
Problems with Social Media - mabynogy
http://dailyprog.org/~tacixat/blog/posts/Problems%20With%20Social%20Media.html
======
cityzen
I believe the biggest problem with social media is that it seems to impact
people that don't even use social media. I haven't had a facebook account
since 2012 yet I still feel like I'm somehow wrapped up in this social media
dragnet bullshit.

It was interesting watching Zuck choke and stutter when he was practically
forced into answering to the EU about shadow profiles:

He is asked about it here: [https://youtu.be/x66fB7CM--
Q?t=1h21m36s](https://youtu.be/x66fB7CM--Q?t=1h21m36s)

But he chokes and stutters here [https://youtu.be/x66fB7CM--
Q?t=1h22m48s](https://youtu.be/x66fB7CM--Q?t=1h22m48s)

basically saying they collect data on you whether or not you have a FB account
in order to "prevent bad activity".

Give me a break... this guy is so delusional it make me sick. The audacity of
him to just glaze over this stuff is just some next level BS.

------
jasode
_> I would happily pay 20 dollars a year for a social media site that > does
not track or advertise if anyone is up for building it._

The problem is that your willingness to pay puts you in a tiny minority.

A smartphone survey found that 70% of users won't even pay _$1 a year_ to
avoid ads.[1] That's just 8 cents a month. Since surveys always overestimate
actual money spent, one should round up that 70% to ~90%.

A _general purpose_ social website requires most everybody to be on it. (Six
degrees of separation and all that.) Therefore, any payment of even 8 cents is
a huge barrier to adoption.

[1] [https://www.tune.com/blog/mobile-ads-70-of-smartphone-
owners...](https://www.tune.com/blog/mobile-ads-70-of-smartphone-owners-wont-
pay-even-1-to-avoid-ads/)

~~~
mundo
> A general purpose social website requires most everybody to be on it.

Who said it has to be general purpose? Part of the attraction of a paid social
media site for me would be the fact that most people aren't on it. Isn't that
why we're currently discussing the matter on HN rather than FB?

That said though, I'd be much more excited about paying $20/yr for the VPS
where I host my node in a (hypothetical) FOSS distributed social media app
than about paying $20/yr for a login to a closed source and proprietary one.

~~~
jasode
_> Who said it has to be general purpose? _

The author did and that's the context. The blog post was talking about sharing
photos etc with "friends and family" so I took it be general purpose so it is
adopted by a general audience.

Yes, there are things like Mastadon instances run by volunteers that are
funded by donations for topics like anime but _niche_ social networks doesn't
seem to be what the author is talking about.

 _> Isn't that why we're currently discussing the matter on HN rather than
FB?_

I think the plea was submitted to a technical site like HN instead of FB
because it's trying to drum up interest from _programmers_ who can _build_ the
$20/year a general purpose replacement for Facebook/Twitter.

------
dustfinger
To TACIXAT,

I tried to find your contact info in your about page
[http://dailyprog.org/~tacixat/about.html](http://dailyprog.org/~tacixat/about.html)

I wanted to point out what I believe is a typo in your about page:

> I really like piracy

I am guessing that what you intended to say is:

"I really like privacy"

;-)

By the way, I am working on a solution to the social media problem that you
described. Please let me know if you would like me to contact you when I am
ready to launch. Also, feel free to email me at dustfinger[@]nauci[dot]org

Cheers!

~~~
TACIXAT
Hey, I shot you an email and added mine to the about page [1] on dailyprog,
also I'm on here.

I laughed about the typo, I do actually really love piracy.

1\.
[http://dailyprog.org/~tacixat/about.html](http://dailyprog.org/~tacixat/about.html)

------
egypturnash
> I would happily pay 20 dollars a year for a social media site that > does
> not track or advertise if anyone is up for building it.

It costs me $20/mo to run a Mastodon instance. Might cost me less if I spent
the time to seriously optimize it. Someday I should get a Patreon up so some
of the other people using my instance can kick in a few bucks and bring the
cost to me down. No ads, no tracking, I just run it because I want to help
actually make “social media” actually be about talking to my friends instead
of being fed Popular Tweets From Celebrities.

You could also just start running your own blog. Host it yourself, use
WordPress Blogger Medium Tumblr, whatever.

~~~
f055
It feels like everyone just wants to log back into the internet of 1999. That
ship has sailed though. But if you look at Web 3.0 and social networks like
Peepeth, I see hope – on a site that puts everything irreversibly and forever
on the blockchain and you actually need to perform, albeit micro, payments to
act on this network, I expect spammers and troll farms to be unable to manage
their evil operations economically. But who knows where we end up...

~~~
TACIXAT
I like the idea of micro transactions for user interactions, I just don't love
the idea of it being via a cryptocurrency. Cryptocurrencies convert
electricity to currency, which is great for energy companies, but I would much
rather use fractions of a cent than jump through the middlemen and waste to
use a satoshi.

~~~
dustfinger
not all crypo currencies require excessive electricity. Also, a micro
transaction is not needed for every interaction.

