How hard is it to run a platform charging a couple dollars a month so that you don’t need to turn into a ghoulish capitalist nightmare? Like, really. If even one of them went the “no ads, ever, just a tiny monthly fee” wouldn’t that be better? Wouldn’t everyone flock there? Is everyone so dumb that they think these huge sites will run for free?? No… wait I think I’ve answered my own question…
It would be better, yes, but you’d be sacrificing 90% of your userbase going that route. The vast majority aren’t going to pay a monthly fee for a social media account. One or the other is inevitable, though. Server infra ain’t free, after all.
How about it starts free + ad based like any other network but offers a premium tier that removes ads and gives full control of feed that current networks don’t offer. They don’t offer this because manipulating people is apparently far more lucrative than any reasonably priced premium tier. But this is only because they’re a ‘profit at any cost’ company. If an alternative ethical social network advertised the fact that it only makes a modest profit so that it’s free tier is ad based but not unhealthy and the premium tier is reasonably priced. I wonder if such a thing is possible.
Obviously no current network does this because they’re investor funded and committed to max profits.
Yeah that’s the scary thing. Ads work so well you can’t even buy your way out in many cases. I wish micropayments caught on instead of subscriptions. I’m ok to pay a reasonable cost per use, but I hate blood suckling subscriptions for things I rarely touch. I’d STFU and post much fewer and more meaningful comments on Lemmy for example if it was 0.1 cents per comment or something.
A social app? Impossible. Everyone will just say “But I get Facebook for free!”
People pay to remove ads from YouTube, Netflix, Amazon etc.
The point wouldn’t be to put people off, you can still push the platform to the masses as “free”. It’s just that once you’re there if you find the ads annoying or you don’t want your feed algo’d to death, then it has a “remove ads” paid option that currently platforms all lack…
Facebook makes ~$68/user/month. No one is going to pay anything close to that to remove ads.
Disable ads for $2 a month?
Just anything this doesn’t then try to bleed people in every conceivable way…
All the algo manipulation comes from an over reliance on ad income. If a social network put its costs + a modest profit onto premium users what would that look like?
Surely at some point a network that can honestly say “we aren’t reliant on sponsors” is going to be appealing to enough people. (Even if there is then a free ad supported tier for those who don’t have an option - it would hardly be worse than what they’ve currently got)
I donate to the fediverse. My new server does a monthly state of the server thing and I use that as a reminder to donate. Considering server costs, I believe I cover more than my share, but most people probably don’t donate at all, and frankly the people running the server deserve compensation for their efforts and that is never included in costs.
I might feel differently if it was a sub, though. It’s a world of difference between me choosing to donate and someone reaching into my wallet on a monthly basis. Idk. But I’m definitely not having ads.
People act like server costs are hella per person here? Realistically one person donating 10$ covers like 100 ppl that month? Or am I way off? Vps are cheap.
It’s pretty low. I think my instance costs under $1k annually, though it’s not one of the mega instances, neither do I think it’s small. I think I recall about half of that or more being covered just by the recurring donations by a small group of people.
That said, a labor of love is still labor and I’d love to see instances take in enough to give a little compensation for time and effort spent keeping the lights on.
That’s the idea - it’s a choice. If people want free or don’t care about ads - then that’s how their use gets funded. For people who want no ads and no curation of their feed to favour advertisers , then theres the premium option.
I guess the difference would be the premium cost is self limited to running costs + modest profit and for this reason the whole site is promoted as ethical…
social media depends on having a critical mass of users, and that’s only going to happen with a free model.
Yes. I perhaps should have stated the other way round.
What about “ethical” social network. That’s free and ad based if you want that. And the ads are present but less manipulative because the goal is to cover costs not maximise profit.
And then that’s a premium option if you want to have no ads and full control of your content feed.
The reason Facebook and co don’t offer this is because they apparently make massive amounts from each user ($68). And that only because they engage in whatever ghoulish behaviour get people locked in enough to deliver that
An ethical social network wouldn’t have to drive as much per user, because it would publicly limit itself to modest profit. Covering free use with ads presumably possible. Cost of premium being running cost + modest profit seems like it wouldn’t be that high surely?
There is a completely free, add-less social network: Mastodon. But for some obscure reason, “nobody” wants to use it. Instead, everyone is moving to BlueSky.
I don’t think costs are the reason for people not using certain social networks. Simplicity and ease-of-use is. And federated networks suffer hard from this, because simply explaining the way they work is too much for people. They want to read and post stuff, and not think about which server to pick so that they can get the biggest audience.
theoretically, sure it’s possible. but in practice, capitalism will win out in the end. this is pretty much what happened to reddit. first unobtrusive non-targeted ads, then reddit gold… you know the rest.
It’s not about being dumb and expecting stuff for free but a general anger towards subscription based models. Fair models exist and are possible, but are a collateral of the general hate.
Then, free alternatives exist, and believe it or not, some people do not have a tiny monthly fee they could spare or do not want to pay for something that a free alternative exists.
Threema tried exactly that, and failed comically.
People hate subscription based models because the company is maximising profit and engaging in every kind of bait and switch it can get away with
That’s why I’m wondering if there would be an appetite for an ethical social network, where the DNA of the company is based upon covering running costs and only a moderate profit.
The fact that it wouldn’t unreasonable hike prices once you’re hooked in or reintroduce ads to paid tiers would be the very appeal on the platform.
Obviously, no-one is immune to being offered millions in ad deals to try and reverse that ethical stuff. Which is why I suppose it would either have to be a very public commitment to ethical behaviour from the outset which protects backtracking and sellouts somewhat. Or else it has to get founded as an actual not-for-profit to make a future change almost impossible. Developers still get paid of course, even very well. Just no-one has the incentive to maximise share value by shitty crooked behaviour.
Have you met people?
Introducing even a 0.49 charge per month would flood the front page of reddit and lemmy with “enshittification” rants for days. And 9 in 10 people would leave the platform, if not more.
I should have stated it the other way round. Free and ad driven by default (like normal and like what people are used to) but an optional premium tier that removes ads and gives more control of your feed.
You would think, but seeing how people react to YouTube premium (at least on social media) I still have doubts.
