Best social media platform already exists. Personal Blog (maybe) for public posts and Email + phone + IRL for friends.
Personal blog can be on blogger if needed. The nature of any blog is non algorithmic.
Engineered Addictions
231–240 of 467 posts
Re: Engineered Addictions
#232Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes, and there is a huge problem connected to that: If you don’t play this game you’ll lose. Look at Europe for example, they haven’t played the VC game properly and thus have no really significant tech player compared to the US / China. So what options are left? Play the game or be ruled by those that play it. I’d rather play even if moral erosion is required.
I think Europe is moving g toward digital independence even more. They've still got Instagram and WhatsApp and everything, but I can see them moving more aggressively toward Facebooks core business model (ie, programmatic adverising) and essentially creating a European internet bubble. Would be nice for Europeans to be able to have their own social media sites which operate less aggressively on your attention span -…
We are building a social network with chronological feed.
I am thinking how to make it sustainable without raising VC funding but not doing aggressive ad targeting. Obviously people are not going to pay for a social network. So maybe just very generic sponsered links?
Re: Engineered Addictions
#233Good people of HN, could anyone tell me why buying an MVP of a social network for $10K from a Belarusian contractor on Upwork (it couldn’t cost much more, it’s like five SQL tables and a web CRUD) and then charging users $2/month to use it wouldn’t work? Why does the author need to moan about how morally destructive it was to raise VC? Just run your social network from your bedroom, while asking ChatGPT how to rewrit…
It works for a niche (probably a professional one) but not for general population. You'd be hard pushed to get mum and pop to pay for this when FB is free and already has everyone on there. To them your new network seems inferior. It is more expensive and has less friends.
As a fun fact this existed circa 2002 in a big way in the UK. The site was friendsreunited. I'd love to have that back (along with associated hype a 5 quid a year pricing)
Re: Engineered Addictions
#234I think the problem is more fundamental than this: When your monetization model is tied to usage, then of course you will try to maximize usage, rather than user benefit. It can't be any other way if your reward function is tied to product usage.
Contrast with a car: Their monetization model does not depend on how much I drive it - as long as I find it useful enough to buy. Or a gym, where it actually runs in reverse - the gym makes more money when I use the product less, just so long as I don't leave.
Microsoft office or Mario Kart do not need me to be addicted - they just need me to buy the software. Even Photoshop with a subscription model doesn't pursue addiction strategies - why would they? Just make it useful enough for me to keep paying for it, and that's plenty good. Maybe it's actually closer to the gym in that sense.
Which products are the ones that require addiction?? The ones that are free to use but cost money to provide.
IOW - In many ways this is our fault for expecting social media and many other services to be provided to us for free, relying on ads to pay for it.
I suppose you could try to make a social media platform without dark patterns and charge a monthly fee for it, but how many people would pay for it? My guess is close enough to zero to ensure failure. But I tell you what - I'd probably pay for it myself. And I'd be very lonely.
Edit: Replaced all-caps with italics.
Re: Engineered Addictions
#235Earlier quoted context omitted.
I would be willing to bet addiction in general (gambling, drug, dopamine, etc) is probably a symptom/side effect of wealth inequality. Desperation -> "relatively cheap method of short term emotional/sensory boost" -> Further Desperation not mitigated by outside forces -> repeat
You must not know many rich people if you think addiction is not an issue for the wealthy. The drugs of choice are less immediately destructive, but cocaine, pills, MDMA and ketamine are all wildly abused by the 1%.
All humans are susceptible to addictions and addictive behavior, but the 1% that you mention are mostly shielded from their negative effects. It's far less of an issue for them, and it's not even just about choosing the less destructive drugs. If we talk about just drug addictions, their wealth ensures that:
1. They always have a reliable supply of their preferred drug. No matter how much they need, many of them will be able to afford it pretty much indefinitely. They can just live with the addiction.
