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Facebook Alternatives

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Re: Facebook Alternatives

#61

Post by echevil »

Barrin92 wrote: post #53
echevil wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agree.. Are there any major social app that you can absotely trust your private data with?

Diaspora and Mastodon are good alternatives (but are ironically not on this list). Both are federated solutions that let you set up your own instances, or use public ones. https://diasporafoundation.org/ https://joinmastodon.org/

It’s hard to see if any of these self-hosted or decentralized solution would ever take off. For a social app, you need to get your friends and also public figures to use the same thing for it to be worth using at all. If it is more complicated to use than Facebook or similar, it will probably never be adopted by general public. And if the general public actually got into the same app, it would then become a new target for attacks.

Re: Facebook Alternatives

#62

Post by Barrin92 »

echevil wrote: post #61
Barrin92 wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Diaspora and Mastodon are good alternatives (but are ironically not on this list). Both are federated solutions that let you set up your own instances, or use public ones. https://diasporafoundation.org/ https://joinmastodon.org/

It’s hard to see if any of these self-hosted or decentralized solution would ever take off. For a social app, you need to get your friends and also public figures to use the same thing for it to be worth using at all. If it is more complicated to use than Facebook or similar, it will probably never be adopted by general public. And if the general public actually got into the same app, it would then become a new targe…

they're not decentralised in the sense that you seem to be implying. They're all federated, meaning that your data is situated on your own or a server of your choice, while the posts and users are still visible globally. You are not limited to only interact with people on your own instance, this is very much the point.

Diaspora allows for quite easy interaction with the mainstream social media apps as well. Also I haven't used diaspora much so I can't speak from experience there, but creating a mastodon account is no more complicated than signing up for twitter.

Re: Facebook Alternatives

#63

Post by echevil »

Barrin92 wrote: post #62
echevil wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s hard to see if any of these self-hosted or decentralized solution would ever take off. For a social app, you need to get your friends and also public figures to use the same thing for it to be worth using at all. If it is more complicated to use than Facebook or similar, it will probably never be adopted by general public. And if the general public actually got into the same app, it would then become a new targe…

they're not decentralised in the sense that you seem to be implying. They're all federated, meaning that your data is situated on your own or a server of your choice, while the posts and users are still visible globally. You are not limited to only interact with people on your own instance, this is very much the point. Diaspora allows for quite easy interaction with the mainstream social media apps as well. Also I ha…

Sorry I was talking about the french solution https://movim.eu/ when I say decentralized.

Thanks for the recommendation and explanations though!

Re: Facebook Alternatives

#64

Post by echevil »

tinfoilboy wrote: post #54

You can always list alternatives for Facebook, but the problem comes in actually replacing it. Facebook isn't popular for being a well designed website, if you think about it, Facebook is a very bloated and clunky experience. Facebook is popular because that's what everyone uses. I think the issue isn't about finding alternatives to it, it's convincing the people completely entangled in the Facebook ecosystem why the…

Exactly! It makes no sense to switch to something else if all your friends are still on Facebook.

Also, who knows if the app you switch to will have less problems in future than Facebook does now.

Re: Facebook Alternatives

#66

Post by chillacy »

stupidbird wrote: post #40
ilovecaching wrote: post #8

My wife makes all of her income through Facebook products. She's tried other platforms, and none of them were sustainable over Facebook and Instagram, partly because of the difficulty of building a following like the one she has on Instagram, partly because they market isn't using other products. For her, people walking away from Facebook or Instagram means losing her livelihood and giving up her dream job. Facebook…

Facebook has sold all the private messages that you've shared with your wife.

Such an inaccurate description of the situation that you’re doing damage to this position. Facebook didn’t have adequate privacy disclosure when users logged into apps like Spotify which could then pull conversations to display in their UI.

Re: Facebook Alternatives

#67

Post by chillacy »

libraryatnight wrote: post #33

I haven't had a facebook account in many years and I don't miss it, but holy shit does this list just show how badly facebook needs an actual competitor. Isn't there a happy medium somewhere? Where someone could use a facebook like model with ads to let users in for "free," but also accept payment for absolute privacy and content control. Part of me thinks even if you made the best, most amazing platform it'd still b…

Mainland China gets along fine without Facebook and has a strong offering in WeChat, but then again maybe Facebook is the lesser of two evils here...

Re: Facebook Alternatives

#68

Post by chillacy »

echevil wrote: post #64
tinfoilboy wrote: post #54

You can always list alternatives for Facebook, but the problem comes in actually replacing it. Facebook isn't popular for being a well designed website, if you think about it, Facebook is a very bloated and clunky experience. Facebook is popular because that's what everyone uses. I think the issue isn't about finding alternatives to it, it's convincing the people completely entangled in the Facebook ecosystem why the…

Exactly! It makes no sense to switch to something else if all your friends are still on Facebook. Also, who knows if the app you switch to will have less problems in future than Facebook does now.

Wasn’t that what people said about MySpace? And business analysts see weakness in fb for that reason too, they’re vulnerable. Just look at snap’s users leaving to see, stickiness works both ways: as soon as something better exists, people switch quickly

Re: Facebook Alternatives

#69

Post by [deleted] »

ilovecaching wrote: post #8

My wife makes all of her income through Facebook products. She's tried other platforms, and none of them were sustainable over Facebook and Instagram, partly because of the difficulty of building a following like the one she has on Instagram, partly because they market isn't using other products. For her, people walking away from Facebook or Instagram means losing her livelihood and giving up her dream job. Facebook…

[deleted]

Re: Facebook Alternatives

#70

Post by solarkraft »

wodenokoto wrote: post #20

I think that list really shows how strong Facebook is. Twitter? That's even less private than fb. Reddit? Seriously, you want me to post my wedding pictures on Reddit? And for events, who is going to invite friends and family to their birthday via Eventbrite? Doodle? It's not like we need to settle on a date for my birthday.

Diaspora is a great platform. (Mastodon also replaces Twitter very well)

From what I've experienced so far the federated platforms are very, very strong.

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