
Ask HN: Is #deleteFacebook an opportunity for a startup? - amerf1
I remember when we were in college how super dependent we were on our blackberrys to arrange study groups and get updates on our courses. No one really used whatsapp back then because we were reluctant to give out our phone numbers<p>One day the blackberry servers crashed and we were at the end of the semester, we really suffered... everyone was looking for an alternative. A bunch of us moved to whatsapp as a temporary fix, until a couple of months later the blackberry servers crashed again. That’s when the rest of the bunch moved to whatsapp. Never went back to blackberry again.<p>Do you think there another social media platform out there benefiting from the deletefacebook move? Or is this the perfect time to start one?
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aylmao
> Do you think there another social media platform out there benefiting from
> the deletefacebook move?

Probably every other one; especially those that directly compete with
Facebook/Messenger in terms of use-case, or those that target more tech-savvy
people, or those worried about privacy (ei, Signal, I'd assume Nextdoor since
I'd guess it competes heavily with Facebook Groups, though I wonder if
Snapchat too, since it competes mainly with Instagram which surprisingly I've
heard little about).

> Or is this the perfect time to start one?

Maybe? Building a startup takes a while and it's unclear wether this is a
temporary hit to Facebook or something more long-lasting. I personally think
it's temporary-- being from outside the US I don't think this level of angst
against Facebook is universal, but I might be wrong. Just like most people
here, my evidence is anecdotal.

The privacy-savy people spearheading #deletefacebook are a good market to
start, though keep in mind they'll scrutinize the business model a lot more.
If twitter is any indication, as of yesterday there's a good 50,000 vocal
people who deleted facebook as of yesterday (minus people just tweeting about
the trend, plus people who delete and don't tweet, plus people who deleted it
before the #deletefacebook hashtag) [1].

[1]:
[http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbcthree/article/6958e119-50eb-49f8-825...](http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbcthree/article/6958e119-50eb-49f8-825f-64edcf885f81)

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mgraybosch
> Do you think there another social media platform out there benefiting from
> the deletefacebook move?

It's called Mastodon. Chances are the last time you heard of it was because
Lance Ulanoff couldn't find William Shatner and decided to bitch about it in
Mashable instead of admitting his ignorance and asking more experienced users
for help.

> Or is this the perfect time to start one?

Now would be a great time to start a hosting service that makes it easy to set
up personal instances of Mastodon, Pleroma, or Diaspora* and offers support
and updates. Such a service would ideally be based in a country that is
subject to EU data protection laws and has a habit of saying "Warrant or GTFO"
when Uncle Sam wants users' data.

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sbinthree
Same UI/UX, homomorphic content encryption, different business model.

It almost certainly won't work but one can dream.

