> I would love a platform that is just original content (text and original media), and where any links are just text WITHOUT previews.

I've got this vague idea in my head of a WordPress plugin that cooperates with other WordPress installations with the plugin, such that your own blog could turn into a social network. So you publish content to your blog, and your blog pulls content from your friends' blogs with the plugin, and you can all comment on each other's posts and stuff. Tack on some kind of slick mobile app for uploading pictures and the like. I dunno.

Did you just invent webrings and RSS?

I think they're reinventing ActivityPub

Indeed, that might be a good fit for the networking layer. So it could be an ActivityPub server/client built on top of WordPress. Quick, someone give me $50M to build a product with zero monetization options.

Hahah! Well, modern tech is all about re-inventing what we already had in the 90s isn't it?

But seriously what I have in mind is a lot more interactive than that. Roughly, your blog becomes your "account". You can follow other "accounts" (blogs), and you give other "accounts" permission to post on your blog in the form of comments, etc. When you change details on your account, like a profile image or whatever, it will get updated on all the linked accounts that follow you. I dunno, it all works pretty elegantly in my head.

Look into the Indieweb[1] and Webmentions[2]. Still really early days, but they're what you're after, I think. Well, if you're talking about commenting on others' posts. I'd think to follow, you'd use RSS or ActivityPub.

[1]: https://indieweb.org/ [2]: https://indieweb.org/Webmention

It was called "trackback", and it never quite solved the spam problem.

My problem with twitter has always been that it tries very hard to discourage content with much depth. There are more ways around the fact that every tweet has to be bite-size than there used to be, and the character limit is higher, but the fundamental model remains the same.

Facebook has taken some steps in the same direction too, hiding any long post or comment behind a "read more" link and offering flashy backgrounds for 130 characters or less (plus enlarged text for 85 characters or less).

This comment doesn't fit in a tweet. It doesn't even fit into two tweets.

The entire purpose of twitter seems to be to say the most outrageous thing possible to gain the most attention and the most retweets and popularity to drive 'engagement'. It is the exact opposite of what I want out of social media. The loudest, most obnoxious voices are the ones I care about the least.

That's how platform would eventually make money. First hook the users on original content then serve the ads until everyone gets tired of that and stops using the app.

I believe that non-comercial social networks like Mastodon are then only places that can consistently show original content without eventually turning bad.

Unfortunately there is not a lot of people hanging out there, personally it's been hard for me to pull my friends away from twitter.