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Jimmy Wales has quietly launched a Facebook rival

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Re: Jimmy Wales has quietly launched a Facebook rival

#341

Post by jasondclinton »

thekyle wrote: post #202
jasondclinton wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was on Mastodon for more than a year and loved it: great conversation that reminded me of the hope and promise of the Internet in the late 90's. Then my instance admin went AWOL, the site crashed, and all of my data and social graph were lost. I still can't get the admin to respond to emails. I could host my own server but who really has the technical know-how and time to do that kind of work? Mastodon has got to s…

Yeah part of the problem with Mastodon is trusting that you're instance will stick around. The only ways I can think to do that are: 1. Host it yourself 2. Use one of the paid instances backed by an established company (I use Librem Social) Perhaps over time some ad supported Mastodon instances will pop up for those willing to pay that way.

I donated to the admin's Patreon account in excess of his hosting fees. But, that didn't cover his time, apparently. The admin is still active on GitHub after the server crashed; I guess he just lost interest.

Re: Jimmy Wales has quietly launched a Facebook rival

#342

Post by kbenson »

hutzlibu wrote: post #312
AndrewStephens wrote: post #300

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There already is a decentralized Reddit where subreddits are called websites and anyone can start one and run it as they please. What Reddit and similar sites bring to the table is a single pool of authenticated users. Once a user is logged into Reddit, posting on different subreddits is frictionless. Even with oauth and the like, it is hard to replicate that with a distributed set of sites.

"There already is a decentralized Reddit where subreddits are called websites and anyone can start one and run it as they please" But can your grandmother do this ... or just the common person?

With something like squarespace or any of the umpteen other design by wooden block site generator companies, or even Wordpress or Blogger... probably?

Re: Jimmy Wales has quietly launched a Facebook rival

#343

Post by kbenson »

dunnevens wrote: post #323
ratfaced-guy wrote: post #294

What I want is a decentralized Reddit not under the control of advertising needs. Reddit redesign has been bad for quality content. I actually find Reddit to be a better source of information and knowledge than Google at this point, mostly because Google has been inundated with paid blog-spam. It's a bit harder to get away with that in Reddit (for the time being, and for whatever reason).

I'm a little surprised no one's tried reviving newsgroups for discussions. Decentralized, not privacy-invading, can be rendered by a large variety of front-ends. Somewhat censorship resistant. There would be a huge potential spam problem, but that can be controlled by filters and moderators. Maybe Usenet would be more of a headache than it's worth, but it seems perfect for what you're describing.

Newsgroups with an extension that signed your post as a verified account (handled by whatever the moderators decide is good) and with some middleware to accept signed/allowed posts automatically would probably do it, if you could get people to actually use it enough to get momentum.

Edit: I suspect something like this probably existed. It seems straightforward and obvious enough that I'd bet it did exist, but couldn't get much usage in a world where spam wasn't quite as bad, numbers of users were smaller, and people were already shifting to HTML based platforms.

Re: Jimmy Wales has quietly launched a Facebook rival

#344

Post by dunnevens »

zionic wrote: post #320
smt88 wrote: post #298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What I want is a decentralized Reddit not under the control of advertising needs Isn't this basically what Disqus was trying to do? There were a lot of these. I think moderation ended up being a huge problem that none solved. > Reddit redesign has been bad for quality content I've had the opposite experience. I only started browsing reddit after advertisers forced them to purge the most toxic users/content from the…

> I only started browsing reddit after advertisers forced them to purge the most toxic users/content from the site. Reddit, as a site, is built around you having to subscribe to things to see it on your front page. Are you saying that opinions you disagree with (toxic) merely existing invisibly prevents you from using a platform? Because if that's not the case you were never forced to interact with those subs unless…

The toxic elements didn't exist invisibly. They bled out regularly into unrelated subreddits. For example, the fat phobia of /r/FatPeopleHate seemed ever present for a time. Popped up in many different places. And then after the sub was banned and many of its users banned, that particular form of insults & speech mostly vanished. It was a huge quality of life improvement for the site overall. There have been similar results from banning some of the more virulent racist and misogynistic subs.

I suppose if you never read the comments, then the subscriptions would keep you away from certain types of content. But if you wanted to participate in the community, only banning and active moderation worked. Subscriptions weren't any barrier at all.

Re: Jimmy Wales has quietly launched a Facebook rival

#345

Post by lcnmrn »

danielecook wrote: post #210

Previously someone mentioned the idea of a $1/mo. social network. I think if someone were to make facebook in it's first ~2 years and keep it very basic it we would be good to go. The only features you need are: a profile picture, a wall, chat, and events. In other words - a photo of yourself, a way of publicly messaging, a way of privately messaging, and a way to coordinate social events. What else do you need for a…

Well, https://dubfi.com/ is there already and it's free. And yes, it's coded by me.

