
Friended is a new social network that wants to get real - nevaben
https://techcrunch.com/2019/11/05/friended-is-a-new-social-network-that-wants-to-get-real/
======
Multicomp
I like the idea, but 2 things.

1) where did they get the prices of $4.99 a week? Facebook's average revenue
per user per quarter is ~$25. That's approximately $1.50 a week, for their
most profitable section. Elsewhere, FB makes $6 ARPU per quarter, or around
37¢ a week. I'd be willing to pay $1 a month for a social network if it
manages to get around the network effects etc. but ~$20(!) for something
Facebook enables at no monetary cost? Yikes. But, I suppose that may just be
the patreon effect.

2\. Why is this iOS only? Limited resources excuses can be answered with 'do a
mobile web so all mobiles can'. Is it the 'sometimes iPhone users tend to pay
more for the same things Android users are too cheap to'?

I know the above can come off as somewhat harsh, but I do really like the
business idea overall, I just want to discuss the implementation challenges.

~~~
choward
$4.99 a week has to be a joke, right? $20 a month is about double what I pay
for Netflix and half of my phone bill. Just to send messages to people? I'm
sure the article is leaving things out but as of right now I don't get this at
all.

~~~
noonespecial
I'm actually not sure its enough. It looks like the only play this service has
is the "country club" model. You're not paying $5/week to get in, you're
paying it to keep the people who can't/won't pay that much _out_.

The question I'd really like to find out the answer to is will average net
trolls pay real money to troll?

~~~
Fjolsvith
I bet this turns into a casual sex hookup app. Put out there you're interested
and see what you get back.

------
monkeynotes
> No pressure, no public commenting and no rejection

Adults need to learn how to handle rejection. It's so essential to learning
how to be happy in the real world.

People who are lonely because they fear rejection need to fix the fear of
rejection part before they will actually experience a real friendship. Being
open with each other is essential to friendship, and being open risks
rejection.

Friendship isn't a individualistic pursuit, it involves multiple personalities
and is full of risk and rejection. No reward without risk, contrary to what
you might be sold on to mask your social anxiety.

~~~
pavel_lishin
> _Adults need to learn how to handle rejection. It 's so essential to
> learning how to be happy in the real world._

There's a difference between someone rejecting you, and a bunch of
anon/pseudonymous trolls piling on.

~~~
diminoten
Fine, then adults need to learn how to handle a bunch of anon/pseudo-anonymous
trolls piling on.

Myself probably included.

~~~
JulianMorrison
It's contrary to human nature to shrug off bullying. Even if you are strong,
it changes and traumatizes you. Society should not rely on people growing
unhealthy thick skin.

~~~
diminoten
A lot of "ought" in what you're saying, but there's a stark reality that
clashes with that ideology, and it's how little you can control others.

You shouldn't have to deal with people being assholes, so when they are you
should let yourself get hurt? You shouldn't have to deal with drunk drivers,
so you shouldn't wear your seatbelt?

~~~
pavel_lishin
> _You shouldn 't have to deal with drunk drivers, so you shouldn't wear your
> seatbelt?_

No, but you're suggesting that we should all armor our cars. I'm suggesting
that we should work to change the system so that instances drunk driving are
dramatically decreased.

~~~
diminoten
I would suggest armoring our cars if it were anything but absurdly
impractical.

Getting to know yourself better, and understanding how bullying is a
projection of others, and not related to who you are as a person is immensely
practical.

------
BeerBear
The Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory is nearly old enough to vote. (source for
the uninitiated: [https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/greater-internet-fuckwad-
theo...](https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/greater-internet-fuckwad-theory))

I don't understand why the founders think "this time will be different". The
disconnection of digital communication makes it easier to be abrasive, even if
real names are used and the comments are private. We have ample evidence of
this from other platforms with direct messaging and identifiable individuals.

The majority of the messages will still be "kill yourself, you [expletive,
slur]". The rest will be spam.

~~~
JulianMorrison
It's more "impunity" than "anonymity" (compare Facebook) but implementing
moderation well (1) is the biggest cost in the whole system, you need
literally hundreds of full time humans, (2) is somewhat of an unsolved
problem, your moderators are also liable to become fuckwads, and (3) this is
because your moderators are drinking from the firehose of the internet's dark
side constantly and losing SAN points like they were buddying up with Cthulhu.
This has commonly been regarded as inhumane.

------
moosey
Why not just make it so that people that you don't interact with get auto-
unfriended over time. If you just post, post, post and have no meaningful
relationship beyond parasocial bullshit, then in no time, you'd be removed
from the networking system. With something like this, the network would no
longer be a personal marketing system, but would actually only keep you with
people that you actually interact with in meaningful ways over time, perhaps
through event scheduling, and perhaps through conversation.

