Searching for a Future Beyond Facebook
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They never learned to control and own their systems.
Then those users start buying other computers, with software they didn't have the option to control, in the form of smartphones.
Now there are huge swaths of users who are so used to being stuck in a user prison they don't own or control that they think it's normal!
It's not. Join the GNU+Linux revolution today!
So the problem with fb and twitter etc, is that they took what would have been a great model (individual websites) and tried to force everyone on their platform and then find various ways to lock them there... and now with all the backlash there is a growing awakening of computing freedom, but the problem is they keep thinking of blockchain or meshnet style decentraliztion to fix the problem, when the real problem is one of ownership.
So in my opinion we need a good copyleft foss federation tech and people to own their own data. The internet isn't fully decentralized... it's more of a heirarchical starspoke topology, and it's high time SV and the rest wakeup from buzzword bingo of decentralization. (If I hear one more story about how we don't need servers cause we're going to the cloud I'm going to explode, for example).
This is also why I think something like the freedombox is probably the closest thing to what the future lookes like.
But to be blunt, nothing can stop users from re-centralizing to the cheapest/fastest/easiest system regardless of how decentralized the protocol.
We pay for our phone, electricity, connection service. We even pay for games. Yet we don't want to pay for the tools that help us manage our social networks.
Or perhaps noone has dared to launch a paid social network and stick to it long enough.
The overarching presumption here being that people want to learn to control and own their systems in the way you describe. By and large, they don't. This is evidenced plainly by the nonimpact of the "Cambridge Analytica Scandal," which, as far I can tell, has persuaded precisely zero people to move from the platform. The offending platform company recently held a highly successful convention to announce their new tech. Their stock has mostly recovered. Facebook continues to eat the world.
The future does not look like freedom box. The future looks like WeChat.
I have talked to several different types of fbook users, and some have removed apps, but not their account, many have mentioned that they have more dread in it's functions that joy in it's uses.
Everyone I have spoken has changed the ways they use it, have lost trust in it, and are censoring themselves even more now than they were. Well not 100% of the people I have spoken with, my 80 year old grandmother still uses it the same, however she is now taking the advice of many and not believing anything she sees on there without researching sources further, which is a great thing imo.
My sample size of fbook users is of course something like 4.5e-7% or something like that, so not that much different that the precisely zero statement.
I think it's sage to say it looks for some time that fbook was trying desperately to encourage people to share as much as possible via the portal, and I think many people are realizing that is not the best thing for most people. I don't have access to the internal stats that may show this or not, and I do now expect the co to announce these kinds of metrics in a helpful way either.
Maybe someone on the inside can publish them via tinder and brag they have access to that kind of data and get better dates.
I would expect more snaplike than wechat like in the future for things that are personal, but we'll see. I've always thought fbook would become the new linked in (sterilized from personal stuff publicly), just as big G is becoming more like the yellow pages. This does open up desires for many groups around the world to have freedom boxes or something similar I imagine.
Am I pretentious for changing my own oil, rotating my own tires, and other minor repairs to my car? I'm not going to defend the tone or all of the opinions, but recognizing how to exact as much control over your own life/ data as possible is valid. Especially, when others are advocating getting the federal government involved.
https://cs.stanford.edu/people/eroberts/cs181/projects/2010-...
Really, microtransactions should be final by default unless you specifically need the machinery of escrow or clearing delay.
For example, in the early days of cable TV it had very few ads but nowadays it is infested with ads and product placement.
I feel the only way out here is legislation.
Don't forget that companies are a tool for people to make money, It they lack ethics it's because a) the people who run them lack ethics, or b) they are too removed from the operation it only means a quarterly stream of money.
I think granting legal personhood to conceptual entities was one of the biggest mistakes of capitalism.
1) Users pay Facebook a monthly fee to use the platform (enough to fund it profitably, so say $25/month)
2) Users pay Facebook a monthly fee AND Facebook markets their information (if not through direct advertising, then other methods)
If the fee is the same, and there's no fundamental reason it shouldn't be, Facebook is under a fiduciary duty to always choose (2).
The only path to not monetizing users is Apple-esque "Make so much money you can forgo profit in service to branding that the market forgives you". And I don't see Facebook ever commanding those kinds of margins.
Absolutely agreed on corporate personhood. Teddy Roosevelt's biography and the 1850 - 1920 period is instructive, as you see what it really takes to claw back control from corporations (aka "combinations" at the time).
