Hacker News Reader

Comment by gregasquith | Hacker News Reader

Is there now a gap for a new social platform that goes back to chronologically ordered content from those you choose to follow/friend rather than algorithmically curated content from other sources designed to lure you in?

View on HN

There is, but anyone who would fund it would require it to be monetized in the same way. This situation will continue to persist until people are willing to pay for such a service, and subvert the advertising motive. And, even then, we have the example of cable to show us that ads will probably creep back in, and come to dominate it all over again. When people are willing to drive dump trucks full of money to your loading dock, what else can you do? </s>

Very true. I have to confess to a very leading question there, as I am building exactly this and thinking long and hard about monetisation. I do like the cable analogy and think it's very true.

I think ads can be done better/more ethically than currently as well though - whether that be less of them, less "native" so they don't appear exactly like posts from your family/friends and with less granular targeting - whether advertisers would go for it is another matter entirely though...

Unless the application is decentralized enough so there is no central server to pay for ...

EDIT: but I probably wouldn't use it either.

You just described the Fediverse.

https://fediverse.party/en/fediverse

Reply on news.ycombinator.com