Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Jimmy Wales has quietly launched a Facebook rival

zdnet.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 587 posts

Re: Jimmy Wales has quietly launched a Facebook rival

#71

Post by zozbot234 »

michaelmrose wrote: post #22

I would prefer a decentralized social network based on boxes you plug into your router with content shared in a way that fellow users bear the weight of shared content like torrents. You could rent the box or buy outright with money to develop paid for by a premium on the box or by the rent wherein even a modest rent would outstrip the cost of buying like a cable box.

> I would prefer a decentralized social network based on boxes you plug into your router with content shared in a way that fellow users bear the weight of shared content like torrents.

This is something that the SoLiD (Social Linked Data) initiative, based on web and linked-data standards, is expressly built to support; your "box" would implement what the initiative calls a Personal Online Datastore, or POD. Though "federated" third-party hosting of such datastores is also allowed for, of course.

Re: Jimmy Wales has quietly launched a Facebook rival

#72

Post by Zenst »

He also less quietly launched a Social Media strike only 4 months ago, which now has a whole new perspective given this.

My thoughts at the time, which I said "EDIT ADD Had a quick look for `related` interests and see that he is CIO of Everipedia, which is decentralizing encyclopedia writing from an article in March: https://www.wired.com/story/larry-sanger-declaration-of-digi.... But I'd not cry foul even if they did produce their own decentralised social media platform; Kinda hope they do actually. Competition does have its upsides."

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20318590

Re: Jimmy Wales has quietly launched a Facebook rival

#73

Post by danans »

nicoburns wrote: post #45
GetOutOfBed wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree that people aren't looking for new social networks, but I do wonder about your view of disengaging from Facebook. I keep reading about it on HN but I'm not seeing it myself. I wonder if it's a US-centric view.

It's certainly becoming a more and more popular perspective with my demographic (20-something's in the UK). Most people haven't quite checked out just yet, but mainly use facebook for messenger and events, and are generally becoming: 1. Disengaged with the platform 2. Concerned about how much it knows about our lives In the last few months, I've seen this go from something that only techies cared about to an increasi…

> 1. Disengaged with the platform 2. Concerned about how much it knows about our lives

Disengagement is an effect, not a cause, but I'd argue that the primary cause of disengagement is that the balance of dopamine increasing "happy" social networking experiences vs neutral or anger inducing negative experiences on social networks has shifted to the neutral/negative.

Even on the "happy" side, there's only so many recycled life-affirming aphorisms, or happy photos from other peoples' lives you can see in your newsfeed before you start to tune them out. On the negative side, produced content on social networks has turned toward the increasingly attention-grabbing, and occasionally even psychologically injurious. So if the happy stuff isn't making you so happy anymore, and you tire of the negative stuff, what do you do? Disengage.

Re: Jimmy Wales has quietly launched a Facebook rival

#74

Post by whatshisface »

grumpy8 wrote: post #66

Silly question but on facebook/twitter, most of the fake news I'm getting isn't from ads but from random people I've added over the years that are sharing a bunch of crap. The fact that they'd be paying to access that social network wouldn't change what they're sharing on it.. or would it?

Is being exposed to fake news hurting you, or is being tracked?

Re: Jimmy Wales has quietly launched a Facebook rival

#75

Post by JohnFen »

GetOutOfBed wrote: post #41
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 agree that people aren't looking for new social networks, but I do wonder about your view of disengaging from Facebook. I keep reading about it on HN but I'm not seeing it myself. I wonder if it's a US-centric view.

According to Pew research, Facebook usage in the US has been flat since 2016, neither gaining nor losing overall.

However, the age breakdown of those users has changed a lot. Facebook has absolutely hemorrhaged users younger than about 45. The majority of American FB users are in the 46-76 year old range now, with 68% of US FB users aged 50 or older.

In the US, anyway, Facebook is for old farts and businesses.

Re: Jimmy Wales has quietly launched a Facebook rival

#76

Post by degenerate »

It appears the "changelog" of all posts, comments, articles, and edits is public right now...

https://wt.social/recentchanges

Mostly nothing interesting, people testing the system out. The whole site feels like a post-dotcom-boom experience... a slightly styled Craigslist.

Re: Jimmy Wales has quietly launched a Facebook rival

#77

Post by bransonf »

I've had a hunch lately that someone would try to create a paid social network, but I never thought the idea would work for the reasons that social media became so popular to begin with.

Facebook is popular because it is free, it is easy, it is convenient. Old people, kids, a large proportion of the population has no understanding of how they get all this for free. And most of them don't care. They interact with ads just like it's any other content in their feed. They are happy they get something with so many features without having to pay for it.

Social networks that advertise privacy or no ads have limited appeal because the only group that really cares about this is (maybe) teenagers, and younger adults who are in touch with privacy politics.

Re: Jimmy Wales has quietly launched a Facebook rival

#78

Post by cryptozeus »

This is not for the people who are complaining about the high price. Did anyone question what price we paid for free product like fb/insta ? Clearly this product is in infancy and trying to attract early adopters. In future price may come down and ui/ux will get better but it’s clearly not for everyone looking to escape into social media as entertainment.

Re: Jimmy Wales has quietly launched a Facebook rival

#80

Post by catalogia »

mholt wrote: post #15
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.

HN is a social network

Who are my friends then? You've got access to my profile, if this is a social network you should be able to find out who my friends are, right?

This website contains no meaningful information about my relationships with other people. And more to the point, the way I use this site is not abnormal; people who leave lots of information about their social relationships on HN seem to be in a minority. You might claim that comments such as these, between you and I, are social interactions. I would counter by saying these are not meaningful social interactions. Don't take this personally but I don't know you and I don't plan on ever knowing you.

Post reply on HN