Perhaps people paying for it is not "$10 per month" or ".01c per article". People could pay for their own controlled social network by sharing a slice of memory on their computer / phone / router and allowing access to their internet bandwidth for friends / family / friends of friends, and pay for something like scuttle / ipfs without setting up recurring cash loss through their bank card right?
As they learn they are paying with loss of privacy, loss of control, and other costs - how they choose to pay may change in ways beyond current thinking.
That's why we made RealPeople.io (https://realpeople.io) have no ads at all. Users pay to use, and there's no AI, no sharing your data. Rather than trying to just convince users to take our word for it, we just built it into our business model. Our financial incentives align with keeping user data private. And since we don't get paid based on how many pages the user views or how long the user is on the system, there's no financial incentive to getting the user addicted.
Arguably, most of Facebook's addiction is the existence of virtually all their friends on the network.
Your $9/year cost is a lavish amount of money that exceeds the measly $1/year that 70% don't want to pay.[1] Why don't people want to pay 8 cents a month to avoid ads?!? That's a good question! Whatever the answer is, it affects how an alternative social network can grow and/or financially sustain itself.
If most of the people aren't in a $9/year network, then yes, it won't be addictive. The Google+ social network has targeted ads and yet it's not addictive -- because it's missing the network effect of having "everybody" on it.
Have you considered realistic human incentives in your economic model?
[1] https://www.tune.com/blog/mobile-ads-70-of-smartphone-owners...
Real social networks like Facebook/Instagram/Snapchat are not as transactional. The unit of activity is "ambient awareness" among people who already know each other. There is a human desire to "know what's going on with my friends" and also its counterpart of "let my friends know whats going on with me". This includes use cases such as grandmothers seeing a new posting of photos of the grandkids, and people sending trivialities such as photos of what they're eating for breakfast to their friends, and groups coordinating a shared calendar for a weekend party.
So yes, if you made an "alternative Facebook" that disallowed all the fun things that make it a "social" network such as photos, party events, etc, you will -- by definition -- create a "boring" network that nobody is addicted to. However, that type of limited network doesn't seem to be the "Facebook alternative" most people are seriously discussing.
The way I think of it is that there are two mechanisms that make Facebook addictive:
The first is voyeurism. We can see similar impulsive behavior when we think things like tabloids and gossip, as well as the psychology of clickbait (e.g. "you won't believe what this local mom did"). People are just naturally curious to know what's going on with other people.
The second mechanism is validation. We can see similar dynamics with how youtubers track "success" and "progress". Twitter presences basically operate on a similar principle. Instagram is another example where people feel compelled to share somewhat artificialized "slice-of-life" photography to audiences that may or may not be their circle of friends. There's karma in HN/reddit/stack overflow, etc and stars in github. In Facebook, it's "likes". The common factor is that people like seeing a little number go up in response to some activity and are compelled to re-engage in said activity due to the positive reinforcement.
So I'd argue that an alternative to Facebook already exists - in the form of Twitter, Reddit, Instagram, clickbait farms, messaging apps, etc. The only stronghold I see left for Facebook is that it's the default place to broadcast random things that don't fit into any other platform (i.e. what's going on with who), and even that is eroding with the whole aunt-and-college-buddies-in-the-same-network-awkwardness thing. The only other thing going for Facebook is that it's pretty much the only platform that enables chain mail sort of stuff (you know, that uncle that is always posting political articles or alternative medicine things, or inspirational quotes or whatever) since it sorta automatically gives people an audience to broadcast to (for the validation aspect).
I wasn't using "transactional" in a that loose of a sense so it can apply to nearly everthing. I was thinking of "transactions" in a very money-oriented way. To start a "job search" is to interact with others where "money" defines the relationship ("I want to be paid $$.") That's what LinkedIn is built on. (Yes, money is a crass subject but that's ok because we're on LinkedIn!) Even if an employee and employer become "real friends" later instead of just economic actors in a business transaction, the undertone of the website is still a financial transaction. By its nature, it's going to be a "boring" website.
Facebook ... or "TheFacebook.com" in 2004... was built on students who knew each other. Before it had ads or corporate media inserted into the newsfeed, students were entranced by the "voyeurism" and likewise, the need to express themselves which then feeds the voyeurism of others. The undertone was non-business and non-money things like "mating rituals" and later expanded to friends & family updates like "photos".
Twitter and Reddit don't replace that. Reddit uses handles instead of real names. Both Twitter & Reddit have their own set of addictive attractions. Messaging apps like WhatsApp don't have a "news feed" which many Facebook users like. Instagram and Snapchat are probably the closest substitutes for Facebook for non-text type of sharing.
