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Jimmy Wales has quietly launched a Facebook rival

zdnet.com

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Re: Jimmy Wales has quietly launched a Facebook rival

#51

Post by halbritt »

danans wrote: post #31

Just my guess, but I bet that from this point on, few people (in the developed world) will race to sign up for a new social network. Why? Given the societal and personal costs (and benefits) that we've seen with previous social networks, a lot of lay people are re-evaluating the utility that such services provide them. In many cases, the answer is to keep your current social network, but increasingly disengage from i…

I have a fairly large network of friends that existed before FB really had wide adoption. The platform they were on eventually died in favor of facebook.

At this point, I'd like to preserve that network of friends independent of facebook and most of those folks feel similarly. In that sense, there is at least some demand for a social network that isn't evil.

Re: Jimmy Wales has quietly launched a Facebook rival

#52

Post by halbritt »

ishanjain28 wrote: post #25

This just makes me think why do I need a social network. I never did anything remotely useful on Facebook/Instagram(Although, Twitter is useful). Why would I want to use this?

In the bay area, I have hundreds of acquaintances that are burners, hippies, makers, etc. I've been keeping up with these folks for nearly two decades now and would like to continue to do so as they have enriched my life immeasurably. Many of us get together on at least a yearly basis and often do special events together. All the other tools that we would've used to communicate and coordinate with each other have died in favor of facebook.

So, there's one use case.

Re: Jimmy Wales has quietly launched a Facebook rival

#53

Post by KoftaBob »

Curious what more experienced engineers/founders think of this:

I feel that one way to solve both the ownership over data problems and minimize server costs is to use some sort of P2P system where all posts, images, videos, etc are hosted locally. This could be through a browser extension when on a computer, within local storage on mobile apps, etc.

When a user pulls up their feed, it would be directly pulling posts from the locally hosted accounts of those they follow, similar to torrenting. With the bulk of data center costs offloaded to P2P, the remaining server costs could run on donations, similar to how Wikipedia does now.

I'm not sure if a social network like this currently exists, or if I'm missing some potential problems with the concept. Thoughts?

Re: Jimmy Wales has quietly launched a Facebook rival

#54

Post by xwdv »

danans wrote: post #31

Just my guess, but I bet that from this point on, few people (in the developed world) will race to sign up for a new social network. Why? Given the societal and personal costs (and benefits) that we've seen with previous social networks, a lot of lay people are re-evaluating the utility that such services provide them. In many cases, the answer is to keep your current social network, but increasingly disengage from i…

There is an exception to this. A lot of people race to sign up on new networks to secure valuable and limited usernames or urls early in case the network does become a big deal someday.

Re: Jimmy Wales has quietly launched a Facebook rival

#55

Post by Finnucane »

hellofunk wrote: post #43
rexreed wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is neither social nor a network. But it is a good community forum.

And how is HN not social?

The main difference between a 'social media' forum and a topical forum is that in a topical forum there's some expectation of staying more or less, you know, on topic. There is some functional overlap, but more limited domain.

Re: Jimmy Wales has quietly launched a Facebook rival

#56

Post by KoftaBob »

danans wrote: post #31

Just my guess, but I bet that from this point on, few people (in the developed world) will race to sign up for a new social network. Why? Given the societal and personal costs (and benefits) that we've seen with previous social networks, a lot of lay people are re-evaluating the utility that such services provide them. In many cases, the answer is to keep your current social network, but increasingly disengage from i…

The way other social media platforms have solved this problem is by targeting younger demographics first, those that are making social media accounts for the first time.

For these "greenfield" users, there is no need to convince their friends to leave their existing social media platform, because there is none.

Every day, middle schoolers get smartphones for the first time, and the majority of them probably aren't going to make Facebook accounts, but rather Instagram/Snapchat/TikTok, etc.

Re: Jimmy Wales has quietly launched a Facebook rival

#58

Post by Finnucane »

danans wrote: post #31

Just my guess, but I bet that from this point on, few people (in the developed world) will race to sign up for a new social network. Why? Given the societal and personal costs (and benefits) that we've seen with previous social networks, a lot of lay people are re-evaluating the utility that such services provide them. In many cases, the answer is to keep your current social network, but increasingly disengage from i…

At least on my FB feed (which is indeed becoming less full over time), at least once a week someone will raise the question of 'is there anywhere to go after Facebook?' So at least some people are looking.

Re: Jimmy Wales has quietly launched a Facebook rival

#59

Post by realbarack »

halbritt wrote: post #51
danans wrote: post #31

Just my guess, but I bet that from this point on, few people (in the developed world) will race to sign up for a new social network. Why? Given the societal and personal costs (and benefits) that we've seen with previous social networks, a lot of lay people are re-evaluating the utility that such services provide them. In many cases, the answer is to keep your current social network, but increasingly disengage from i…

I have a fairly large network of friends that existed before FB really had wide adoption. The platform they were on eventually died in favor of facebook. At this point, I'd like to preserve that network of friends independent of facebook and most of those folks feel similarly. In that sense, there is at least some demand for a social network that isn't evil.

I feel the same. I find social networks pretty valuable but don't like or trust Facebook. I'd happily sign up (and pay for) a social network that brought the same benefits but was (1.) ad-free and (2.) didn't employ tons of people trying to maximize my engagement.

Re: Jimmy Wales has quietly launched a Facebook rival

#60

Post by tyingq »

maxaf wrote: post #12

I could shell out $13/mo, or, you know... not use a social network. I don't use one now, and I'm doing just fine.

$13/month does feel like an odd price point to me. I imagine people would compare to what they pay for Netflix, HULU, etc, and wonder why this is so high.
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