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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

#371

Post by wazanator »

kbenson wrote: post #342
hutzlibu wrote: post #312

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" 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?

But those aren't free necessarily and they're detached from one another. The thing that's attractive about Reddit is:

1. It's free 2. It's all under one site so it's easier for people to find a new community to join 3. You only need one account and it doesn't require an email address so if you have a one off woodworking question you can ask it without having to register on a new forum

Websites are great for displaying information but they are not ideal for discussion

Re: Jimmy Wales has quietly launched a Facebook rival

#372

Post by dredmorbius »

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 been tried, numerous times.

Usenet still exists. Outside very small pools, it's dead, or a spam wasteland.

Peter da Silva, an early heavy user (the first and fourth most prolific poster one month in the late 1980s / early 1990s, according to a reply he made to me at G+), created, and still runs, Usenet II. Which is also a wasteland.

The client-independence is a benefit only up to a certain degree. Consistent characterset (8-bit ASCII largely), no binaries / multimedia (uuencoded excepted), and consistent forms of address and reply (mostly), kept things sane.

But even between the tin/rtin and emacs newsreader camp, quoting styles differed. I don't recall if it was @gumby or others (and I'm positive one case was someone else, involved in xemacs development), but even one emacs-variant style of reply-quoting turned disruptive when trying to nest multiple levels deep.

("Doc, it hurts when I do this." "Don't do that then.")

These aren't insurmountable obstacles. But they are obstacles to be mounted. On which deciding is likely the hardest part.

Re: Jimmy Wales has quietly launched a Facebook rival

#373

Post by danans »

icebraining wrote: post #219
danans wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For your use case, what part of your need isn't provided by a phone/address-book? I suspect it's the receipt of broadcast messages from your friend network? If so, then yes, you need a social network with features like FB. Personally, I'd rather not receive those kind of messages - I only want to receive messages that someone specifically thought to send to me. Doing so dramatically reduces noise. The only exception…

Well, HN is a social network with broadcasting features, and it's what allowed halbritt to reply to you. (This isn't intended to be a "gotcha", just to stimulate reflection on why it's different)

> Well, HN is a social network with broadcasting features

HN is pull actuated, not push. I have to register interest in topics by commenting before I get responses, and those responses are not part of the main feed. I have to go to my comments page to look for the responses. I don't get notified just because a particular user made a comment or post, because it is topic-centered, not user-centered.

And even with all that, if HN ever rises to a level of routine toxicity that the moderation via community or moderators isn't keeping in check, I'll leave.

Re: Jimmy Wales has quietly launched a Facebook rival

#374

Post by mcstafford »

weavie wrote: post #306
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).

What about Aether : https://getaether.net/ ?

> Windows 7 or higher https://getaether.net/download/

That does cover much of the market... but leaves out Linux, MacOS, and mobile.

Re: Jimmy Wales has quietly launched a Facebook rival

#375

Post by windthrown »

JohnFen wrote: post #332
windthrown wrote: post #310

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Being “priced out” because you personally value your data more than others is a valid viewpoint, but that’s not the same thing as being priced out because you don’t have money.

That seems like a difference in viewpoint. I can understand your stance, but I don't share it. To me, being "priced out" means that something costs more than you are willing and able to pay.

Fair enough. I was just trying say that being unwilling to pay is very different than being unable to pay.

Charging a high price for a luxury brand is a fine business model but I wouldn’t consider a product accessible to only some socioeconomic groups to a be a Facebook competitor (as indicated in the article).

Re: Jimmy Wales has quietly launched a Facebook rival

#376

Post by miguelmota »

zanny wrote: post #326
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).

Prismo[1] was an attempt at that if anyone wants some historical context. [1] https://gitlab.com/prismosuite/prismo

A problem with federated networks is that it eventually leads to centralization of just a few providers. For example, email is federated but most users are on gmail. IRC is federated but most users are on freenode. Diaspora is federated but most users are join the server with already most users.

Re: Jimmy Wales has quietly launched a Facebook rival

#377

Post by kbenson »

wazanator wrote: post #371
kbenson wrote: post #342

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

But those aren't free necessarily and they're detached from one another. The thing that's attractive about Reddit is: 1. It's free 2. It's all under one site so it's easier for people to find a new community to join 3. You only need one account and it doesn't require an email address so if you have a one off woodworking question you can ask it without having to register on a new forum Websites are great for displayin…

> 1. It's free

Blogger is free. LiveJournal is free. There's plenty of free offerings. Taken as an ecosystem, they are decentralized.

> 2. It's all under one site so it's easier for people to find a new community to join

The question was for a decentralized service. You can't really have everything under one site and be decentralized, because that one site can filter anything they want. I agree that people want that, but it wasn't the question.

> 3. You only need one account and it doesn't require an email address so if you have a one off woodworking question you can ask it without having to register on a new forum

Not really part of the question, which was whether the average person can make a forum through a web page.

I think your points have merit, but they don't necessarily apply to the question that was posed, at least as I interpreted it and intended my response to apply to it.

Re: Jimmy Wales has quietly launched a Facebook rival

#378

Post by elihu »

ZainRiz wrote: post #359
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.

I disagree. What Reddit brings to the table is: 1. Easy sharing: Subreddits, which are an easy location to share interesting information about a common topic. Creating your own website is an order of magnitude harder, especially if you want to allow anyone on the internet to post to it 2. Discoverability: You can easily discover subreddits information related to your interests. Reddit's ability to aggregate the vario…

Also, a (mostly) consistent user interface.

Re: Jimmy Wales has quietly launched a Facebook rival

#379

Post by dinkleberg »

Vysero wrote: post #248
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…

"this is just a bonkers amount of money to ask." I couldn't agree more. I am not sure what Jimmy Wales is thinking here... there is no way this site gains any serious traction. I wouldn't pay $5/month for facebook... hell I wouldn't pay $3/month... you know what, if Facebook wasn't free, I wouldn't use it.

Your personal data isn't worth $3/month to you?

There is this idea that everything should be free for everyone, but building and maintaining a platform like Facebook takes immense amounts of resources. If someone builds a social media platform and wants to work on it full time, they need some source of revenue.

It's going to be either coming from the users or it's going to be coming from advertisers. You take your pick.

Re: Jimmy Wales has quietly launched a Facebook rival

#380

Post by ZainRiz »

elihu wrote: post #378
ZainRiz wrote: post #359

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree. What Reddit brings to the table is: 1. Easy sharing: Subreddits, which are an easy location to share interesting information about a common topic. Creating your own website is an order of magnitude harder, especially if you want to allow anyone on the internet to post to it 2. Discoverability: You can easily discover subreddits information related to your interests. Reddit's ability to aggregate the vario…

Also, a (mostly) consistent user interface.

Which contributes to the easy of use/good user experience factor

You don't come there for because "it has a consistent user interface". You come there because "it's easy to use!" (and you find it easy because it's consistent, like you said)

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