Re: Jimmy Wales has quietly launched a Facebook rival

#346

Post by pasabagi »

dunnevens wrote: post #323
ratfaced-guy wrote: post #294

What I want is a decentralized Reddit not under the control of advertising needs. Reddit redesign has been bad for quality content. I actually find Reddit to be a better source of information and knowledge than Google at this point, mostly because Google has been inundated with paid blog-spam. It's a bit harder to get away with that in Reddit (for the time being, and for whatever reason).

I'm a little surprised no one's tried reviving newsgroups for discussions. Decentralized, not privacy-invading, can be rendered by a large variety of front-ends. Somewhat censorship resistant. There would be a huge potential spam problem, but that can be controlled by filters and moderators. Maybe Usenet would be more of a headache than it's worth, but it seems perfect for what you're describing.

It's full of really bizarre spam, though - and I got the feeling that it isn't technically straightforward to stop people from spamming, beyond everybody just keeping thousand-entry killfiles.

It's also very slow. And the posting format is very hard to follow sometimes, especially when you get people that don't do hard line breaks (or the other way around, depending on the program you're using) or have funny ideas about quoting.

Also, the lack of moderation seems to create a very wild-west style of conversation, where apparently rational people can start spewing really hardcore invective at the drop of a hat.

Re: Jimmy Wales has quietly launched a Facebook rival

#347

Post by mirimir »

throwaway35784 wrote: post #228
Digit-Al wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why on earth does it feel sketchy to you. As far as I can tell this service will be devoid of adverts and tracking, which means that it will be entirely funded by subscribers. You can't really expect him to buy all the servers and bandwidth and provide it all to you for nothing out of his own pocket. That's just stupid. It seems to me the idea is that early access subscribers pay for the initial equipment. They then…

Just say that up front. Before i put in an email address. Current wait list: 60,000 people (estimated hold time 30 days) but you can jump the queue for $12.99/mo or $100/yr. Done. Honest. Transparent. The site's current account flow is infected with dark patterns and turns off those familiar with them, like me.

Yeah. I knew (from TFA) that there was a charge to jump the queue. But there's no mention of that on the signup page. And no mention that they don't accept ~anonymous payments.

Re: Jimmy Wales has quietly launched a Facebook rival

#348

Post by bluecalm »

AndrewStephens wrote: post #300
ratfaced-guy wrote: post #294

What I want is a decentralized Reddit not under the control of advertising needs. Reddit redesign has been bad for quality content. I actually find Reddit to be a better source of information and knowledge than Google at this point, mostly because Google has been inundated with paid blog-spam. It's a bit harder to get away with that in Reddit (for the time being, and for whatever reason).

There already is a decentralized Reddit where subreddits are called websites and anyone can start one and run it as they please. What Reddit and similar sites bring to the table is a single pool of authenticated users. Once a user is logged into Reddit, posting on different subreddits is frictionless. Even with oauth and the like, it is hard to replicate that with a distributed set of sites.

You can't upvote though. One of the nice things same Reddit is that you can go to a subreddit about something you want to learn about and sort for the most popular posts from last year (for example). Some kind of system like that for websites could become a killer feature.

Re: Jimmy Wales has quietly launched a Facebook rival

#349

Post by djsumdog »

chipotle_coyote wrote: post #126

I love the idea of an alternate social network, and I'm fine with the idea of charging users. But in an era where free alternatives are bountiful (even if most of them are "free as in puppy"), where a full paid blog hosting service like Micro.blog -- which includes a social network timeline built on IndieWeb principles -- is only $5 a month, where "subscription fatigue" is entering the lexicon... this is just a bonke…

I would agree. $3/month would be more reasonable, and with Wales behind it, probably even somewhat sustainable for the first year. Afterwards they could lock everyone in at that price and up it to say $9 or $10 .. whatever they need to in order to cover costs.

Re: Jimmy Wales has quietly launched a Facebook rival

#350

Post by chocolatebunny »

kbenson wrote: post #343
dunnevens wrote: post #323

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a little surprised no one's tried reviving newsgroups for discussions. Decentralized, not privacy-invading, can be rendered by a large variety of front-ends. Somewhat censorship resistant. There would be a huge potential spam problem, but that can be controlled by filters and moderators. Maybe Usenet would be more of a headache than it's worth, but it seems perfect for what you're describing.

Newsgroups with an extension that signed your post as a verified account (handled by whatever the moderators decide is good) and with some middleware to accept signed/allowed posts automatically would probably do it, if you could get people to actually use it enough to get momentum. Edit: I suspect something like this probably existed. It seems straightforward and obvious enough that I'd bet it did exist, but couldn'…

Middleware to accept signed posts, eh? I smell BLOCKCHAIN!
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