Can we just have a social network that doesn't target anyone, for anything, and just lets us communicate, and build relationships without trying to manipulate us or violate our privacy?
It's quaint how in movies people easily identify with the underdog/resistance, e.g. a "Neo" in the "Matrix", and would see themselves taking the same direction if a similar scenario would ever play out.
Yet here we are, and at the first hint of inconvenience it's blue pills all around.
But I sometimes wonder if it's just as much a convenience thing as it is the actual money. That is, if the sign up process was just as easy with payment as it is now, would a lot more people go for it than assumed (at some price point)?
In any case, I don't think that pay or have your privacy co-opted are really the only paths to a viable social network business model.
I don't know that this is true writ large. Monthly budgeting is, essentially, how most people operate, whether for expenses of necessity or choice. That is, much of our financial lives are oriented around (largely monthly) cash-flow management.
So, we prioritize what's necessary or important to us, then add it to the mix. I don't know why a subscription to a service like FB would be any different than, say, Netflix (if the price were "right").
OTOH, there's an ease in just slipping into something with an e-mail address. So, I believe the friction of going from no payment to any payment is the much bigger leap to overcome (again, provided the price in question is reasonable).
But, there is also now the notion to overcome that some things (like a social network) "should" be free. But, that's another topic.
1- many people on here have said they don't want to keep track of any more streaming/subscription services beyond netflix (showing even netflix is too much)
2- netflix makes it as easy as possible to sign up and let other people join via family profiles because they know this is a true problem.
The reason people budget in the first place is precisely because they have an anxiety at the back of their mind about where their money is going.
It hasn't been some relevatory experience like some would suggest; social media does make things easier and life without it feel quieter. But like anything else, it's a trade off. biggest positive I've noticed was that I find myself less dopamine-addled. I no longer waste hours on my phone scrolling in order to relax. It took some adjustment time, but I find it easier to get my dopamine fix from more productive hobbies.
How are they doing now?
It's a cats-outta-the-bag situation. What DOES makes invasive tracking a necessity is it works so much better than the free models that came before it. If you're not doing it, your competition is, and they're getting one up on you.
I don't think we have a free model that monetizes more efficiently than invasive tracking, so the only option you're left with is a not-free model. And for consumer-social, "not free" is a small niche (eharmony comes to mind as making it work, but even they bought all the free dating companies because the free ones were eating the market...)
If you're hoping for a commercial, centralized social network, then you're always going to have to deal with perverse incentives.
Point is, it's the mining that lays the foundation for the dangers, and there is little that prevents facebook, or twitter, or whatever entity that wants to mine mastodon instances from doing so.
Is it? Or is it the perverse financial incentive structure that leads humans to put financial gain over all other priorities?
Would humans still make decisions to take advantage if the incentive structures were built differently?
Human history proves that yes, they still would.
How does any of that stop the data mining?
It's the data mining and the ad targeting that people want to stop. And the FB competitors could be mining data just as easily as FB can.
If people can jump ship they'll slowly migrate to ad free platforms, then we can attack the issue of data-mining with regulations at the government level to force a cessation of private data collection.
Here's the problem, ad free, does not mean mining free. These other platforms could still be mining your data with you none the wiser. In fact, it's a virtual certainty that they would, at minimum, for law enforcement purposes. (Which would entail stifling dissent in certain nations.)
One of the only ways to cut down on mining is to make it explicitly illegal. And again, even then there will be exceptions carved out by congress. But that would at least provide most people a bit of privacy in their personal data just as HIPPA provides us a bit of privacy in our health data.
Zuckerberg has yet to try and mobilize facebook for a political end, when he tries it I hope it backfires and he ends up shooting himself in the foot, but it may work. Attempting to make data mining and resale may unleash a torrent of angry voters that rally against anyone associated with pushing it forward and get them voted out of office - or cowe them into submission. Either way I think the best first step is to force the platform open and deride the network effect that facebook currently controls, then let them lose power and enact stricter privacy laws when the public is ready for them.
If I were King of America though, I'd totally just go your route.
Why should it? And why not have a social network that just serves up ads that aren't based on tracking/targeting users?
Btw, smaller social networks are great. Early days of reddit were amazing, and it didn’t get better when it became mainstream
Ads that are completely random won't pay the bills, and ads that are content-based (without looking at the user) might, but will also target the user, they just won't follow them around. If I want to reach people interested in the Nazis, I'll just put my ads on pages dealing with Nazi stuff, because that's what people interested in Nazis tend to look at and other people don't.
Are you really comparing targeted ad manipulation to medical professionals healing people? And yes, it can help improve lives, but there's also a flipside to what it can do (read: Cambridge Analytica, Russia, etc.). There are negative connotations to manipulation that you need to keep in mind.
>Ads that are completely random won't pay the bills...
It's worked for TV and radio for decades. They're still somewhat targeted but in a far, far less invasive manner, and they're not individualized.
> Are you really comparing targeted ad manipulation to medical professionals healing people?
No, I'm comparing beneficial targeted manipulation (notice the lacking of the word "ad") to healing people. You CAN use a knife to murder somebody, but you CAN also use it to perform life saving surgery on them. Advocating for banning all knifes because you don't want people to murder seems weird to me.
Facebook literally tested what they can do with targeted manipulation [1], and they found that they can do both good and bad with it. It freaked the public out, and so do knifes, and I get that. The problem isn't that you can use it only for evil, the problem is that FB & their customers don't want people in a good place mentally and emotionally, because you're less likely to buy things you don't need or spend hours on their site. And that's what was suggested: have a social network that isn't run from the Bay area trying to maximize profit extraction, but one that's user focused. You know, where the user is the customer, not the ad agency.
> There are negative connotations to manipulation that you need to keep in mind.
As there are to using a knife on people. I'm saying "let's ban the bad part and use the good part". Facebook, Google probably know more about their regular users than those users' family, psychiatrists, psychologists and even the users themselves. Are you aware of the potential good they could do with that? Yeah, we won't solve mental health issue by manipulating people, but we'll make it a whole lot better, and we can measure that.
> It's worked for TV and radio for decades.
Not it really didn't, because they barely used random ads. Most shows' demographics where very specific and they don't run car ads during the sunday morning cartoon hour. Hell, they created show concepts to target demographics so they could then sell ads reaching that demographics.
I suppose suggesting to use technology for good doesn't go over well with this crowd. More and more I feel that we're letting the wrong people design, build and steer the technology that will shape the future.
[1] https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/jul/02/facebook-...
"Better" according to whom?