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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

#91

Post by marcus_holmes »

cryptozeus wrote: post #78

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.

I'm totally the target market for this. FB is just f$$ing depressing, and I only check in every couple of days now. I would happily pay for a regular dopamine fix that didn't include a shower of muppets saying things I find mildly irritating at best. I'm also totally over the BBC, ABC (Australia, not USA), and other MSM. Again, shower of muppets etc etc.

What I really want is the early internet back again. I want some blogs to read, that are witty, intelligent and erudite. I want a feed reader that will let me know when they update. I want a news source that is likewise witty, erudite, intelligent and sceptical (the foremost asset of any journalist should be scepticism).

I think I'll just go and find a bunch of blogs to follow. And start my own again. F$ck Facebook.

Re: Jimmy Wales has quietly launched a Facebook rival

#92

Post by jfengel »

The problem isn't the network. The problem is the social -- your social, i.e. your friends. You can get the same effect on existing social media simply by not having them as friends, or blocking them.

The people who enjoy fake news won't sign up for this. They'll stick with a network where they have "freedom of speech". They won't vanish, and they won't get any better educated. It's not as if you can make the urge to spread fake news vanish. Your racist cousin still exists, and he's still eagerly seeking out and re-posting obviously fake stories from outside what he dubs the "mainstream media" -- he won't suddenly come to his senses, and he certainly won't pay for the privilege.

I think a better approach, if you want to use social media at all, is to tell people "I won't be friends with people who believe hateful BS." That's the only thing that might help: force them to choose between their friends and their desire to reinforce their group identity. Going to a different site might achieve that, but you don't need to spend money and you don't need to reinvent the wheel. Just use the existing tools.

Re: Jimmy Wales has quietly launched a Facebook rival

#93

Post by wolco »

wtmt wrote: post #62

I checked it out by creating an account. It detected my country as India, and showed the price to jump the waitlist (currently at 60k) as $12.99 a month or $100 a year. Contrast this to (using current conversion rates from INR to USD): * Netflix here starts at $2.8 for the cheapest (mobile only, single screen) plan and has its highest plan (4K, four screens) at $11.2 a month. Netflix is considered so expensive that a…

This is why the ad model works better. Local advertisers can bid on his data to show 5 cent ads where someone in northamerica may be worth 5 dollars. Trying to price this as a monthly service removes the ability to offer different prices per region without getting into fairness or causing people to get around the rules by signing up in different regions but watching from another.

Re: Jimmy Wales has quietly launched a Facebook rival

#94

Post by mkskm »

bransonf wrote: post #77

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…

According to the announcement on Twitter it is free, just donation-based:

- https://twitter.com/jimmy_wales/status/1192160194693718017

- https://twitter.com/jimmy_wales/status/1192635476726947840

Re: Jimmy Wales has quietly launched a Facebook rival

#95

Post by aquova »

This seems to me to have the exact same problem that projects like Mastodon have, which is that people use social media because other people they know use social media. You can point out all the benefits the alternative sites have, but at the end of the day, 99% of people aren't going to want to completely start over on a new site that isn't going to offer anything that they can't already find on an established platform.

Re: Jimmy Wales has quietly launched a Facebook rival

#96

Post by danans »

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.

> I wonder if it's a US-centric view.

Not US-specific, but it's absolutely a developed-country specific view. People are treating it more like they treat alcohol - fun to participate in every so often, but not healthy to do daily.

Re: Jimmy Wales has quietly launched a Facebook rival

#97

Post by tinyhouse »

Just signed up. I could search for topics but not join as it says I'm number 60K+ in the waiting list and need to pay. First impression it looks like Reddit. I'm very skeptical people will pay $100/year for this. Reporting the number of members is pretty useless since I'm pretty sure they are not talking about paying ones.

Re: Jimmy Wales has quietly launched a Facebook rival

#98

Post by katzgrau »

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 don't know anyone who is looking for yet another generic social network.

Right — people don't go actively seeking a generic alternative to something they already have. They do although, hear about new services that do something different. Similar to TikTok, or Instagram, it will hit on a niche interest and expand from there. The current market leaders will ignore it long enough (opportunity not big enough) that by the time they see it as a threat, it's too late.

Re: Jimmy Wales has quietly launched a Facebook rival

#99

Post by basch »

wtmt wrote: post #62

I checked it out by creating an account. It detected my country as India, and showed the price to jump the waitlist (currently at 60k) as $12.99 a month or $100 a year. Contrast this to (using current conversion rates from INR to USD): * Netflix here starts at $2.8 for the cheapest (mobile only, single screen) plan and has its highest plan (4K, four screens) at $11.2 a month. Netflix is considered so expensive that a…

Part of Prime is getting you to give them $120 membership fee so you feel youre getting some kind of bonus buying from them ("free shipping") which reduces comparison shopping. I'm probably not going to buy $100/year memberships to costco, walmart, amazon, and target, even though im half way there and really tempted to pull the trigger on another.

The membership fees almost pay for themselves just in preventing me from going into the store and impulse buying something on a shelf once a month.

As far as Amazon Prime, I have to believe the price of shipping is built into the products, and the membership is for other psychological and behavior control reasons.

Is part of this social network price the same thing. A cost to make it exclusive, acts as a bit of a spam filter. Then after having sunk money into it, you feel the need to make it worthwhile. I never think "ive been watching too much prime I better get my value out of netflix this month" but a communication tool might be different.

Re: Jimmy Wales has quietly launched a Facebook rival

#100

Post by windthrown »

rolltiide wrote: post #90
wtmt wrote: post #62

I checked it out by creating an account. It detected my country as India, and showed the price to jump the waitlist (currently at 60k) as $12.99 a month or $100 a year. Contrast this to (using current conversion rates from INR to USD): * Netflix here starts at $2.8 for the cheapest (mobile only, single screen) plan and has its highest plan (4K, four screens) at $11.2 a month. Netflix is considered so expensive that a…

> seems like it's meant for some sections of first world inhabitants Perfect great! Imagine it’s intentional and a pretty effective way of doing business Now lets just critique why it isn’t a luxury brand

Expensive luxury prices are fine for certain products but can be detrimental to social and communication tools.

I can easily afford this product myself but I don’t want to pay for a social network if a portion of my friends/contacts are priced out.

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