If you left for a long time, you'd come back to a friendless universe, sure,
but only on the network. I guess that the ultimate goal of a network like this
would be to get people off of it, which would be healthy for the individual,
and bad for the company.

Oh well, there goes that idea.

~~~
cy_hauser
I really like this idea. Not sure how it would play out or what the long term
consequences would be on people's psyche but it's really interesting and
certainly worth thinking about further. Kudos.

------
pavel_lishin
> _Friended wants to give users a deeper and more meaningful connection to one
> another, which the company believes they crave._

> _The idea is to give people a chance to share how they really feel in a
> vulnerable, one-to-one setting. In playing around with the app, I had
> conversations with people about how to make friends in NYC and why it
> sometimes feel like others don’t care about us as much as we care about
> them._

I'm a moderator for a city-specific subreddit, and we get _a lot_ of posts by
people bemoaning the lack of personal connections, and seeking _deep
friendships_. And I always tell them the same thing: _It. Takes. Time._

That's it. There's no shortcut. There is no short conversation you can have
that'll turn a stranger into the kind of friend they're seeking. You can pay
your five dollars a week to bare your soul to anonymous or pseudonymous users,
but you need repeated human contact to form the basis for a friendship.

I'm glad they're trying to solve a real problem, but I don't think that
"penpals - but with money" is it.

~~~
AnIdiotOnTheNet
> There is no short conversation you can have that'll turn a stranger into the
> kind of friend they're seeking.

I'm actually not sure this is true. And I say that because I'm actually not
sure this is true:

> It. Takes. Time.

And I say _that_ because of things like [0], which seems to say that
connection is more about vulnerability and depth of understanding than
anything else, and achieving that depth can be accelerated.

[0]
[https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/014616729723400...](https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0146167297234003)

~~~
monkeynotes
Real world relationships, those that are truly meaningful, take a lot of
investment from both sides.

Outside of the lab being vulnerable carries significant risk. For one, you
risk being taken advantage of. This happens all the time, people are
manipulated for sex, financial gain, and sometimes just for social status
gains (clique shunning etc.).

It's pretty common for vulnerable bonding to be misused by one or both
parties. This can be in the form of using inside knowledge for blackmail or
negative gossip/social shaming of some form.

People can be horrible. Finding good friends takes time because you have to
learn to trust each other. Fast friends in my experience do not last.

~~~
Retric
I am not sure where you can draw a clear line on what is a meaningful
relationship.

Some people decide to get married after knowing each other for a few weeks.
Some of those marriages even end up healthy and lasting long term. If anything
I think it’s maintaining a real relationship that takes time not forming it.

~~~
monkeynotes
> Some people decide to get married after knowing each other for a few weeks.

This is a high risk scenario. Being vulnerable early demonstrably can
accelerate a relationship, but as I mentioned this is a high risk approach
that most people would not recommend as the norm.

------
sorenn111
Perhaps I may be very wrong, but the name of this network, "Friended", comes
from a term that Facebook turned into common vernacular. "Friend me on
Facebook" or "I friended you on Facebook". If you're starting point is a term
coined by your goliath competitor, I'd be concerned.

~~~
copperx
Not only that but "I'm on Friended" sounds like I'm unfriended. That's a
terrible name in my book of aesthetics.

------
Bombthecat
> Right now, users can only post a conversation starter every eight hours. The
> premium tier, which costs $4.99/week, allows users to post as frequently as
> they want, and also includes a few other premium features, like the ability
> to talk to people in your location.

Woah.. That's really expensive...

~~~
kaffeemitsahne
It might be a useful method of pre-selecting only people who care at least a
little bit. And rich people.

------
amoitnga
Installed.

uploaded a picture.

made a mistake of putting email instead of name.

Tried to change it - can't

contacted support

got a notification: "people think you might be bot"

uninstalled.

------
LinuxBender
Ages ago I ran a phpbb site that initially followed this concept, but being
community driven (I may have been a bit too friction-less), it quickly evolved
into a community driven fetish/porn site. Every time I am tempted to create
such a thing, I reflect back on how much work it was and lessons learned
(about moderation requirements).

Hats off / kudos to anyone that can run something like this successfully at
scale, as it is a lot of work and you can't make everyone happy. I hope it
turns into something great.

