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Towards a world without Facebook

techcrunch.com

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Re: Towards a world without Facebook

#5

Post by cornholio »

The quintessential moat Facebook has is its strong network effect facilitated by ease of use. Facebook is simple. To the point where my elder relatives refer to Facebook as "the Internet": the place where they can see funny clips, talk to friends and share their photos and thoughts.

For every person bemoaning how Facebook extended and proceeded to take a dump into her favorite aspect of the Internet - be it online publishing, email and chat, news feeds etc. - turning it into a restricted, ad-infested, bastardized version of itself, I have only one answer: Facebook could only do that because there was a margin for simplification that attracted the average users.

If you want to move to a world without Facebook, you need to make it simpler yet, and even more compelling for average users. The margin for simplification Facebook operated in circa 2004 is long since gone and a perfect Facebook clone will not break it's strong incumbent advantage.

So when I hear things like token operated blockchain based distributed social networks I really have a hard time understanding how does it simplify things. Yes, it might get a niche following inside crypto circles, but it has nothing to do with "a world without Facebook".

Re: Towards a world without Facebook

#8

Post by swalsh »

I was thinking about this a few months ago. I stopped though because I realized most user content (well in my network at least) was photos and video. Which don't belong in a block chain. In fact if you really start to unroll the implentation, a block chain is t even required. I think we just need a common protocol. Then multiple "vendors" can host the information (encrypted so they can't read it), and multiple "vendors" can create clients.

I often feel like the block chain is derailing the decentralized Internet by adding unnecessary complexity.

Re: Towards a world without Facebook

#9

Post by eyeareque »

After ditichong Facebook long ago it seems amusing to me that people have such a connection with it and find it hard to leave.

Sure it may seem hard at first. But your true friends will not lose contact with you. You might not know random life events about your seldom communicated with old high school peers though.

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