Many people want the utility provided by Facebook; they just don't want the targeted ads and privacy leaks. Therefore, a 1-to-1 replacement for Facebook accurately captures the (yet-to-be-invented?) alternative they want.
Everyone who wants to block ads uses an ad blocker. Those who don't care about ads don't bother to install one or ask their friends/family to install one.
Therefore nobody wants to pay to block ads!
> a bland repository of pablum
I believe you are overestimating the intelligence and "woke-ness" of the Facebook user community, and of humanity in general.
That's an extremely cynical and pessimistic outlook that allows for little actual improvement.
If enough motivated people blast their feeds with news about how Facebook users are being used and exploited, I could see enough Facebook users becoming "sentient and aware" to cripple the network.
It won't die completely, at least no right away (MySpace is still around, after all), but I think a dent can be made.
I should have added "by default" to my sentence.
Obamacare was intended to be like this. Legislators knew it was going to get attacked the second the ink was dry, so they built in a bunch of clauses making it extremely difficult to 'simply repeal'. New health care legislation almost certainly has to build on top of Obamacare, enough political capital can't possibly be raised to do anything else.
"Targeted" advertising generally refers to the tracking-based targeting of individual people. Re-defining the term to include all types of advertising makes the term mostly useless.
> Doesn't seem feasible.
Banning targeted advertising would be easy with legislation that bans tracking and showing ads to individuals.
> You'd have to make people randomly choose advertising spots from all of media.
Traditional advertising methods worked fine for centuries. Nobody[1] places ads randomly; you advertise where your product's audience will see it.
[1] Advertising intended to build general brand awareness instead of selling a specific product or service might buy ads somewhat randomly, because the goal is simply getting the brand name seen widely and often.
So no, targeted advertising is not any ad with a target in mind, that is just advertising. Targeted ads are distinguished from regular ads based on targeting a specific individual. An ad in the WSJ may be aimed at a broad category of people interested in business news, but if I know for a fact that 'Letmesleep69' happens to be a reader of that paper and I take out an ad that specifically refers to that user name, then it would be a targeted ad.
edit: formatting
Disclosure: I believe in the eventual success of the fediverse.
Preventing third party sources (images, scripts, "share buttons" etc.) from issuing or checking browser cookies might break a whole pile of useful things, but it'd make the world of retargeted ads dry up quickly.
> Seems impossible without outlawing all advertising. Advertising in the nytimes over some other paper or advertising on fox over cnn are all examples of targeted advertising. You'd have to make people randomly choose advertising spots from all of media. Doesn't seem feasible.
Not the OP, but I think he has a good idea stated over-broadly. Let me fix it:
A lot would be solved by outlawing profile-based targeted advertising.
If Facebook can't use you profile to individually target you, the advertisers are left to target the mass of "Facebook users" like they target the mass of "NY Times readers."
To opt in just click 'Agree and Continue'. You won't ever hear from Facebook about this issue again.
To opt out click the much less visible 'Other Options' link, then scroll to the bottom of the page and expand each section and untick each box, then click 'Yes' when Facebook asks if you are sure, given that it will cause these problems for you. Then click 'Continue'. Now every 3 months Facebook will ask if you still want to opt out.
Plus Facebook can frame the opt-out option in the most unattractive light. When I try to disable 'ads personalisation' in Google it tells me 'You'll no longer be able to block or mute some ads'. Who wants to give up the ability to block ads?
Many users are in favor of targeted advertising. In a lot of forums where this is discussed, I usually just look for heavily downvoted comments - there's usually a bunch saying "I'd rather not have ads, but if I do have them, I want personalized ads."
Downvoting them won't make the sentiment go away.
> there's usually a bunch saying "I'd rather not have ads, but if I do have them, I want personalized ads."
How badly do they want that? It sounds to me like they don't really care.
That's a poor assumption on your part that they are not properly informed. In real life, when I've met such people, they are properly informed. It would be arrogant for me to think that the ones on the Internet forums are any different - especially when they are responding to submissions that are clearly outlining the negatives of this kind of tracking.
It's already too creepy that my smartphone has trained its autocorrect with words I've never texted before but can extrapolate from my digital footprint.
Targeted advertising in some shape or form has existed for a hundred years. Just open any magazine that is targeted at a specific audience and you'll see widely different ads running in those magazines. McDonalds or Coca-cola aren't going to waste ad dollars running campaigns in hunting or boating magazines for example.
Can we just ban the rest of it then? ;)
Yes, because it makes inequality worse ;-)
In other words, create a modicum of public space which doesn’t have constant, intrusive noise.