~~~
Endy
This may seem like an unusual question, but why does it matter what the
subject matter became if the community was accepting and safe?

~~~
LinuxBender
Your question is quite valid and I agree. That said, at the time the subject
matter; while safe and legal, was still a bit taboo. Not so much these days,
but I may have been a bit ahead of the times.

------
Timberwolf
If you take "the idea is to give people a chance to share how they really feel
in a vulnerable, one-to-one setting" and replace "one-to-one" with "small
group" then this feels very close to the way many people used LiveJournal at
its peak. Maybe slightly different in that the one-to-one stuff wasn't
automated: people would have public posts in which they'd share more generic
stuff, then curate private friend groups from people who responded in ways
that suggested they would have empathy. These private networks would be where
the more vulnerable things got shared and discussed.

Of course as a community it was much derided - teens and young adults finding
their way in the world looked naive and emotionally immature from the outside
- but it's interesting seeing someone trying to bring that pre-Facebook sense
of sharing with a small and sympathetic group back.

------
farazbabar
About time. I have been working on a similar problem ever since I found out
about the Saudi agent that was uncovering twitter user identities to the
royals ([https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/security/saudis-recruited-
twitt...](https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/security/saudis-recruited-twitter-
workers-spy-critics-saudi-regime-u-s-n1077881)). The main idea is to have zero
knowledge for social graphs (both the connectivity and communication). The
product behaves like a newsgroup clone with subscriptions and threads
featuring zero knowledge (for host i.e. me and any other parties not
subscribed/authorized to the topic).

------
brenden2
I wonder how much it costs to get a PR piece like this on TechCrunch. Does
anyone know?

~~~
snug
I wonder how much it cost to get this many upvotes on HN as well?

------
bobblywobbles
I like the enthusiasm. It's always a good idea to try and help solve the ever-
present problem of "I don't have enough friends, I need more inter-personal
connection."

Fundamentally, I believe we _can't_ solve this problem through technology. I
think it can be used to initiate the friendship, but never sustain it. I feel
the problem is you can't be vulnerable on a screen, it just never replicates
the face-to-face interaction with someone else.

I've been there for many years looking for that online substitute, it just
doesn't ever fully work. However - I wish you luck on your network.

------
gnicholas
The first-listed option in the account creation flow is to log in with
Facebook. Since I'm trying this to get away from FB, I'm not going to do that.
But then once I've created an account with email, there's no way to put in any
information that would help me connect with my existing friends. Why is there
no way to indicate your university, employers, or location?

------
authoritarian
Just what the world needs, another social network....

~~~
ConceptJunkie
But the ones we have are so horrible. It's worth pursuing if there's a chance
we can get one that's not horrible.

Of course, the corollary is the suggestion that any social medium starts out
good, but inevitably becomes corrupted.

------
hemantv
I feel like all the social network problem stems from posting only positive if
we shared about overall we and everyone on the network will be much happier.

I thought about various mechanism to implements but nothing comes to mind that
is good enough.

Example: Force user to maintain happy sharing vs sad sharing to at max 2:1 but
now how do you figure out which ones are happy post and sad post.

------
Meerax
From the TOS: "2\. MEMBERSHIP. To become a Member, you must log-in through
Facebook which provides your “Account Credentials”, which you may not transfer
to or share with any third parties."

Did anyone else see this? They can't promise to not hand over info about you
to interested 3rd parties if your account validation and login is based in
Facebook. Right?

------
steven741
This is a pretty good idea but, it's monetization strategy probably isn't
inclusive enough. I find that a lot people on social media aren't trying to
make friends. They're mainly just there for themselves or content. But,
putting the focus on developing proper kinship seems like a step in the right
direction.

------
pcora
I just want to be reminded in a year if this still exists or has any real
traction.

------
ctack
What's the X of Y here? Facebook of the church confessional booth :D

~~~
JulianMorrison
It's like Tinder, but you get bullied instead of ignored.

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isaacgreyed
I wonder if regardless of the design of the platform, if simply having this be
the idea behind the network will attract the right people, and build the right
community to make it work.

------
BEEdwards
Can you search local and are these conversations encrypted? If so this is
great for grey/black market sellers.

In addition to the inevitable harassment, this could be it's big money maker.

------
Endy
My one gripe here is that it's only available as an iOS program. I think it
would be much more accessible if it had a web interface, or if it also had an
Android program.

------
rolltiide
I like the identification of a problem, the remaining problem is that its
another social network

Would probably be better off Re-using Blind’s pitch

------
walrus01
It's unfortunate they couldn't get the name/domain/trademark for Friendster

------
guskel
How do brand new social media platforms like this gather so many users so
quickly?

------
notadoc
The world needs less digital "social networking", not more of it.

------
darepublic
I am your friend

 _slaps face_ for real?

yes

 _slaps face again_ really for real?

yes

Ok then

