Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Ask HN: How would you launch a privacy-first, Instagram-like social network?

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

91–100 of 120 posts

Re: Ask HN: How would you launch a privacy-first, Instagram-like social network?

#91

Post by AlienRobot »

rglullis wrote: post #53
AlienRobot wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is this private? As far as I'm aware, federation tends to be opposite to privacy because there can't be centralized control of access. e.g. none of the federated social media support private profiles but Instagram does, so Instagram is actually more private than most of these.

"Privacy" here means "no big tech will be tracking me and trying to shove ads down users' throats", not that the published content is protected from public view.

I genuinely don't understand this perspective of privacy. I think it's a dishonest use of the word.

For example, in Bluesky, which users you blocked is public information.

To me, this sounds like a bigger "privacy" issue than "the ad company figured out you're a man who lives near the beach so you get ads about surfboards."

Privacy is about control of your data. Control requires centralization. How come people think decentralization is good for privacy? This is a very narrow definition of privacy that doesn't matter for most people.

Re: Ask HN: How would you launch a privacy-first, Instagram-like social network?

#92

Post by bryanrasmussen »

next_xibalba wrote: post #60

> by far the most common mistake startups make is to solve problems no one has. - Paul Graham [1] I think this proposal points at an interesting issue that I see crop up often on sites like HN. It goes (I think) like this: 1) "I care deeply about what I perceive to be a problem." 2) Extrapolates onto some large critical mass of people, 3) That critical mass of people does not actually agree with the problem statement…

I'm going to just add a question to this - if you assume that privacy is a concern that a large enough base of users have that your service can generate enough revenue to support it - why do you think that celebrities and the like are in the group of people who would care about privacy, the main selling point of your service.

It seems to me that, by definition, it is the quality they care least about as they already do not have it anywhere else in their life. And you want them to be attracting more users by being "the celebrity" which is a person without privacy.

Re: Ask HN: How would you launch a privacy-first, Instagram-like social network?

#93

Post by yawnxyz »

next_xibalba wrote: post #60

> by far the most common mistake startups make is to solve problems no one has. - Paul Graham [1] I think this proposal points at an interesting issue that I see crop up often on sites like HN. It goes (I think) like this: 1) "I care deeply about what I perceive to be a problem." 2) Extrapolates onto some large critical mass of people, 3) That critical mass of people does not actually agree with the problem statement…

Tiktok solves a problem no one has, and look at it go.

Not a dig on PG or Tiktok. It's just such an outlier I don't really understand it, and to me it breaks the framework.

Re: Ask HN: How would you launch a privacy-first, Instagram-like social network?

#94

Post by thastings »

As others have already stated, without either actual paying users (not the celebrities) or some form of advertising costs can become very high quite fast.

Even though you are against all forms of advertising, some really privacy oriented form of it may be acceptable by your intended users. Some thoughts:

- Users need to disclose some topics/subtopics (either broad or even very niche interests)

- The ads need to be conformant to some predefined, non-intrusive style guide: maybe black-and-white or a limited color palette and font selection. This could lead to interesting and even creative ads on the platform

- Advertisers could get anonymized click-counts for their specific categories, and maybe some other category-based info, but user data would be immediately aggregated and not used for specific targeting

- Base users would see 1/3 ads in their feeds, but some payments could reduce this to 1/5, 1/8, all the way to zero.

This approach might provide the intended privacy benefits with much less noise, but also not alienate the average user that expects social to be free of any cost.

Re: Ask HN: How would you launch a privacy-first, Instagram-like social network?

#96

Post by mixmastamyk »

If I had a time machine, I’d make something where text posts are free, but need to pay for photo/video storage. Add some procedural graphics for efficient flare. The circles functionality would be helpful also.

Launch? Need a marketing budget and someone who knows how to spend it wisely. Maybe a contest as well.

Re: Ask HN: How would you launch a privacy-first, Instagram-like social network?

#97

Post by nutanc »

I would start simple. Build it and share it with your friends and family. If you are in a college, share it with your college. Solve the problem for your closed group first. If you can convince your group to pay, you have crossed the first step. So first degree of separation is solved.

Remember, most celebrities will be at most at a distance of six degrees of separation. So you can build up to that.

Re: Ask HN: How would you launch a privacy-first, Instagram-like social network?

#98

Post by rglullis »

AlienRobot wrote: post #91
rglullis wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Privacy" here means "no big tech will be tracking me and trying to shove ads down users' throats", not that the published content is protected from public view.

I genuinely don't understand this perspective of privacy. I think it's a dishonest use of the word. For example, in Bluesky, which users you blocked is public information. To me, this sounds like a bigger "privacy" issue than "the ad company figured out you're a man who lives near the beach so you get ads about surfboards." Privacy is about control of your data. Control requires centralization. How come people think…

If you have a better word for "Designed in a way that attempts to protect you from Surveillance Capitalism", I am all ears.

> Control requires centralization.

How, exactly? What control do you have over data you handed to Facebook?

Re: Ask HN: How would you launch a privacy-first, Instagram-like social network?

#99

Post by next_xibalba »

yawnxyz wrote: post #93
next_xibalba wrote: post #60

> by far the most common mistake startups make is to solve problems no one has. - Paul Graham [1] I think this proposal points at an interesting issue that I see crop up often on sites like HN. It goes (I think) like this: 1) "I care deeply about what I perceive to be a problem." 2) Extrapolates onto some large critical mass of people, 3) That critical mass of people does not actually agree with the problem statement…

Tiktok solves a problem no one has, and look at it go. Not a dig on PG or Tiktok. It's just such an outlier I don't really understand it, and to me it breaks the framework.

I disagree… sort of. TikTok found a better way to deliver video content. The problem was, video content and its associated social data, sucked. Most of us just didn’t realize it. But TikTok did. And they were right. It’s sort of like how you didn’t realize that horses sucked for transportation until you saw car. A flawed metaphor, but you get my point. I think a distinction here is that video, in the TikTok, is the product. Privacy is not. You aren’t entertained or informed by privacy. It’s like insurance. You only value it when something bad happens. And if your business model is less good entertainment/information, but with some insurance on the side, seems like a very tough pitch.

Now, of course, that points out a flaw in my original post. Very hard to get people to articulate something of which they are unaware.

Re: Ask HN: How would you launch a privacy-first, Instagram-like social network?

#100

Post by fsckboy »

why not offer two "plans", an advertising plan for the hordes who don't care, which you milk for revenue to support the infrastructure while you grow the privacy subscriber base? work out the tech to chinese-wall the fortune cookies on each side (cookies like browser cookies, fortune for all the money you're gonna make, and because I said chinese-wall even though they are historically japanese)
Post reply on HN