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We Need More Alternatives to Facebook

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Re: We Need More Alternatives to Facebook

#71

Post by danellis »

godelski wrote: post #47

It seems to me that a social network is one of those natural monopolies. It works so well because so many people use it. Remember the big reason many social network alternatives failed, no one else was on them. There are some things (very few in fact) that just work better as monopolies. But that just means you need to regulate it differently. And there's an interesting discussion, how best to regulate natural monopo…

Yes, exactly. That's pretty much the reason I never really got into Google+; most of my friends weren't on there, and didn't care to be, so I was just reading a lot of the same things I could read on Twitter -- public posts by more tech-savvy people.

Re: We Need More Alternatives to Facebook

#72

Post by marmaduke »

Sir_Substance wrote: post #58
marmaduke wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How would you keep rich messages from polluting the traditional inbox? I mean, I'd want to keep my existing address and use it as regular email, too

There are a bunch of email headers you could backwards shoe-horn into serving the purpose of allowing clients to recognize the difference between a life update and a traditional mail, or you could create a new one. You could then make it standard behavior to handle emails with that header via a social client if one is available, and otherwise discard/hide them.

my question is, how to keep a standard email from being completely overwhelmed by traffic of the social network, assuming it isn't aware of the headers? Or, you'd just have to tell users to set up a suitable filter?

I think we already see some of these things to some extent like Github pull requests having a lot of usability via email.

Re: We Need More Alternatives to Facebook

#74

Post by piaste »

Existenceblinks wrote: post #43
glenstein wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's more of a replacement for twitter. And I am genuinely excited about Mastodon, with ~600k users and 1400 instances, I think something special is happening there. I guess diaspora* is supposed to be the decentralized facebook replacement, but I don't think it's any good. I dare say that it's too late for even a good replacement to compete with facebook. Google tried while there was still time (and failed).…

We need 1 instance for every individual, that's the problem. Non techies who already have privilege to access internet should be able to instantiate their own instances very easily.

That would be optimal, but I don't think it's strictly necessary. The fundamental requirement is that, if the owner of an instance behaves poorly, users should be able to move elsewhere without being cutting off from the larger network.

Re: We Need More Alternatives to Facebook

#75

Post by marmaduke »

anigbrowl wrote: post #67
wmeredith wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eh, if you set up your social email client like Twitter, you only get messages from those people you follow. Done.

Then you miss out on the social discovery aspect which is a key part of social networking. You're just avoiding the problem of where to go by cutting off your own legs.

Seems contextual whether that's good or bad: one theory of sleep is that we lose consciousness so that we don't go out and get ourselves killed in low visibility conditions.

Re: We Need More Alternatives to Facebook

#76

Post by tchaffee »

65827 wrote: post #8

The alternative increasingly is to simple delete facebook and live a more offline life. Starting to see it become more and more trendy nowadays, especially among teenagers. It's considered retro and hip to just schedule social time and disconnect completely

I live all over the world, and have friends and family all over the world. If I want to stay involved in the lives of a large number of people who are not local, a social network is the most efficient way.

Re: We Need More Alternatives to Facebook

#77

Post by marmaduke »

Sir_Substance wrote: post #58
marmaduke wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How would you keep rich messages from polluting the traditional inbox? I mean, I'd want to keep my existing address and use it as regular email, too

There are a bunch of email headers you could backwards shoe-horn into serving the purpose of allowing clients to recognize the difference between a life update and a traditional mail, or you could create a new one. You could then make it standard behavior to handle emails with that header via a social client if one is available, and otherwise discard/hide them.

Another possibility to ease UX in a traditional client would be to use the same subject line for all activity. Most clients nowadays will collapse those messages to a single thread, making it friendlier.

Re: We Need More Alternatives to Facebook

#78

Post by watwut »

ohthehugemanate wrote: post #12

Every time I see a sentence that starts with "we need..." I automatically think "shut up and build it, or you're just complaining." If it's a real need, then building it is a good idea, and will probably make you money. But 99.9% of the time, it's just a turn of phrase way to bitch about the way the world and human kind actually works. Yeah, if we had another Facebook the world would be better. And if I had wheels I'…

Basically, you should not talk about anything except your daily job. Got it.

Re: We Need More Alternatives to Facebook

#79

Post by godelski »

adventured wrote: post #61
godelski wrote: post #47

It seems to me that a social network is one of those natural monopolies. It works so well because so many people use it. Remember the big reason many social network alternatives failed, no one else was on them. There are some things (very few in fact) that just work better as monopolies. But that just means you need to regulate it differently. And there's an interesting discussion, how best to regulate natural monopo…

The big reason many other networks failed, is because no one else was on them? Prove that as the cause, as opposed to them sucking as the reason. MySpace & Friendster were already very substantial when Facebook came along and destroyed them, because they were horrible services. The better question is, why would you need or want to regulate it as a natural monopoly? Specifically: to accomplish what? Let me give you so…

Well there are certain features that can't be done without the mass amount of people. All that ML that Facebook does? No one can replicate it without the data. Yes, they have fancy algos, but it is the data that drives it.

We definitely have seen plenty of Facebook clones that are better at protecting your privacy, have better messaging systems, and lots of other features. Everyone that has tried to use these networks gets the response from most friends of "eh, I'll just use Facebook. I don't need another account." Having the best product does not always mean you win. Marketing plays a big role, and it is hard to market against one of the biggest marketers. (If you're going to talk tech and markets, you do need to know "'better' doesn't always win")

But as to your questions, we would want to regulate natural monopolies differently than we would in the competitive market. Things such as: how data is handled and distributed; how privacy is handled (when you have so much on almost everyone); different regulations on how to check that news being spread is accurate.

AT&T was treated as a natural monopoly and that caused Bell Labs to be born. And we all know Bell invented the modern world. Since new tech has come out, AT&T lots its natural monopoly treatment.

I'm not suggesting to treat it like a natural monopoly forever, but while it is one. When some new innovation comes and competes, Facebook should then be treated as if in a competitive market (because it will be then). But right now it isn't in one.

Just tell me, who is Facebook's competition? Google+? Ello? People compete with parts of Facebook, but they have no real competition.

Re: We Need More Alternatives to Facebook

#80

Post by watwut »

sr2 wrote: post #34
X86BSD wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've just started using mastodon.social as a replacement for FB and like it just fine. Give it a look.

Twitter should be a public utility like water. It shouldn't rely on surveillance capitalism to make money. There's another social network called Ello and it's essentially a registered charity. Twitter should be like that.

Why? Twitter is in no way essential.
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