2. They have first-class healthcare to mitigate the addiction and lessen its side effects.
3. They have the power to never run into any legal trouble over it. How often do 1%s get convicted on drug possession? This often applies even to the harshest regimes.
So, referring to what the other commenter said, the wealth inequality also affects addicts unequally. The rich, excluding the most extreme exceptions, are immune to the downward spirals of addictions and many of their consequences. The poor addicts become increasingly desperate as their drug habit consumes most of their income and savings. The poorest turn to the cheapest, most dangerous street drugs. Many get little to no medical help. Many are charged with drug-related crimes, ensuring their criminality keeps them down for the rest of their lives. This varies by country, but the patterns are all similar.
There's always going to be an underlying layer of people who tend to gravitate towards addictions, rich and poor - the real question is if more and more people are turning to them as they get desperate, who wouldn't otherwise have.
Re: Engineered Addictions
#236I think the problem is more fundamental than this: When your monetization model is tied to usage, then of course you will try to maximize usage, rather than user benefit. It can't be any other way if your reward function is tied to product usage. Contrast with a car: Their monetization model does not depend on how much I drive it - as long as I find it useful enough to buy. Or a gym, where it actually runs in reverse…
And yet probably less alone than when using polluted and terrible social media.
I would pay, FWIW. I am actively looking for a decent community of humans online that isn’t run by selling data to AI farms or trying to get my eyeballs all the time. Unfortunately social media ate many of the places I previously used to call home.
Re: Engineered Addictions
#237> We’ll keep wondering why we can’t just put our phones down, not realizing that billion-dollar companies have spent a decade making sure we can’t.
I deleted an app every month until my phone was so boring I threw it in a drawer and canceled my cell phone subscription. It confuses and annoys everyone around me, but my attention span, happiness, and productivity have skyrocketed so I really do not care what the addicts think. It works for me.
I truly encourage everyone to consider how humans survived before smartphones. All of that still works fine today. 5 years cell-phone free.
Re: Engineered Addictions
#238Earlier quoted context omitted.
> The company is the product. If you've ever dealt with Investor Relations at a public company, this becomes very apparent very quick. Core fundamentals as a business can be strong, but if you cannot craft a unique story or thesis (which does not have to be tangentially related with active initiatives) about your company, you will not succeed. Usually, the onus should fall on PM, EMs, and Sales Leadedship to drive cu…
> if you cannot craft a unique story or thesis...about your company, you will not succeed. Halfway true. There's a famous quote: > In the short run, the market is a voting machine, but in the long run, it is a weighing machine. At some point, strong fundamentals will catch up with you.
Only for those left holding the heavy, heavy bag.
Re: Engineered Addictions
#239It a seems pretty simple mistake from almost the first step:
> To get funding, you need users. To get more funding, you need exponential growth. Growth becomes the primary metric
No, you don't. This exponential user scaling theory of investment is a sickness that has taken over silicon valley and is half the reason for much of the harm we are seeing. Serve a small number users really well, build all the infra to autoscale and let the organic growth happen more slowly. Get to a bigger critical mass and you'll eventually be able to take money on your own terms. If you can't do that, you haven't waited long enough, tried hard enough, or maybe your idea just isn't what you thought it was.
Re: Engineered Addictions
#240Earlier quoted context omitted.
> The company is the product. If you've ever dealt with Investor Relations at a public company, this becomes very apparent very quick. Core fundamentals as a business can be strong, but if you cannot craft a unique story or thesis (which does not have to be tangentially related with active initiatives) about your company, you will not succeed. Usually, the onus should fall on PM, EMs, and Sales Leadedship to drive cu…
> if you cannot craft a unique story or thesis...about your company, you will not succeed. Halfway true. There's a famous quote: > In the short run, the market is a voting machine, but in the long run, it is a weighing machine. At some point, strong fundamentals will catch up with you.
In the short run if you can get acquired then the long run fundamentals don't matter. They just become noise in some larger company's financial statements.