‘Open Source And Ethical’ TikTok, WhatsApp And Instagram Alternatives Could Transform Social Media
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Signal? Isn't that the app for drugs? /s
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While Masturdon was ripe for the picking
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Good point. Theoretically surmountable because Wikipedia.
But donors are going to have to be convinced that social media is a social good.
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That's my initial thought, but what do we know about who owns it?
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It's owned by Brian Acton. The original founder of WhatsApp before it was sold to Meta. I'm yet to hear of controversial stories about him. Unless him being a billionaire irks you, i think it's fine.
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Yeah but you see the point? They offer us one option. We offer them ten.
"You don't have any of them installed? Well, I don't have Whatsapp installed. So one of us is going to have to go out of our way. Why should you assume that's for me to do, just because everyone else including you behaved like an unthinking herd of sheep?" That's what I feel like saying, and occasionally do actually say.
It's a difficult conundrum. Speaking personally, but at this point resisting the Whatsapp fascism has become stubborn article of faith for me. I won't do it.
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It’s owned by Brian Acton
No, he is a founder and a donor. It's owned by the Signal Foundation, which is a classic non-profit that seeks funding from lots of sources.
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Yeah... But to them, why should they deal with one difficult customer when they have a dozen more that are easier to work with?
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My point was about the social scenario, which is a genuine puzzle because most people want to have friends. I've lost some over this.
For the business context (this was the subject, true), I find that's much easier: "F*** off and send an email." Impossible? Well then that's one less customer for you. I have lots of experience of doing exactly this. Almost always the email suddenly becomes possible after all.
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The other founder is Moxie Marlinspike who is a security researcher
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I would never tell anyone to email me...
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Impressive that a site like Forbes is writing about the Fediverse. A small step to helping it into the mainstream.
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Yeah I think this is a very important point.
I think people will need to learn to accept that there is no such thing as "free". The current social media sells you to advertisers, taking every bit of data they can get.
So for independent and privacy focused social media, we're going to have to accept we have to pay for it.
I've moved to paying for my email, my file storage, my VPN and my password manager - all for privacy and security. I pay for subscriptions for streaming to avoid advertising. So I would pay for social media.
In the early days of the internet, people accepted paying for things but then the "free" model came along. The fediverse will need to persuade people to pay for it. That may limit it from being the big everyone social medial, but it could be able to become to the high quality version of social media that people pay for.
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Email alias?
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Can you guys help me: I have Facebook and instagram which isn't great. Never got twitter or tiktok and I'm very glad about that. If I get bluesky will I end up using instagram and Facebook less or just get addicted to another regretful thing? What's it actually like?
