To what degree would you consider using or paying for a service that was basically the same as Facebook but without its advertising - the only adverts being promoted posts from people within X connections of you.

Are there any specific improvements or differences which would guarantee you using such a service?

What would be the most significant considerations in whether or not you used the alternative?

Just a few taster questions - obviously Teh isn't really representative of much beyond itself, but the thoughts of people here would be useful. And try not to read too much into anything... yet. :)

I don't use Facebook, Twitter or other such stupid nonsense. Nothing would induce me to do so. End of.

I wouldn't pay money for any such service.
I don't have a problem with my data being my form of payment.

The only "feature" on any social media that I would like (back) would be proper chronological timelines. I want to decide what I see, rather than be shown what Facebook thinks I want to see.

I'd consider paying so I put 'possibly' but I feel it unlikely. As Ant says, the main thing I'd want is less 'curation' from their damn algorithm and more just showing what/who I have followed on a chronological timeline. Maybe payment to avoid ads with that? 

I have no particular love for Facebook, the main thing and barrier to alternatives is that to be compelling they have to have all the same people on them. Quite hard to persuade a critical mass of people to jump (like Twitter and Mastodon recently, which has had a couple of goes but never seemed to really get it done).


sidenote but I note with some amusement that Facebook are saying they're now going away from video, after making a load of publishers pivot expensively to that just to stay with them. And they also found that although people hate clickbait, they also overwhelmingly click on it anyway. Idiots!

Thanks all. Unsurprising results, but it's always good to check assumptions.

(Though I did think we had a few more lurkers who might vote.)

The chronological timeline and broken algorithm appears to be a really common frustration. It's also easy to solve, even for a feed with lots of items, (so long as you're not completely "WOOOOO!!!!!! SUPER SMART ALGOS!!! MACHIEN LERNIN GUD!!!!¬``" I guess).

On the user base issue, I see critical mass as a problem as much as a goal.

Yes, if there's a need of connections it's a catch 22, but if the service can be sufficiently useful before you have those connections it can be a multi-stage process.

The issue then is knowing if/when critical mass is going to hit - because it means costs sky rocketing, which needs balancing by an equivalent income or existing funds to avoid an expensive failure. If enough people were willing to pay for escaping FB then it would simplify matters - I didn't expect that, but it would be the easiest option so worth verifying.

> Facebook are saying they're now going away from video, after making a load of publishers pivot expensively to that just to stay with them

Because they can, because there's no alternatives, because people forget way too soon, because they're a big capitalist entity that puts their own profits above all else whilst almost everyone assumes they're a public service.

> And they also found that although people hate clickbait, they also overwhelmingly click on it anyway. Idiots!

Well it's not quite that simple. If you ask: "Do you prefer headlines that help you decide if you want to read the full article before clicking" it's not surprising when 80% of people answer "Yes, of course" because pretty much only xenophons and illiterates wouldn't, right?

That doesn't mean a bunch of those same people aren't interested in clicking on "You'll never believe which two stars got in a fight on the red carpet last night!!". Maybe that's because the question is leading and they didn't give an accurate answer, or maybe because they do see enough information (stars,fight,red carpet) for them to want to view the article and don't care about the words which make others cringe.

Regarding cost and critical mass, I'd be genuinely curious to know how much Facebook costs per user to run.

If a service was without ads and all the other data selling stuff, and had a small margin built in, because let's be honest it's still a business, how much would it actually be per user (or active user).

Me too. They're obviously not going to give anyone details, but dividing total costs by active users for 2016 (2017 data is out next Wednesday) gives $8.18 - just under £6.

Of course, that's how much it costs Facebook. Smaller organisations are going to pay more for servers, and generally have a whole bunch of different factors.

Yeah. Whatever. I think it's been amply and conclusively demonstrated that Facebook, Twitter et al are useless and harmful, and need to be dealt with accordingly. Yesterday.

Why useless?

I dunno. They are designed to be?

> et al

Who else still exists/matters?

> are useless and harmful

If they were actually useless, it'd be easy.

> need to be dealt with

How do you "deal with" something that gets constant free advertising everywhere from the BBC to bog roll?

In the time between your two posts, Facebook's userbase grew by over ten thousand. How do you respond to that?

You can't just chop Zuckerberg's head off and have everyone return to normal.

They have become national threats. Concerned governments (assuming there are any) should respond accordingly. Zuckerberg and his ilk should be placed under house arrest without internet access, and their wealth confiscated -- pretty sure there are applicable statutes already on the books.

I gain a reasonable amount of use from both Twitter and Facebook.

Good for you, but that doesn't really mitigate their harm.

Just to be clear: I'm not against social media as a concept per se. The 'profit' [market cap] motive in the endeavor has turned out to be pretty problematic. The folks that built and run it now well know it (and have admitted as much), but will do nothing to reign it in because greed. It's something that needs tighter regulatory oversight, and perhaps would be better left to non-profit orgs.

I didn't say it did. You said they were useless, they're clearly not.

What I'm saying is that whatever use you may find in them is completely eclipsed by the catastrophic harm they have inflicted on whole governments, and broad swaths of society.  :-@

Ok. Great. When Justin rides in on his unicorn to clear up this mess, please do let him know he has the support of [at least some of] Teh.