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Ask HN: Why are there no public social networks?

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Re: Ask HN: Why are there no public social networks?

#21

Post by Balero »

sbjs wrote: post #14

All the other answers are great, but I think they're missing the biggest and most important reason: a social network run by any government entity would only run on Internet Explorer 6 or Firefox 2, would store your password in plain text, and would run on 15-year-old un-patched IIS on a few Windows XP servers stored in the basement of city hall. And it would probably all be built on top of a deprecated social media W…

The meme that (all) government is terrible at technology is getting tired. It is not necessarily true that a publicly run system will inevitably be crap/inefficient/archaic. A good example is the British gov.uk group, who have made some well thought out, usable and technologically sound systems.

Please stop perpetuating this lie. You can, and should expect better of your public digital systems. Don't let them use "Public tech must be bad" as an argument.

Re: Ask HN: Why are there no public social networks?

#22

Post by pcarolan »

SMS could and should be expanded to include more social primitives within the protocol. Lately, I find myself using group chats in SMS more than any social network. Facebook and Twitter have a dis-incentive to do this, but Apple and Microsoft both make phone operating systems and don't have large social networks to compete with an open protocol. It is really annoying whenever I run up against walls like 'You can only have 10 users in 1 group chat ... unless they're all Apple' situations. The protocol should be device/os agnostic akin to http => browser. But I'm not seeing a lot of movement in the SMS protocol as late, just more messaging apps.

Re: Ask HN: Why are there no public social networks?

#23

Post by ninjakeyboard »

roymurdock wrote: post #6

You need roads, bridges, water, electricity, and garbage collection to fulfill basic physiological needs, and also so you can swap menial tasks for higher level work/spending time with family/enjoying a better standard of living. Framing in Maslow's pyramid [1]: Many of the goods/services the gov provides fulfill either level 1 physiological needs or level 2 security needs. Social networks fulfill level 3 and 4 needs…

I like this answer. It presents a framework for reasoning about why it turned out the way it has, and why it likely won't change.

I think also the motivation for (advertising) profit is what is driving the innovation on the other side.

Re: Ask HN: Why are there no public social networks?

#24

Post by beaconstudios »

richjdsmith wrote: post #17

Have you ever used a government website? With the exception on gov.uk, they are all god-awful. I suspect lack of talent within the government is one major reason.

I'd argue it's more lack of organisational innovation. You can be incredibly talented but if your organisation doesn't sign off on anything innovative then you'll be stuck writing menial code. Governments are some of the most change-resistant organisations around, ignoring legally mandated changes.

Re: Ask HN: Why are there no public social networks?

#25

Post by _Microft »

Not sure why you are being downvoted as this is a very interesting question indeed.

Social networks tend to kill each other due to network effects as people are flocking to the most used network since there's the largest value for everyone. So having multiple networks might not really work well.

It wouldn't have to be several networks though and it doesn't even have to be your own government running it to provide the value you're looking for (social networking without users being monetized).

Image for example Twitter being bought by a country with good reputation, strong privacy laws and sufficient economy to sustain it in the long term. Iceland with some additional funding from the EU or something like that.

Does not sound too bad, in my opinion.

Re: Ask HN: Why are there no public social networks?

#26

Post by golemotron »

roymurdock wrote: post #6

You need roads, bridges, water, electricity, and garbage collection to fulfill basic physiological needs, and also so you can swap menial tasks for higher level work/spending time with family/enjoying a better standard of living. Framing in Maslow's pyramid [1]: Many of the goods/services the gov provides fulfill either level 1 physiological needs or level 2 security needs. Social networks fulfill level 3 and 4 needs…

A slightly different framing:

https://www.livehouseautomation.com.au/blogs/news/75760388-w...

Re: Ask HN: Why are there no public social networks?

#27

Post by sigfubar »

Because governments are generally incapable of delivering large software projects. Because any such facility provided by a government will be automatically labeled untrustworthy due to real or imagined involvement by four-letter agencies or their international equivalents. Because there are good reasons not to waste public funds on whimsical projects; funds that could and should be used to actually improve living conditions, energy security, healthcare, and so on. The list of real wrongs to be righted is too long to recite here.

Re: Ask HN: Why are there no public social networks?

#28

Post by MrEfficiency »

Balero wrote: post #21
sbjs wrote: post #14

All the other answers are great, but I think they're missing the biggest and most important reason: a social network run by any government entity would only run on Internet Explorer 6 or Firefox 2, would store your password in plain text, and would run on 15-year-old un-patched IIS on a few Windows XP servers stored in the basement of city hall. And it would probably all be built on top of a deprecated social media W…

The meme that (all) government is terrible at technology is getting tired. It is not necessarily true that a publicly run system will inevitably be crap/inefficient/archaic. A good example is the British gov.uk group, who have made some well thought out, usable and technologically sound systems. Please stop perpetuating this lie. You can, and should expect better of your public digital systems. Don't let them use "Pu…

What happens in a country 1/5 the size in population and 1/10 the size economically shouldnt be expected to perform the same on something literally 10x bigger.

You likely are much closer to your political representatives than we are. The amount of money flowing into your politicians pockets are less.

Here I expect the government contract to be unfavorable to the population at large. I expect the leading politicians to benefit greatly and the company contracted to do a subpar job that barely meets specifications.

I trust my local government, but I do not trust the federal government to be competent.

Re: Ask HN: Why are there no public social networks?

#29

Post by dumbfounder »

I'm assuming you mean available to the general public, run by the government? There probably are smaller, niche social networks for gov employees to collaborate. If there aren't there probably should be.

But to answer the assumed question, it's because there is no practical way they could compete with private companies. Sure, theoretically they could dump tons of money into developing cool new features, slick UIs, and obtain top talent. They would also need to spend billions to crush or acquire upcoming networks to maintain their dominance (Whatsapp, Instagram). Or legislate them out of existence. In practicality there is no way this would (or should) ever happen.

Re: Ask HN: Why are there no public social networks?

#30

Post by zild3d »

douglaswlance wrote: post #19
roymurdock wrote: post #6

You need roads, bridges, water, electricity, and garbage collection to fulfill basic physiological needs, and also so you can swap menial tasks for higher level work/spending time with family/enjoying a better standard of living. Framing in Maslow's pyramid [1]: Many of the goods/services the gov provides fulfill either level 1 physiological needs or level 2 security needs. Social networks fulfill level 3 and 4 needs…

Social networks fulfill all needs. That is why the ultimate form of punishment in our society is to isolate the individual from all human contact. Humans do terribly in an environment without other people. Why does it matter that the medium is digital?

> Social networks fulfill all needs.

not physiological needs... food, shelter, water, sleep, etc

> That is why the ultimate form of punishment in our society is to isolate the individual from all human contact.

it is a severe punishment, but again not as crucial as physiological needs. most would (and should) choose isolation from human contact for much longer than isolation from water

> Why does it matter that the medium is digital?

You can't eat it

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