Social media is broken – a new report offers ways to fix it

Re:Social media is broken – a new report offers ways to fix it by noaheverett on Sunday July 04, 2021 @02:11PM (#27731530)

I think we're at a shifting point where people would be willing to pay for social media vs seeing ads and/or having their data being sold. I recently launched Glue[1] in my hope to have a social network that respects user privacy, offers an ad-free option and selfishly scratches the itch for features I wanted.

I ran my previous startup (Twitpic) completely on ads and it wasn't an enjoyable experience from the business side. It also does not (usually) align with the user's best interest. Ad business models requires attention to feed it, which in turn requires social media companies to build features to get as many eye balls for as long as they can on their app.

I also don't think paid only is the answer either for most cases. Some are ok with seeing ads in exchange to not have to pay to use. I'm curious to see if there is a balance that can be struck with services offering both options.

Brave's new search engine[2] is another example saying they will offer a paid option in the future. I used their beta and it's solid. I'd be willing to pay for it to be free of Google and help sustain it.

[1] https://glue.im/glue/glue-a-social-network-that-respects-you...

[2] https://brave.com/brave-search/

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Re:Social media is broken – a new report offers ways to fix it by cvwright on Sunday July 04, 2021 @02:26PM (#27731606)

I hope you're right about people being ready to pay. And I think you are. There's a huge un-tapped market just in the US, of people who have mostly or totally checked out of the existing platforms.

Glue looks cool. How does this compare to something like Mastodon?

I'm working on something related, called Circles [1]. It builds on Matrix for decentralization and E2E encryption. We're also in beta, hoping to launch later this month.

[1] https://github.com/KombuchaPrivacy/circles-ios

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Re:Social media is broken – a new report offers ways to fix it by noaheverett on Sunday July 04, 2021 @02:52PM (#27731775)

Hear hear! I deleted my Facebook 2007'ish and never joined Instagram, Twitter is only traditional social media site I use, so I can attest to those checking out (or never joining). Even with Twitter, I have to make an effort to not "doom" scroll before bed.

Circles looks cool as decentralized and E2E are fascinating to me. Glue doesn't have a whole lot in common with Mastadon, but similar microblogging features I believe.

Hit me up sometime, would like to hear more about your project. - [email protected]

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Re:Social media is broken – a new report offers ways to fix it by cvwright on Sunday July 04, 2021 @05:05PM (#27732610)

> Even with Twitter, I have to make an effort to not "doom" scroll before bed.

Yeah, like the man said, the greatest minds of our generation have been focused on getting people to look at ads. They're scary good at it.

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Re:Social media is broken – a new report offers ways to fix it by Sanzig on Sunday July 04, 2021 @06:05PM (#27732997)

I really like the idea of Circles. Are you planning an Android app in the near future?

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Re:Social media is broken – a new report offers ways to fix it by cvwright on Sunday July 04, 2021 @09:10PM (#27733892)

Hey, thanks. The Android version is coming as soon as humanly possible. Which, given the current human, will hopefully be by the end of the year.

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