Almost on point. Facebook has ingrained itself into socio-individual behaviour schemas. Social medias are likely here to stay for a long time and I don't see a company treating it's users as 'human beings' not 'commodities' being a front-runner to win a hypothethical future social media companies race; there are just no areas left that any rival company could simultaneously 1) exploit to stay profitable 2) make people use it.
There will likely be some decentralized services but that's all.
There are a few billionaires who are having second thoughts about a lot of this, I wonder if one could fund a rival non-profit network and run it at a loss until it has enough momentum.
I know I'd shill for a non-profit, user-respecting social network and donate for its upkeep, but I just don't have the resources to keep one going.
If you think it didn’t, I suggest you have some hidden biases.
- ads
- promotion of gossip to a global audience
- peer-pressured risk-taking
- pics, videos and other content that’s usually boring
A real friends platform:
- video / text chat
- arranging spontaneous and planned activities
- gather/raise funds for group activities
- where people are at
- what people are up to
- finding new friends from friends of friends for activities
- find new interests, get recommendations
- visualize social circles
- paid for by users
- never sells data
You could pay membership fees for a club to be able to use their rooms to hang out with your peers. (paid community server)
You can meet at your home, where you have to clean up and bring snacks yourself. (personal hosting)
Or you can meet in a cafe, where access is free, with the expectation that there will be a different but related financial transaction (food and beverages). ("free" servers paid by ads)
I can't think of a good analogy of meeting your friends in a fully public space.
* Better to include more privacy.
A real friends platform like you mention is basically just social media, except user paid for and privacy friendly. Which is a neat idea, but comes into the issue of who exactly will pay for it, given people's insistence that things online are free.
"Ultimately, to challenge Facebook, Google, and the many unknown players of the data economy, we must devise new business models and structural incentives that aren’t rooted in manipulation and coercion; that don’t depend on the constant surveillance of users, on gathering information on everything they read and purchase, and on building that information into complex dossiers designed to elicit some action — a click, a purchase, a vote. We must move beyond surveillance capitalism and its built-in inequities. In the short-term, that might be achieved by turning to basic subscription services, by paying for the things we use. But on a longer time horizon, we must consider whether we want to live in a world that converts all of our experiences into machine-readable data — data that doesn’t belong to us, that doesn’t serve us"
//
I have no idea how we can avoid this - Google is so invasive it is increasingly tracking and recording everything about our lives. Gillian Tett had a good piece in the FT about how autocomplete in search fields influences our thinking. https://www.ft.com/content/7dc8eae4-4d99-11e8-97e4-13afc22d8... Google maps records any changes we make to our property for future permit/permissions comparisons etc - we have no control over this and little ability to opt out.
Consider the Israeli Palestinian conflict and the censorship of Palestinian voices as an example. In general there should be no tolerance for speech that incites violence. Everybody agrees to this. But in this particular case things are different. The Palestinians are an occupied people and the Israeli army and Israeli colonizing settlers are occupying forces. The international community is almost in total agreement — the Palestinians have every right to engage in armed resistance against the occupation forces. Yet Facebook still delete accounts which call for resistance. To make matters worse, they allow the formidable, multi-million dollar funded, Israeli state-aponsered propaganda machine to use Facebook to normalize occupation, to demonize Palestinians, to dehumanize Palestinians, and to disrupt foreign protest/resistance in western democracies. How is this not morally bankrupt!?
Come on. I do not understand this — how can any educated individual support a company like Facebook is beyond me. How can all those top notch researchers work for them? Facebook has 0 moral integrity.
It tells quite a story about us techies. While they are some of the smartest people they are also the least morally-driven people. So selfish. Look at the world you Facebook engineers are creating. A world where a massive, world-wide, media platform doesn’t direct flows of information based on ethics and responsibility. The information flows based on profit and power. Of course Facebook will acquiesce to the majority of Israeli government requests. They project billions of dollars worth of power. Palestinians barely have enough to eat. Screw what the Palestinians think, what can they do? When Facebook and it’s platform acts as the Israeli propagandist and censor Facebook only loses if it’s users or employees get upset. What are the chances of that? Who controls what reaches our newfeeds? Are our feeds not filtered by what’s popular according to the masses and what hasn’t been downvotes to oblivion?
I truly despise Facebook. I hate how they have no accountability. I hate the effects they are having on the world and people. I hate the way they influence how people think and nobody calls it censorship.
[1] https://www.google.com/amp/amp.timeinc.net/fortune/2016/09/1... [2] https://israelpalestinenews.org/israel-partisans-work-censor...