A Social Network That Costs 10¢ to Post

I used to feel that social networks were a waste of time (even when I worked for Facebook) but in the last couple years that has changed. My social life has been dramatically improved by Facebook because I started using it to socialize with people who share my hobby (growing fruit). Through Facebook groups I've made a number of new friends I never would have met otherwise. We communicate and share details of our hobby on a daily basis. It's great fun. I hardly use the site to socialize with my family and old friends - it's basically a glorified message board.

Exactly what happened on steem.it, people just (re)-posted stuff like they do on reddit and made money from it with no attribution to the original author. I know they tried to crack down on this sort of thing but moderation is really labor intensive and difficult for other reasons too.

That's great and that is a positive contribution to your life, but it follows the same formula I'm very used to hearing:

usecases = ["group events", "messaging", "staying in touch with people", "networking", "checking in once a month", &c()];

singleUsecase = pickWhatevs(usecases);

otherStuff = pickNotWhatevs(singleUsecase, usecases);

responseStr = "Well, I only use it for " + singleCase + ". I rarely use it for " + otherStuff + "."

As a former employee you might have more insight than I do, but how exactly has a glorified message board which doesn't charge its users become one of the richest companies in the world?

Sure they're a bit interested in the fruit growing hobby and that network, but they're also very interested in the ways you "hardly use the site" and they're even more interested in the things your doing when you don't even know they're still watching you. Even more interesting, you're actions on and off their platform can be correlated with heavy users of the site to infer traits they'll assign to you and sell on, true or not.

At the end of the day, the way the species is evolving with the internet, giving someone permission to follow you around the web and collect that data on you is the same as giving them insights into your inner psyche, the majority of what composes your reality, and the things you value most in your life, among other things.

These are things we should have a right to offer explicitly, not implicitly surrender.

[edits to elaborate on a couple points and add helpers to the why I use FB excuse]

Very interesting. I immediately liked the product when I read this, but giving it a few minutes of thought and it doesnt seem too exciting anymore.

The fundamental problem I see is that it kind-of 'corrupts' gratification. When I make a post, or do a vote, or write a comment, I dont want to think about the monetary value of it. There is 'value' inherent in creating/sharing interesting content and thats all I want to think about.

Adding money to the mix makes it a distraction from a 'pure' experience and takes away value than adding it. Ads do something similar - but imo ads are less distracting than putting a monetary value on an upvote.

Still this is very interesting experiment. Would love to follow updates on hn.

I'll try to address each of your questions / points individually.

The quote from me is probably too strongly worded on my part, but I really don't see the added value. You may have made it instrumental to your social life, but my personal opinion is the price is too high. Unfortunately, when the majority of people choose to pay the price, it switches from being a personal choice to being an expected exchange. This is fundamentally about the right to privacy and it's not something a rational person would trade away for something that can (and has been!) achieved without the terrible price tag.

Usually if something provides a high value, like a car, you invest in it so you can see the returns. My qualm is not with the messaging service per say (I take more issue with the mass posts people make about their kids or others without consent, I believe that's wrong and cheapens inter-personal relationships). I mean, you have to realize they take your keyups, they know when you've reworded before sending and they're tying what you might think of as a personal conversation to the valuable profile you're consciously helping them build and capitalize on.

I've been around a lot of people using messenger. I've found using the phone or email somewhat increases the likelihood of something tangible happening (general follow through) as well as thoughtfulness of the replies I receive. Obviously that's anecdotal and the jury's still out. I guess my question is, how can you assert Facebook would help someone's social life?

I'm not debating your happiness with it. I'm just a little surprised your so comfortable using it.

More direct means would include chatting in person, the proverbial snail mail (you got to admit, receiving a letter from someone you respect/love/h[oh]ld dear is great), phone call or text message. Except for the last one, each one contains a ton more social queues than a chat group.