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Ask HN: Should I make a Facebook alternative?

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Re: Ask HN: Should I make a Facebook alternative?

#11

Post by ben85ts »

bjourne wrote: post #8

It must be decentralized. Any social network in which I have to put faith in a single party is not good. Look into ZeroNet: https://zeronet.io/ Either that technology or something similar could be used to create a distributed social network.

I think the concept of decentralization is certainly appealing especially when it comes to trusting 1 or more other parties with personal information. I think encrypting data with only the parties you want to have access is extremely powerful. I might be wrong but as I understand it there is always an amount of trust whether it be in a blockchain or a single party. I understand that if the one party is compromised or decides to change their policies and sell your data etc. that it is a larger risk in that regard. On the other hand adopting a decentralized network takes a good amount of understanding and participation that might be lost on the average user. My hope is that, with a solid foundation, it would be possible to establish the initial policies to maintain and grow a network that was never owned by anyone e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Ownership_of_content

Re: Ask HN: Should I make a Facebook alternative?

#12

Post by ben85ts »

saluki wrote: post #7

"Here are some odds, if you’re building just a simple company to charge a few people, what are the odds of that being a success? 1:5, 1:10 I don’t know. But the odds of you building the next Facebook or MySpace are probably not 1:10, if it was I wouldn’t be giving this speech, I’d be trying to make the next Facebook." - @DHH StartupSchoolTalk 2008 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0CDXJ6bMkMY This is still one of my fa…

Thank you for sharing the video is great!

Re: Ask HN: Should I make a Facebook alternative?

#13

Post by muzani »

There's a few going on. None are Facebook, they're unique in their own way.

WT.social seems to take a lot from its wiki roots, such as editing other people's posts. They make money just from donations.

Cocoon goes more personal. It's not about having a thousand friends. They're more a subscription model and can't exploit users.

I'm working at one too. It's something community based. You don't post to your own wall. You post to communities - a residential area, geographic location. We've had gaming groups and schools onboard; it's easier and cheaper to reach out than with Facebook and less intrusive than WhatsApp. It started off fairly serious but we're seeing more Instagram style selfies and Tik Tok videos. We monetize by selling community based services like condominium management.

This is just off the top of my head in 2019. There's probably some stealth mode ones going up in the near future. I wouldn't ve surprised if we see 50 more alternatives by 2025.

I think the important thing is not to make something ad based (which incentivizes addictiveness and privacy violations) and not to focus too much on network effects (which incentivizes monopolistic behaviour).

Re: Ask HN: Should I make a Facebook alternative?

#15

Post by muzani »

saluki wrote: post #7

"Here are some odds, if you’re building just a simple company to charge a few people, what are the odds of that being a success? 1:5, 1:10 I don’t know. But the odds of you building the next Facebook or MySpace are probably not 1:10, if it was I wouldn’t be giving this speech, I’d be trying to make the next Facebook." - @DHH StartupSchoolTalk 2008 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0CDXJ6bMkMY This is still one of my fa…

Yeah, this sounds like something people would say in 2008, but not 2018. Facebook has lost a lot of favor since then.

Re: Ask HN: Should I make a Facebook alternative?

#16

Post by ben85ts »

muzani wrote: post #13

There's a few going on. None are Facebook, they're unique in their own way. WT.social seems to take a lot from its wiki roots, such as editing other people's posts. They make money just from donations. Cocoon goes more personal. It's not about having a thousand friends. They're more a subscription model and can't exploit users. I'm working at one too. It's something community based. You don't post to your own wall. Y…

Really great info, thanks for sharing. WT.social's model is almost exactly what I was thinking. Like you said, it's a different feature set from Facebook but it's great so see that the idea works for social networks.

Re: Ask HN: Should I make a Facebook alternative?

#17

Post by erikbrodch »

ben85ts wrote: post #5
erikbrodch wrote: post #3

I'll start by saying social is extremely exciting to do. I also agree there is a need for a FB alternative. But before you start, I'd highly recommend (can't stress it enough) reading this: https://www.eugenewei.com/blog/2019/2/19/status-as-a-service . It's the best read I found on social. I wish we had read it before trying to compete TikTok :)

Wow, thank you I will check this out.

Happy to help (and discuss the article).

Re: Ask HN: Should I make a Facebook alternative?

#18

Post by saluki »

muzani wrote: post #15
saluki wrote: post #7

"Here are some odds, if you’re building just a simple company to charge a few people, what are the odds of that being a success? 1:5, 1:10 I don’t know. But the odds of you building the next Facebook or MySpace are probably not 1:10, if it was I wouldn’t be giving this speech, I’d be trying to make the next Facebook." - @DHH StartupSchoolTalk 2008 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0CDXJ6bMkMY This is still one of my fa…

Yeah, this sounds like something people would say in 2008, but not 2018. Facebook has lost a lot of favor since then.

y, but it's still a dream for lots of devs, I'm not a fan of Fbook but I love the story of how it was created (especially the movie version, even if it's not all true) and how much wealth it generated for the founders and employees.

Re: Ask HN: Should I make a Facebook alternative?

#19

Post by SirLotsaLocks »

I'd love to see something like this, but in my opinion, there is a reason why none have turned up. It costs a lot of money to run a social network, and people aren't willing to pay to use a social network. That means you're going to have to either rely on advertisements or donations. it's hard to run on donations unless you are large because people mostly don't donate, and many that do only donate a bit. and ads are out so unless you have a reliable plan you are going to be bleeding money and eventually die, or get bought.
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