on a communications
tool.

You do realize many cellphone plans cost that much if not a lot more, right?

~~~
darklajid
Based on what observations? Around here most people pay half of that as far as
I'm aware - and I'm hoping that this number is even lower in low income
countries.

Plus, comparing a general internet access & phone plan with a specific online
service seems odd. Even if I'd trust you with this number, paying $50 for 'the
internet' or paying the same amount for WhatsApp 2.0 doesn't seem direcly
comparable.

~~~
enraged_camel
We were easily paying $100/month for AT&T's "family plan." This was about 8
years ago.

We then switched to T-Mobile's pre-paid plans, which start at $40/month.
That's for 3 GB of data. If you want 5 GB, it's $50/month, which comes to
$600/year.

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pjc50
Clearly I should start a "Veblen Goods Store". Wouldn't need any actual stock,
just charge people to be seen shopping there.

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sambobeckingham
Genius as it is, it shows the true horrifying extent of commodity fetishism in
today's society.

~~~
genieyclo
Why is it horrifying?

~~~
fucking_tragedy
There is much suffering in the world.

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superplussed
It's hard to imagine this as anything other than a quick cash-grab, especially
with all of the bad copywriting on the site:

"One-third of your membership is donated to charities helping kids living in
poverty to study."

"Everyone can have an account on Instagram, but only really rich can afford
their profile here..."

This is especially notable given that there are only about 100 words of
content.

And who actually believes that they are going to give 1/3 of their profits
with so little transparency about where it is going? It just reads as a
cynical and dishonest hedge against all of the criticism that they will
inevitably get.

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aashishlowanshi
There’s finally a place where you can post your photos of private jets,
supercars and wads of cash. The person who created this has a Brilliant Mind

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jondubois
They should have it so that people can outbid each other - The more they pay,
the more features/exposure they get. I bet that there are some egomaniacs out
there who would pay 30K per month each.

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jlebrech
this is like the "I'm rich" app with actual features.

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hellofunk
If the profits were genuinely used for charitable purposes, then I suppose
this is one way to implement wealth redistribution, perhaps more explicitly
than government taxation and policies, but potentially more efficiently.

That said, such explicit divides in a society are rarely a source of good for
the world.

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willvarfar
Genius would be a dating app that costs $500/month :)

~~~
onion2k
What makes you think people who could afford that have trouble finding a date?

~~~
imtringued
When both parties pay the fee that filters out people that date someone only
for the money.

~~~
charlesdm
Which, if you ask me, sounds like a valid reason to pay the fee if you're
wealthy. Most wealthy people tend to have their guard up when it comes to
money (often for good reason).

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Vintila
Doesn't this restrict the rich kids to competition to other rich kids? I
would've thought the fun part was being a big fish in a small pond.

~~~
wlkr
This was my initial thought too. I expect they'll push very hard for Facebook
etc. integration to try and get these people's followers to move platform.
From what I can gather users can still lurk, you just have to pay to be a
poster; a few gratis accounts for popular social media personalities would be
able to get lots of people on board.

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missbit
fail. I don't think rich kids want to be known as rich kids. Even to other
rich kids! There are a few that might, but those are the current stars of
Snapchat & are probably already under contract.

~~~
gambiting
There's loads of people who pay insane membership prices(sometimes a lot more
than $1000/month!) just to be members of an exclusive country club where they
know only similarly wealthy individuals are allowed. The only thing that is
surprising about this social network to me is that it took this long for
someone to get the idea.

~~~
bobjordan
Like, every golf course here in Shenzhen, which the lowest cost deal for a
membership is over $100,000 USD for the entry-level membership, and if you
want access to the elite courses, you're going to pay more than $350,000
initial fee to join. After meeting this initial fee hurdle, then you get to
pay the monthly maintenance fees ~$1000 USD and also additional green fees on
the weekends, if you didn't buy in at the highest level. There is definitely a
market for real life premium social clubs but I'll be suprised if it
translates to an app.

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thomasthomas
hope they're smart enough to get that transaction out of apples ecosystem and
onto a browser. forking over $300 off the top to apple would be brutal

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InYan
Previously they sold a pixel for dollar (1000$ = 1000 pixels) and now they
sale one account for one thousand (1000$ = ˜1000 pixels). Nothing changes
under this moon.

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theklub
Should of made a rich men app that allows only men who paid 10k and only women
who pay $100. If I knew how to make apps I'd do it now.

~~~
systemtest
That's how most dating websites work. Men pay more than women.

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disposablezero
Rich, new money and marketeers... old money is on ASW.

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dmilicevic
brilliant

